Ok, I know I’ve already overwhelmed you with new posts, but holy shit, you need to see this:
Posts Tagged ‘Science’
Did You Know?
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Singing Tesla Coils
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Wave of the future or decline of civilization? You decide.
Death by Tech: Energy Weapons
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Wired has written extensively about the development of military lasers, and since it was recently announced that such lasers have reached what optimists are calling “military strength” I think it only fitting that this week’s Death by Tech focus on the increasingly likely possibility that your insides will be boiled and fried by advancing armies of laser rifle wielding stormtroopers.
"Pew pew"
What is it?
As of right now, military lasers are pretty innocous. The only likely use they will see in the near future is as countermeasures to mortars and rockets, and 105 kilowatts is barely enough power for that particular application. There are significant obstacles to militarization of lasers, mostly in terms of minaturization. Scientists are still working on getting a powerful laser to fit into a small enough space to militarily viable, and powering such a weapon is still difficult. Still, if such obstacles could be overcome, a laser or similiar energy weapon could make its debut on a modern battlefield in a decade or so. But…
Really, modern war is fought and won by treasuries, and if the prevalence of cheap, reliable AK-47s in the hands of militaries around the world tells us anything, it’s that laser rifles are unlikely to be a mainstream weapon of war (if such a weapon is even ever developed) any time in our lifetimes. It is, however, not impossible to imagine that such a weapon could be useful in one relatively untouched theater of war…
Likelihood?
As mentioned before, it is highly unlikely that any of us will be on the recieving end of a military grade laser any time soon. There are just too many reasons not to build one, not when bullets keep doing such a good job of killing us already. Still, if we act on the assumption that longevity treatments are coming, it is not inconcievable that sometime in the more distant future, a larger, planet or starship scale laser will be pointed in your direction. But don’t hold your breath, good old-fashioned projectile weapons have a lot going for them.
Pain Factor?
Depends. If someone pointed one of those 105 kilowatt lasers at you, I guarantee it will hurt like hell, if it even manages to kill you. It will burn your flesh away in tiny increments, which is, as I understand it, pretty damn painful. As the power of such weapons increases the pain factor will probably go down, in fact, and you’ll die a lot faster. At least you have something to look forward to.
Immortality Becoming More Mainstream
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
No, not like that...
Daily Galaxy recently posted an article on longevity and the possibility of living to 1,000. The article is good, but not remarkable, but what is interesting is that this article made it to the front page of digg, a social news site that get upwards of a million visitors a day. For something that a decade ago was considered science fiction to be considered legitimate news is a huge step forward. Here’s what the article said:
“Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey has famously stated, “The first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today …whether they realize it or not, barring accidents and suicide, most people now 40 years or younger can expect to live for centuries…
…There are many, many different components of ageing and we are chipping away at all of them,” said Robert Freitas at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, a non-profit, nanotech group in Palo Alto, California. “It will take time and, if you put it in terms of the big developments of modern technology, say the telephone, we are still about 10 years off from Alexander Graham Bell shouting to his assistant through that first device. Still, in the near future, say the next two to four decades, the disease of ageing will be cured.”
Actually, even though I said there wasn’t a lot of uniqueness to this article earlier, there is a very interesting of discussion of people who don’t believe longevity is possible or even ethical.
“I just don’t think [immortality] is possible,” says Sherwin Nuland, a professor of surgery at the Yale School of Medicine. “Aubrey and the others who talk of greatly extending lifespan are oversimplifying the science and just don’t understand the magnitude of the task. His plan will not succeed. Were it to do so, it would undermine what it means to be human.” (Emphasis mine)
This is an important point, and one I think we all need to consider. There is no contention that much of what gives life its meaning is the fact that we die at the end of it – without that constant threat, will we be able to produce such beautiful works of art, and will we even have a desire to live if the threat of death doesn’t drive us to succeed and endure?
