Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 96
November 30, 2014
84 Technological Frontiers with Kim Moravec
cyberspace by forerunnergr
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/84Kim.mp3
I’m talking again with Kim Moravec about technological frontiers and the YA novel she is querying agents about.
There are good reasons for anonymity on the internet. Not just to bully people you disagree with.
Fastest download speeds are in Bulgaria
In parts of the UK, pigeons are faster
You wouldn’t want the rats to be unhappy
The world of the future in Africa
Dan makes sure both sides of the political spectrum will hate him
The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker
And finally:
FINNEGAN’S AWAKE: A YA thriller
Rain Wooten thinks her father is an FBI hero. Turns out he’s nothing but a con-man, but the terrorists are real.
November 27, 2014
The Renaissance Express
The train to 1650 is an old model. Twenty-third century auto-modeled bacterial plastic: as charmless as a padded cell. It’s more of a waiting room than anything else, grinding along on its big, U-shaped track, flicking with the speed of nothing to 2230, 2229, 2217, 2200, 2151. Then the big jump to your home decade, and the even bigger jump to the 19th century and points pastward. 1890, 1821, 1798. The stops come closer together the farther back you go and the better time travel technology was at the date of their establishment. 1743, 1700, 1679 blur past. You’re not stopping there today. No time.
Renaissance Station is luxuriously appointed: the work of Italian artisans directed by Romanov taste and paid with Aztec gold for Fountainhead interests. The air smells like fresh plaster and frying dough, metal and ozone and not nearly as much sewage as it used to.
You bypass the escalator and open a door to a service passageway, nodding to your contact’s heavily armed body-guards.
“Let me see the Khan,” you say and they nod and let you pass.
~~~
This is borrowing an idea from Tyrannosaur Queen (ahem, and Neil Stephenson and Douglas Adams and, possibly, the real universe), all potential configurations of matter and energy in all times and places exist “simultaneously” and can be navigated to. In Tyrannosaur Queen, you traveled through time (up the entropy slope of configuration space, that is) in a helicopter ala Clifford D. Simak, but why not a train?
This time-travel mechanic removes all that silly paradox nonsense; these past-Earths are basically different countries. Countries the 22nd-century inventors of the technology can colonize and exploit in the greatest land-grab since the Scramble for Africa. New land from Black-Death-cleared Europe, timber from pre-Ivan-the-Terrible Russia, crops from when the Fertile Crescent was still fertile! Plus all that untapped human capital! Working in a sweatshop is great when the alternative is actual slavery. And there are tons of people in the slums of Victorian London who would literally kill for a chance to work in a call center!
In addition to Colonialism, this time-train idea might be a good way to explore macro-economic trends through history, as well as giving us a good reason to see a 21st-century venture-capitalist and her Mongol business partners shooting it out with the Mafia of Kush.
Yes, that will happen.
The Renaissance Express
The train to 1650 is an old model. Twenty-third century auto-modeled bacterial plastic: as charmless as a padded cell. It’s more of a waiting room than anything else, grinding along on its big, U-shaped track, flicking with the speed of nothing to 2230, 2229, 2217, 2200, 2151. Then the big jump to your home decade, and the even bigger jump to the 19th century and points pastward. 1890, 1821, 1798. The stops come closer together the farther back you go and the better time travel technology was at the date of their establishment. 1743, 1700, 1679 blur past. You’re not stopping there today. No time.
Renaissance Station is luxuriously appointed: the work of Italian artisans directed by Romanov taste and paid with Aztec gold for Fountainhead interests. The air smells like fresh plaster and frying dough, metal and ozone and not nearly as much sewage as it used to.
You bypass the escalator and open a door to a service passageway, nodding to your contact’s heavily armed body-guards.
“Let me see the Khan,” you say and they nod and let you pass.
~~~
This is borrowing an idea from Tyrannosaur Queen (ahem, and Neil Stephenson and Douglas Adams and, possibly, the real universe), all potential configurations of matter and energy in all times and places exist “simultaneously” and can be navigated to. In Tyrannosaur Queen, you traveled through time (up the entropy slope of configuration space, that is) in a helicopter ala Clifford D. Simak, but why not a train?
This time-travel mechanic removes all that silly paradox nonsense; these past-Earths are basically different countries. Countries the 22nd-century inventors of the technology can colonize and exploit in the greatest land-grab since the Scramble for Africa. New land from Black-Death-cleared Europe, timber from pre-Ivan-the-Terrible Russia, crops from when the Fertile Crescent was still fertile! Plus all that untapped human capital! Working in a sweatshop is great when the alternative is actual slavery. And there are tons of people in the slums of Victorian London who would literally kill for a chance to work in a call center!
