Warren Ellis's Blog, page 175
December 14, 2010
Links for 2010-12-13
The FluCard — a postage stamp-size storage device that can also transmit data wirelessly — is Tan's new baby, and he hopes to see it used by millions of people; just like the USB drive.
(tags:tech computing )
No more solar wind for Voyager 1 spacecraft
"The solar wind has turned the corner," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Voyager 1 is getting close to interstellar space."
(tags:space )
BendDesk introduced: the desk that is a touch screen (w/ Video)
A research project from the RWTH Aachen University Media Computing Group and Department of Work and Cognitive Psychology in Germany is developing a desk in which the entire curved surface is a multi-touch touch screen and display, removing the need for keyboard, mouse and separate display.
(tags:tech computing )
SpaceX looking to launch next Dragon spacecraft – to the ISS
With the success of the first and second launches of the Falcon 9 rocket as well as the successful recovery of the Dragon spacecraft, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has stated its intent to accelerate the pace of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program that the private space firm has with NASA.
(tags:space )
BBC News – Chinese archaeologists unearth 2,400-year-old 'soup'
Chinese archaeologists have unearthed what they believe is a 2,400-year-old pot of soup, state media report.
(tags:history )
GUEST INFORMANT: Jamais Cascio
Jamais Cascio is a futures strategist, a writer, frequent technical consultant, co-founder of the recently closed Worldchanging.org and a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future. And, not coincidentally, a good friend of mine, which is why he's here. I asked him to write to you about whatever was on his mind today. And this is what he has to say:
Neodicy
Technology will save us. Technology will destroy us.
The Future will save us. The Future will destroy us.
The tension between the myriad ways our tools — our technologies — affect us is often at the core of futurological discussions. Do they weaken us, destroying our memories (as Socrates argued) or our ability to think deeply (as Nicholas Carr argues), or do they enhance us? Do our technologies rob us of our humanity, or are they what make us human? While I tend to bias towards the latter view, it's not without recognition that our tools (and how we use them) can damage our planet and our civilization. But for a surprisingly large number of people, such discussions of technology aren't just part of futurism, they are futurism. From this perspective, the question of whether our technologies will destroy us is essentially the same as asking if our futures will destroy us.
This deep fear that what we have built will both give us heretofore unimagined power and ultimately lay us to waste has been with us for centuries, from the story of Icarus to the story of Frankenstein to the story of the Singularity. But because of its mythical roots, few foresight professionals give this fear sufficient credence. Not in the particulars of each story (I don't think we have much cause to worry about the risks associated with wax-and-feather personal flight), but in the recognition that for many people, a desire to embrace "the future" is entangled with a real, visceral fear of what the future holds for us.
In religious study, an explanation of how an all-powerful deity that claims to love us can allow evil is known as a "theodicy." The term was coined in 1710 by Gottfried Liebniz — a German natural philosopher who, among his many inventions and ideas, came up with calculus (independently of Newton, who is usually credited) and the binary number system. A theodicy is not merely a "mysterious ways" or "free will" defense, it's an attempt to craft a consistent plausible justification for evil in a universe created by an intrinsically good deity. Theodicies are inherently controversial; some philosophers claim that without full knowledge of good, no theodicy can be sufficient. Nonetheless, theodicies have allowed believers to think through and discuss in relatively sophisticated ways the existence of evil.
The practice of foresight needs within its philosophical underpinnings a similar discourse that treats the fear of dangerous outcomes as a real and meaningful concern, one that can neither be waved away as pessimism nor treated as the sole truth — a "neodicy," if you will. Neodicies would grapple with the very real question of how we can justifiably believe in better futures while still acknowledging the risks that will inevitably arise as our futures unfold. Such a discourse may even allow the rehabilitation of the concept of progress, the idea that as a civilization we do learn from our mistakes, and have the capacity to make our futures better than our past.
For those outside the practice of futurism, neodicies could be sources of comfort, allowing a measure of grace and calm within a dynamic and turbulent environment; neodicies give future dangers meaningful context. For futurists, the construction of neodicies would demand that we base our forecasts in more than just passing trends and a desire to catch the Next Big Thing; neodicies require complexity. For all of us, neodicies would force an abandonment of both optimism- and (more often) pessimism-dominated filters. Neodicies would reveal the risks inherent to a Panglossian future, and the beauty and hope contained within an apocaphile's lament.
