Tobias S. Buckell's Blog, page 43

A good read about the failure of public goods and transportation

Philip Brewer sent me this link via email of a commuter trying to take a closer look at the craziness of being a super commuter, and why a self-driving car isn’t the techno-utopian fix, really:

“I spend a decent amount of time trying to optimise my travel through audiobooks, podcasts, and phone calls made while driving. I also gripe about the commute probably far too often to my friends, who are considerate if not entirely sympathetic. (It’s hard to be sympathetic to a guy who has the job he w...

Listen to the first 4 minutes of Tensegrity, from Metatropolis: Green Space

My story, Tensegrity, is narrated by the famous Scott Brick. I can tick something off my bucket list now. He’s amazing. Here’s the opening four minutes of Tensegrity, the story I wrote for Metatropolis: Green Space:

A bus that goes where you want it to

The developed world ‘discovers’ the mini-bus. In the Virgin Islands we called these dollar taxis (or dollar cabs?, some people called them ‘safari buses,’ they were these structures bolted to the back of pickup trucks, on the bench 10-15 people could sit facing each other) and a physicist once studied the patterns of minibus transport systems and found that they were more efficient than anyone had hitherto realized. I’ve always found their presence particularly noticeable in the US, though I...

Today METAtropolis: Green Space launches

Today, Audible.com launches the third in the Audie-winning and Hugo nominated audio anthology science fiction series METAtropolis, METAtropolis: Greenspace:

As METAtropolis: Green Space moves into the 22nd Century, human social evolution is heading in new directions after the Green Crash and the subsequent Green Renaissance. Nearly everyone who cares to participate in the wired world has become part of the “Internet of things”, a virtual environment mapped across all aspects of the natural exp...

Actual European Discoveries

Thank you Andrew Sullivan:

Historian Bill Rankin has this to say:

Every Columbus Day, we’re reminded of the difference between discovery and “discovery” – and rightly so. But let’s not sell Europe short; after all, European explorers found plenty of diminutive islands that no human had ever seen before, along with extravagant amounts of ice and snow. Just the islands alone add up to more than 0.14% of the world’s total land area, and today they’re home to more people than live in all of Connect...

What moonrise would look like if it was as far away as the ISS

Well that’s dramatic, and somehow extremely science fictional:

Via Dashburst:

In reality, though, if the moon was inside what is known at the Roche limit (or radius), the Earth’s gravitational pull would break the moon apart, likely forming a system of rings, which in turn would send the earth’s rotation out of whack and potentially destroy the planet in the process!

I would love to see a video like this of what the moon would look like if outside of the Roche limit.

And then I wonder what the t...

Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer is just amazing (and not just because I’m quoted in it)

A while back, Jeff Vandermeer wrote Booklife, a book about writing that I recommend to a lot of people. Not too long ago while I was speaking about conflict and characters to students at the Shared Worlds writing camp Jeff helped found, he pulled me aside and asked me if he could quote my words about conflict in a book about writing and creativity he was working on. I said sure.

Jeff also asked if I could talk about revisions via email, so I talked a bit about the work I did on my second novel...

Tokelau Powered 100% By Solar Energy

I’ve mentioned this before, but I believe islands are the place to pay careful attention to as mini-precursors of the energy future. Tokelau is very small, but I view places like this as the ‘indicator frogs‘ of future power adoption:

“Tokelau (population: 1,500) is an island nation in the South Pacific, made up of three atolls whose highest point is only five meters above sea level. Even though the New Zealand protectorate’s contribution to climate change is miniscule, it faces grave threats...

Slippery slope of unrestrained profit engines

This blog post at Sociological Images just firmed up something in my mind that’s been bugging me:

“I sometimes would disagree with Tommy about the talents or behavior of some celebrity — a rock star or an actor. Today’s equivalent might be Ke$ha or a Kardashian. Tommy’s response was usually, ‘He’s makin’ more money than you’ll ever see.’ And that settled the issue as far as Tommy was concerned. A huge income trumped just about anything.”

….

I thought of Tommy and values today when I read the tra...

Intercity travel is latent, but here’s a promising development or two via buses

This map of Megabus hub and spoke operations demonstrates the correct analysis of America 2050′s US megaregions.

First, MegaBus:

America 2050′s US megaregions and areas of population focus:

Their estimates for how to set up a passenger rail network:

I find it fairly uncanny how closely MegaBus is emulating that (and MegaBus has been tinkering with the connections on that map a lot, making it look closer and closer to the 2050 network connection map).

Sadly the MegaBus system outside the NorthEast...