In addition to Colonialism, this time-train idea might be a good way to explore macro-economic trends through history, as well as giving us a good reason to see a 21st-century venture-capitalist and her Mongol business partners shooting it out with the Mafia of Kush.
Yes, that will happen.
November 25, 2014
Japanese Numerical Classifiers are Great!
While surfing on youtube for videos to watch with my daughter, I came across this gem:
What’s it about? Why, counters, of course. (scroll down for a translation)
Numerical classifiers (or “counters”) in Japanese (josuushi or 助数詞) are just what they sound like, words that you can use to count otherwise uncountable nouns such as a PIECE of paper, or a BIT of wood. However, Japanese (and Chinese and Korean too) has no countable nouns, so ALL nouns must be attached to a counter before a number can be given to them.
You don’t have “a computer” you just have “computer” until you get together with you friends and collect “7 MACHINES of computer” (7 DAI no konpyuuta) 7台のコンピュータ).
And there are a whole bunch of these counters, including special ones for people, birds, small animals, large animals, flat objects, round, edible objects, long, rod-like objects, pairs of shoes, books, things that you don’t know what they are, loaves of bread, and swords.
Of course this is all a bit exocitized. In English we say things like “3 head of cattle,” a perfect translation of “3 tou no ushi.” So it isn’t a stretch to think about “3 wing of bird.” You could argue that the “loaf” in “three loaves of bread” is an English counter.
But it is fun to expend the system to include ALL nouns and make it productive so you can include counters based on verbs (kire, “a slice of something” from kiru “to cut”) or even foreign words (peeji, “a page of a book”). And from the counter someone uses, you can tell about what they think about the thing they are describing. Is it “3 people of child” (3 NIN no kodomo) or “3 critters of child” (3 BIKI no kodomo)? Some days, I tell ya…
And now for the translation of that song. Ahem:
One! One rod of carrot. Ichi! I-ppon de mo ninjin.
Two! Two pairs of sandals. Ni! Ni-sou de mo sandaru.
San! San-soku de mo youto.
Four! Four grains of sesame-salt. Yon! Yotsu-bu de mo gomashio.
Five! Five machines of rocket. Go! Go-kai de mo rokketo.
Six! Six wings of turkey. Roku! Roku-wa de mo shichimencho.
Seven! Seven critters of bee. Shichi! Shiki-hiki de mo hachi.
Eight! Eight head of whale. Hachi! Ha-ttou de mo kujira.
Nine! Nine cups of juice. Kyu! Kyu-hai de mo jyuusu.
Ten! Ten small round things of strawberry. Jyu! Jyu-kko de mo ichigo.
A few notes: Notice how the numbers and the counters sometimes change in pronunciation? Ichi is “one” and hon is “rod,” but “one rod” is i-ppon. Also “4” is sometimes pronounced shi and sometimes yon. Just to keep you on your toes.
And notice how the “bees” in “seven bees” are hachi, the same word for “eight” in “eight whales”? And how “strawberry” (ichigo) sounds a lot like “one” (ichi)? My God. This goes so much deeper.
Why I am Dissapointed
I think the Missouri Grand Jury’s acquittal of Darren Wilson was a legal, political, and moral failure.
Let’s say you disagree. That’s okay. I don’t hate you, but here’s why I think you should change your mind.
My understanding is that the majority of black people in America see themselves as oppressed, rather than protected, by the police. They think they have no official recourse to justice when their rights are abused. Statistics support this view, but it’s easy to ignore statistics. Wilson and Brown have created an extreme and public example of this oppression and given us an opportunity to improve American race relations.
Because the normal justice system doesn’t work for black people, there is no other way for them to get recourse than by making a national spectacle. That’s bad. And it’s also bad that Fergeson has become a flashpoint for American race relations, but that’s what happens when a country doesn’t have a working justice system. The Yugoslav War “began” “because of” a soccer game (http://www.onthisfootballday.com/…/may-13-the-match…)
(Of course the war had other beginnings and other, deeper reasons for starting, but the soccer game was a flashpoint of the kind I am hoping Fergeson doesn’t turn out to be.)