What I'm seeking here is ultimately an articulation of futurology (futurism, foresight, etc.) as a philosophical approach, not simply a tool for business or political strategy. I want those of us in the discipline to think more about the "why" of the futures we anticipate than about the "what." Arguing neodicies would allow us to construct sophisticated, complex paradigms of how futures emerge, and what they mean (I'd call them "futurosophies," but I'm on a strict one-neologism-at-a-time diet). Different paradigms need not agree with each other; in fact, it's probably better if they don't, encouraging greater intellectual ferment, competition and evolution. And while these paradigms would be abstractions, they could still have practical value: when applied to particular time frames, technologies, or regions, these paradigms could offer distinct perspectives on issues such as why some outcomes are more likely than others, why risks and innovation coevolve, and how tomorrow can be simultaneously within our grasp and out of control.
But the real value of a neodicy is not in the utility it provides, but the understanding. For too many of us, "the future" is a bizarre and overwhelming concept, where danger looms large amidst a shimmering assortment of gadgets and temptations. We imagine that, at best, the shiny toys will give us solace while the dangers unfold, and thoughts of the enormous consequences about to fall upon us are themselves buried beneath the desire for immediate (personal, economic, political) gratification. Under such conditions, it's easy to lose both caution and hope.
A world where futurology embraces the concept of neodicy won't make those conditions go away, but it would give us a means of pushing back. Neodicies could provide the necessary support for caution and hope, together. Theodicy is often defined simply as an explanation of why the existence of evil in the world doesn't rule out a just and omnipotent God; we can define neodicy, then, as an explanation of why a future that contains dangers and terrible risks can still be worth building — and worth fighting for.
You can buy Jamais' book, HACKING THE EARTH, right here. Also I really like his poster.
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comicsweek 15dec10
This week, new comics are being released to specialty comics stores on Dec 15 in North America and Dec 16 in the UK and elsewhere. These notes are briefer than I'd like, this week: deadlines day.
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DMZ #60. The final year begins. And, lucky old you, it apparently begins with the origins of the Second American Civil War, so you can probably investigate the series right here, even at this relatively late date in the serial run. And you should.
I only ever saw the first issue of Ted McKeever's META 4, but it was brilliant, a massive return to form. #4 is out this week. I need to catch up with this. A weird, drifting science fiction Theatre of the Absurd, with probably the most gorgeous art McKeever's ever produced. Very arresting imagery.
Book 13 of Pecau and Kordey's SECRET HISTORY is released, and I'm wondering how it is that I've never read an issue of this series. Time-spanning conspiracy theories and the wonderful art of Igor Kordey, you'd think I would at least have had a look…
STRANGE TALES 2 #3 (OF 3) from Marvel apparently features Kate Beaton, the late Harvey Pekar, Kevin Huizenga and the man who fears no shirt, Dean Haspiel. Therefore you should really pick a copy up.
DISEASE OF LANGUAGE collects Eddie Campbell's adaptations into comics of Alan Moore's spoken word pieces THE BIRTH CAUL and SNAKES AND LADDERS. When I first heard THE BIRTH CAUL — 1995? — I told Alan I thought it was the best thing he'd written in the last five years. And FROM HELL is one of my favourite graphic novels. It still stands today as a massive work of frightening ambition and scope, an almost Joycean attempt to encode the essential modern human condition into word and sound and symbol and ritual. Eddie Campbell sets himself a near impossible job here, but succeeds in letting light and breath into the text. SNAKES AND LADDERS is also very good, don't get me wrong, but it's THE BIRTH CAUL that left its impression on me.
Judge Dredd Comp Case Files TP (S&S Ed) Vol 2 — all the JUDGE DREDD strips from 2000AD are being released chronologically in big collections. We're getting into the strip's first prime, now, with early work from Brian Bolland and the mighty Mike McMahon starting to power up.
Mad Woman of the Sacred Heart is the legendary Moebius and the storied Alejandro Jodorowsky, famed for their demented science fiction comics, essaying their version of a 1970s relationships film. I haven't read it in years, decades probably, but I remember it as being like these two holy fools trying to make a Henry Jaglom movie. It's re-released in hardback this week. You should have a flick through it.
Jason Little's Motel Art Improvement Service looks kind of cute. See for yourself.
And, in this week's shameless whorebaggery, I note that TWO-STEP, the short serialised graphic novel I wrote for Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti to draw, gets its trade-paperback collection. This was one of those things where I was delighted just to lay down the story in a light full script and let Amanda and Jimmy freestyle in the backgrounds and interstices. They don't disappoint. Gorgeous pages.