Of course, most longevity enthusiasts don’t suggest that they can completely defeat death, only stave it off for longer than previously considered possible. I do have some fear that if this comes to pass, then it will mark an end to an era of human productivity, or worse. Yes, would it not be wonderful if Einstein or Michaelangelo or Shakespeare had lived to work and produce for centuries, but what of Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon? What do we have to fear from an immortal dictator, or an undying tyrant?
In any case, I think this article is a little optimistic – it simplifies the process of defeating aging quite a bit, but it bears consideration. As in all things, I think that this is a supremely ethical act. Humans deserve the right to choose to live or not to, if it is within our power to give them that choice. And more than I fear an end to beauty and productivity, I look forward to a marked shift in the paradigm of human existence that will come about through an end to aging.
Check out the article, it’s definitely worth a read. Link.
Metamaterial Revolution: The New Science of Making Anything Disappear
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
An invisibility device. Sort of.
A new article about the emerging science of metamaterials. The article has an obsessive focus on invisibility, but the applications are far greater than that. These metamaterials (at least in theory) could advance an overwhelming list of technologies, including supermicroscopes, nanotechnology, optical computers, cloaking, and more.
FTA: “…Scientists had long known that they could change the behavior of a material by altering its chemistry. For instance, you can alter the color and hardness of glass by adding lead. But now Pendry saw that he could also alter function by changing a material’s internal structure on a very fine scale, less than a wavelength of whatever he was manipulating…These new, structurally altered materials would soon become known as metamaterials, based on the Greek meta, meaning “beyond.” “We knew we were onto something,” Pendry says.”
Death by Tech: ‘Basilisk’ Attack (AKA Harmful Sensation)
Monday, March 9th, 2009In honor of Angry Monolith’s home base being recently overrun by Trojans and rootkits, this week’s Death by Tech will cover a somewhat more esoteric, but extremely deadly, future death scenario: A Basilisk attack.
Viewing this image won't kill you. This time.
What is it?
A ‘Basilisk’ or ‘Medusa’ attack is an idea generally attributed to science fiction author David Langford (Check out comp.basilisk for more information). The general idea is that an image is generated that will ‘crash’ a human mind in the same way that a virus can crash a computer. Here’s a technobabble explanation for people smarter than me:
“…the human mind as a formal, deterministic computational system — a system that, as predicted by a variant of Gödel’s Theorem in mathematics, can be crashed by thoughts which the mind is physically or logically incapable of thinking. The Logical Imaging Technique presents such a thought in purely visual form as a basilisk image which our optic nerves can’t help but accept. The result is disastrous, like a software stealth-virus smuggled into the brain.” (wiki)
Though Langford is responsible for the most sophisticated iteration of this idea, it is not unique to his writing. William Gibson, in Neuromancer envisioned an advanced firewall called Black ICE, which would attack the minds of invading hackers, killing them if they weren’t properly prepared. Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash revolves around the use of a similar mind-hacking device. This kind of attack also receives brief mention in Charles Stross’ Accelerando.
Likelihood?
Right now, pretty small. There’s no very good reason to pour resources or brainpower into developing such a weapon as long as we’re still wearing our fleshbodies and can be killed by simple things like blunt trauma and time. But as we draw nearer to such things as mind uploads and direct neural uplinks, the threat will likely grow. When humans have transcended their physical forms, it will become necessary to create new weapons of war if we want to keep killing each other (as is our general modus operandi). A basilisk is designed to attack, destroy or erase the very mental hardware of a human being – an attack on your very self.
Pain Factor?
Unclear, but it will probably not be small. The images associated with Basilisk attacks are supposed to trigger some inconsistency in the very clockworks of your brain – you probably won’t know why, but I imagine it will hurt quite a bit. And then, of course, you’ll die.
Robots!
Thursday, March 5th, 2009Prediction: 2030. Japan now has more robots than people. Cultural oddities remain unmitigated by this fact.
Stross on the future of humanity
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009Charles Stross, author of such visionary works as Accelerando and Glasshouse, has recently posted his predictions for the direction of the 21st century. They are bleak, and depressing. Read them here!
Edit: Fixed linkfail