Whether or not Wilson did anything wrong or illegal when he shot Brown (I think he did, but maybe I’m wrong), he and the Ferguson police department and the county government and the state government of Missouri have all handled the situation abysmally. As in, I have lived through three summers of political protests in Bulgaria (and watched Turkey and Ukraine closely), and the comparison does not go in the US’s favor. When a former Soviet satalite on the Balkans with a history of ethnic tensions handles a violent riot better than you, it is time to re-examine your policies.
A gesture of peace and good will from the city or state government (such as putting bodycams on police officers) might help. National guard parading down the street with gasmasks and automatic weapons will not.
~~~
I generally try to keep a low and uncontroversial profile on this blog because (a) it’s a waste of time to argue with someone on the internet and (b) I don’t want to offed anyone and (c) damage my career. But as a friend of mine reminded me the other day, we can’t convert other people to our way of thinking by insulting or ignoring them. Maybe I can do some good with this post by convincing someone.
Also, ha! What career?
November 23, 2014
83 Digital Privacy with Kim Moravec
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/83Kim.mp3
I’m talking with Kim Moravec, computer scientist, prison teacher (seriously), and writer of FINNEGAN’S AWAKE. We discuss her book and search for a literary agent, as well as digital privacy, and why it’s important.
A.Lee Martinez, author of Divine Misfortune
Rain’s father isn’t an FBI superhero. He’s a con man.
Freakonomics and can you get terrorists to buy life insurance?
CIA agents spying on each other on World of Warcraft
No, I’m not going to link those sites that tell you how to find someone’s address and parents’ misdemeanors. Frowny face.
I quite like data
Minecraft is fantastic
November 20, 2014
Dragons
Yes, I do sometimes still draw. This is a bit of speculative biology I took up back in August at the behest of Dan Koboldt, who wanted a picture of a dragon. This…isn’t that.
Instead what I did was think about the dragons of Naomi Novic‘s Temeraire series. This…isn’t that either. Clearly, I was wrong, but when I was reading the first book, I had the impression that the dragons’ wings were elongated ribs, like those of living Draco lizards and the diverse (and unrelated) “rib-gliding” reptiles of the Triassic.
I started by illustrating an Icarosaurus, but actually picked a better candidate for dragon-hood: Celurosauravus, whose “wings” were supported not by ribs, but by boney structures growing out of the skin.
How could these structures evolve into a real wing capable of powered flight? Perhaps like a botfly, whose flight biomechanics was so beautifully diagrammed by Walker et al.’s time-resolved microtomography studies. Walker et al. found that the whole thorax of the botfly works like an engine, with three parts pumping against each other as the wings flap. If we imagine something like that evolving from Celurosauravus, we get this.
The flapping wings provide power, but control (and at larger sizes, lift) is provided by the membranes stretched across the hind legs. The clawed forelegs support the animal on the ground.
Dragons (more properly dragonettes) diversified through the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, and today occupy niches from tiny, hovering nectarivores to soaring predators and even large, heavy flightless forms. Although some extinct species achieved leg-spans of four meters, stories of dragonettes large enough for humans to ride can be safely dismissed as myth and wishful thinking.
November 18, 2014
Ars Magica: How to tell a Charming Lie
From CHARMING LIES, my historical fantasy book, soon to be finished.
~~~
A Few Words on Magic:
What the uneducated call “magic” is in fact mind-control through sensual pleasure.
While the subject enjoys something, the source of that joy (“charm”) can implant suggestions (“compulsion”) in his or her mind. These compulsions, depending on their strength, may cause the subject to engage in any sort of act, limited only by his or her abilities, even in direct violation of his or her will.
The Five Modalities:
Over its long history of use and abuse, charm has been systemized and refined into schools based on sensory modality, ordered hear from “high” to “low.”
Sight: Enpiction. Very fast-acting and explicit, but require eye-contact. Used in most civil compulsions.
Sound: Enchantment. Carries over distance, but affects all hearing people in area. Used in war and police action.
Taste: Enpotation. Can be deployed sub-consciously, but short-lasting in effect. Used in medicine and esoteric religious ritual.
Smell: Enfumation. Effective over large areas, even subconsciously, but uncontrollable. Used legally in ecstatic religious ritual. Also by bandits, pirates, and mob bosses to create temporary minions.
Touch: Ensensation. Can act invisibly, but requires contact. Used legally to counteract other charm. By servants of the Sultan, to promote loyalty. Also in assassination, seduction, and witchcraft.
