Mark A. Rayner's Blog: Mark A. Rayner's Goodreads Blog, page 58

Pirate Therapy

Laurence arrived a few minutes late for his regular Thursday morning session, but his therapist usually ran late, so he wasn’t worried. From behind the door of his therapist’s office, he heard a blood-curdling scream, and then a thump. A … Continue reading →

Schism opens way for creation of SinoPope

Avignon releases RoboPope schematics

AVIGNON (The Skwib) — Earlier today the Avignon Papacy held a news conference to confirm the existence of RoboPope, going so far as to release schematics of the first fully functional cyber-Pontiff. “Many question the existence of RoboPope,” Bishop of … Continue reading →

Robo-schism

ROME (The Skwib) — Last night more than 75,000 faithful assembled in St. Peter’s Square to worship at a special ceremony. Instead they witnessed the beginning of a new schism in the Catholic church. All seemed to be going to … Continue reading →

Foot Apparel for the Discerning and Fearless Lady

Despite his bulbous legs and intimidating appearance, customers liked Robby’s warmth and genuine desire to make them happy. (He was programmed that way, but still.) The only down side? Robby’s occasional malfunctions ended up in a lot of foot amputations … Continue reading →

Robot week

Hi folks, this week I’m playing a few more things from the “best of” The Skwib. My obsession with the technological singularity continues, with a focus on robots. Next week, in honor of TLPD, pirates!

Waiting for the razor-blade singularity

We may need to check with Ray Kurzweil on this one, but it looks as though we might expect the technological singularity sooner than anyone expects, based on your razor. The Economist did an evaluation of the number of blades … Continue reading →

Municipal Investment Strategies for the Technological Singularity

An Open Letter to Town Council Dear Councilors: Your town may have an emergency plan, a development plan, a health plan — it may even have a plan for how to fix the potholes (though I doubt it). But does … Continue reading →

When Roombas Attack: The Singularity

My next novel has a comedic take on the Technological Singularity, so I thought I’d start to do some more posts about the topic here on The Skwib. The following video is a kind-of companion piece for a Time article … Continue reading →

Ask General Kang: How do you choose a new leader?

Well, on my home planet of Neecknaw, this is a simple affair. The new leader chooses himself. Or herself. But we haven’t had a female leader since the Gloomy Ages (the interstitial period between the Dark Ages and the Time … Continue reading →