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Bloody hell:
Kosovo's prime minister is the head of a "...
Kosovo's prime minister is the head of a "mafia-like" Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe, according to a Council of Europe inquiry report on organised crime.
Red Gold
Woke up to see people on twitter shouting at me about the Golden Globes nominations, found the list on Variety, and lo and behold:
4. BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
d. RED
di Bonaventura Pictures; Summit Entertainment
Avoiding going outside today. The Komodo Dragon Flu is apparently doing the rounds locally again, and I already feel a bit pre-fluey. Doesn't matter how good your immune system is, if you're trapped in a small post office with twenty other people and they're all coughing, you're going to end up fighting something off. As I've said many times before: if there's one thing I hate, it's people. So it's just me, a hopefully endless supply of coffee, and two scripts I need to put a stake through. And you and the world. Good morning.
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December 13, 2010
Headline Of The Day
(That site's getting hit pretty hard right now.)
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Links for 2010-12-13
A European form of Islam needs to develop before a meaningful interfaith dialogue can take place on the continent, the new leader of Germany?s 24 million Protestants has said.
(tags:cult )
Couple who believed in faith healing sentenced in son?s death
A fundamentalist Christian couple who relied on prayer, not medicine, to cure their dying toddler son was convicted Friday of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment.
(tags:cult crime )
Russia's Soyuz soon to be only lifeline to space
With NASA finally retiring the shuttle program next year, the venerable Russian workhorse is now set to become the world's only lifeline to the International Space Station. That predicament is provoking mixed feelings of concern over excess reliance on Russia's space program and enduring admiration for the hardiness of the Soviet-designed Soyuz.
(tags:space )
CultureLab: Storytelling 2.0: The digital death of the author
The number of ways that, in one short piece, Craig Mod illustrates that he understands neither how or why fiction is made… quite astonishing, really.
(tags:digital )
Lede Of The Day
The eternal inflation scenario predicts that our observable universe resides inside a single bubble embedded in a vast multiverse, the majority of which is still undergoing super-accelerated expansion. Many of the theories giving rise to eternal inflation predict that we have causal access to collisions with other bubble universes, opening up the possibility that observational cosmology can probe the dynamics of eternal inflation. We present the first observational search for the effects of bubble collisions, using cosmic microwave background data from the WMAP satellite. Using a modular algorithm that is designed to avoid a posteriori selection effects, we find four features on the CMB sky that are consistent with being bubble collisions. If this evidence is corroborated by upcoming data from the Planck satellite, we will be able to gain insight into the possible existence of the multiverse.
Let me translate this lede from arXiv for you.
Evidence that our universe has been struck by four other universes.
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The Founder Of Modern British Comics
John Freeman's gotten a fascinating tidbit of British comics history out of Pat Mills in this piece on the return of Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons' ROGUE TROOPER character to venerable and venerated UK weekly sf anthology comic 2000AD:
Gerry was the creator of Tammy, from which Battle, Action and 2000AD are descended, so he is the founder of modern British comics. This has been pretty much ignored by comic historians and Gerry also had some insider-encouraged negative press on the web in years gone by, which made me seethe with anger with its inaccuracy and self-serving motivation.
The reality is fans loved his work, but it didn't find favour with 2000AD editorial at one stage. Having been Gerry's editor, I know the relatively small problems they faced (pacing and some story logic issues) but it was my view that it was worth dealing with them 'in house' because his stories were so popular. We all of us have our scripting faults and eccentricities and it's just something I felt we had to accept. Editorial didn't agree and I can completely understand why. But fans didn't agree with them either and kept asking for Gerry back, so I recently seized the chance and facilitated it.
Much before my time: 2000AD launched not long after my ninth birthday, and while I also read BATTLE (and sometimes ACTION) previous to that… well, I was still in infant school then and can be forgiven for not knowing this, I hope…! Especially since Pat indicates that bit of truth has been swept under the carpet.
Of interest to no-one but people deeply involved in comics, I'm sure — and I'm sure there'll be arguments in obscure corners of the web about it. But I'm still glad Pat said it.
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comicsweek 8dec10 (warrenellis.com)
December 11, 2010
Utterly at odds with winter, Young Henry's new single "Po...
Utterly at odds with winter, Young Henry's new single "Pollen."
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