There also exist sub-schools and cross-schools of charm, such as Enscription (the primarily Islamic charm of calligraphy), Engraving (the primarily Christian charm of sculpture and relief), Kinesthetics (dance), and Enprinting (the so-called meta-charm, recently invented and poorly understood).
Further Important Considerations:
Compulsion is separate from the content of the source of charm. A picture of a man murdering someone does not compel the viewer to murder someone, unless that was the design of the artist.
Compulsion only works as long as charm continues. Once one stops paying attention to a work of art, its power ends. Enpiction is especially prone to being ignored, as the victim can simply close their eyes to shut off the charm. Most charmers combat this tendency by adding a pay attention or remember this compulsion to their work. Ensensation, the lowest and most feared modality, is thus partly because of its permanence. A carved talisman may be worn against the skin, or a textural pattern woven into clothing, creating a long-term mind-slave. In civilized lands, only direct order of the Sultan may commission such talismnas, and only his servants may be equipped with them.
The strength of compulsion depends on how much one enjoys the art one is experiencing. It is weaker for other charmers (especially in the same sensory modality as the author’s preferred modality). Even people with little talent for art can desensitize themselves to charm through repeated exposure or by cultivating a jaded sense of superiority.
Some aspects of charm are universal (especially the lower modalities). In many cases, however, charm works only within a specific context of shared references. Enchantments designed to compel audiences in Istanbul, for example, lose potency outside the Ottoman cultural sphere. For this reason, it is imperative to expand this sphere.
Ars Magica
A Few Words on Magic:
What the uneducated call “magic” is in fact mind-control through sensual pleasure. A so-called “Charming Lie“.
While the subject enjoys something, the source of that joy (“charm”) can implant suggestions (“compulsion”) in his or her mind. These compulsions, depending on their strength, may cause the subject to engage in any sort of act, limited only by his or her abilities, even in direct violation of his or her will.
The Five Modalities:
Over its long history of use and abuse, charm has been systemized and refined into schools based on sensory modality, ordered hear from “high” to “low.”
Sight: Enpiction. Very fast-acting and explicit, but require eye-contact. Used in most civil compulsions.
Sound: Enchantment. Carries over distance, but affects all hearing people in area. Used in war and police action.
Taste: Enpotation. Can be deployed sub-consciously, but short-lasting in effect. Used in medicine and esoteric religious ritual.
Smell: Enfumation. Effective over large areas, even subconsciously, but uncontrollable. Used legally in ecstatic religious ritual. Also by bandits, pirates, and mob bosses to create minions.
Touch: Ensensation. Can act invisibly, but requires contact. Used legally to counteract other charm. Also in assassination, seduction, and witchcraft.
There also exist sub-school and cross-school charm, such as Enscription (the primarily Islamic charm of calligraphy), Engraving (the primarily Christian charm of sculpture and relief), Kinesthetics (dance), and Enprinting (the so-called meta-charm, recently invented and poorly understood).
Further Important Considerations:
Compulsion is separate from the content of the source of charm. A picture of a man murdering someone does not necessarily compel the viewer to murder someone.
Compulsion only works as long as charm continues. Once one stops paying attention to a work of art, its power ends. Enpiction is especially prone to being ignored, as the victim can simply close their eyes to shut off the charm. Most charmers combat this tendency by adding a pay attention or remember this compulsion to their work.
The strength of compulsion depends on how much one enjoys the art one is experiencing. It is weaker for other charmers (especially in the same sensory modality as the author’s preferred modality). Even people with little talent for art can desensitize themselves to charm through repeated exposure or by cultivating a jaded sense of superiority.
Some aspects of charm are universal (especially Enpotation, Enfumation, and Ensensation, the so-called lower modalities). In many cases, however, charm works only within a specific context of shared references. Enchantments designed to compel audiences in Istanbul, for example, lose potency outside the Ottoman cultural sphere. For this reason, it is imperative to expand this sphere.
November 16, 2014
82 Ethics with Steve Bein
http://www.thekingdomsofevil.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/82SteveB.mp3
I’m talking again with Steve Bein about his new Japanese police-procedural Disciple of the Wind.
If I abuse you, you still have civil rights. If a cop abuses you, you don’t.
The dreaded (possibly apocryphal) “cross-roads cut”
Voltaire, not Ben Parker, guys
The Most Important thing in the World
It’s what I like about ethics; we’re never going to be done
Aliens invade the Earth…my answer is sex
There is nothing it is like to be a zombie
My magical zombies
