Phil Elmore's Blog, page 23

AUGMENT: Human Services, by Phil Elmore

I am pleased to announce the publication of my science fiction novella, AUGMENT: Human Services, the first in a series of novellas set in this world. This is the first serious fiction writing that I have done under my own name in many years. I am hopeful you will read it and enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it… and I hope you’ll want to keep reading the series.  Here is the description:

Augments: They’re the plague of the modern world, a deviant class of cyborg surgery addicts who’ve been herded into ghettos for the safety of those still legally human. As tensions in the tech ghetto rise, David Chalmers, an agent for Human Services, is sent behind the walls on a routine extraction. What he discovers is a helpless young woman maimed by unthinkable implant technology… and a murder, for which Chalmers is promptly framed.

Hunted by assassins and wanted by his own government, Chalmers must peel back the layers of a conspiracy without losing his own humanity to a back-alley surgeon’s knife — but first, alone and unarmed, he must survive the tech ghetto itself.

Buy AUGMENT: Human Services today at Amazon’s Kindle Store.

Technocracy: Libthink — Technology is Magic

My WND Technocracy column this week is about the way liberals treat technology like a magical panacea unconnected to reality.

But could such a small space station possibly have enough resources to treat everyone, and for free? In a liberal universe, this is not a question one asks.

This is very apparent in popular culture and in the news, most notably in the failure of Obamacare and the disastrous issues its website experienced. Progressives seem to think that just having a website (or wanting to have one) is enough to make massive logistics come together.

In reality, people who actually work for a living know that things don’t happen simply by waving a wand at them labeled “high tech.”  You actually have to think through how these things work, and you have to understand the logistics behind them.

Read the full column (and my implied review of Matt Damon’s Elysium) here in WND News.

Duke Manfist’s Adventures Are Now On Kindle!

All of the Duke Manfist action parodies are now available for Amazon’s Kindle. This includes Bullets, Babes, and Bacon, the Season One compilation that has never before been available as an e-book.

Head on over to Amazon and check them out in the Kindle store.

Technocracy: Filtering Facebook; Remembering Kalashnikov

My last two Technocracy columns were about filtering what you say on Facebook and remembering Mikhail Kalashnikov (who died at the age of 94).

Filter what you say on Facebook… Please!

My column on the AK prompted a call from the Bill Martinez Live show — I gave an interview on the Kalshnikov, and gun rights in general, a couple of days after Christmas.

In memory of AK-47 mastermind

Check out all my recent columns at WND News.

Technocracy: Automation and Liberals’ Greed

My WND Technocracy column today is about the minimum wage — specifically the notion that this should be raised to an arbitrary “living wage” that has no bearing on the value of the actual labor performed.

This liberal bugaboo – the notion that income is inequitably distributed and that this inequity must be corrected – lies at the heart of all “progressive” economics.

This idea that all income is something of which the population ought to be given an equal share is completely false. Income is earned through effort.  Those who don’t earn it don’t get a share, and thus there is no such thing as “income inequality” (because equality of income is not a natural right).

This is why the use of the term “revenue” for taxes is so offensive. Governments do not collect “revenue.” They collect taxes.  Revenue is something you earn.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Collapse: A Survival Thriller

What if the hero of a prepper story was just some average guy? What if he made mistakes? What if he wasn’t an action hero at all… but just a guy with a family trying to get along in a crazy world?

That’s the premise of Collapse.  This is the first in what will be at least a trilogy of survival novellas by Scott Carleton.  I urge you to buy it here at Amazon in either Kindle or paperback formats.

Catching Up With Technocracy

Over the last few weeks I was sick and didn’t post on a regular basis when my Technocracy column went live.  Catch up with Technocracy if you’ve missed a week:

The Power of the Off Switch

Today’s Culture of Total Surveillance

Liberals: Technological Ignoramuses

Words Are Out; Pictures Are In

What’ll They Find In YOUR Browser History?

The articles all reflect my renewed focus on high-tech liberty issues for the column.

Read the full pieces at WND News.

Technocracy: Exploits of ‘black hat’ cyber criminals

My WND Technocracy column today is about the arrest of “Paunch,” a notorious “black hat” hacker in Russia believed to be the major distributor of a suite of malware tools called “Blackhole.”

The true irony… is that the software development of cyber criminals like “Paunch” is not, in itself, illegal.

Russian hackers are notoriously difficult to bring to justice. It remains to be seen what will happen to “Paunch,” who as of yesterday had not been identified by his given name.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Technocracy: The rise and fall of the Blackberry

My WND Technocracy column this week is about a device I once adored: my Blackberry.

A device once called the “Crackberry” because it was deemed so addictive is now the red-headed stepchild of the smartphone market.

When I could no longer get applications that friends were using and enjoying, I new it was time to change platforms. I switched from Blackberry to Android and never looked back.  But the lasting legacy of Blackberry is both physical and financial.  This device, which pioneered the smartphone, can cause lasting damage to your tendons.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Technocracy: Behind every ‘bot’ is a bad human

My WND Technocracy column this week is about spambots. You’ve probably heard the term. If you haven’t a spambot is any algorithm that simulates human interactivity (often while propagating links to malicious code).

Given how integral to the online experience spambots (and other automated simulacra of human input) have become, parody seems logical.

I once spoke to a person who thought computer viruses developed autonomously, like real viruses. I’ve never forgotten that. What we do tend to forget, however, is that behind every bot, good or bad, there is always a human hand.

Read the full column here in WND News.