Barkerburgh

Ever since the Future began in 2001 (January 1st, not September 11th, <i>pace</i> thousands), Reality has been catching up with Science Fiction, IMHO. But Reality’s also been fine-tuning Science Fiction as it goes along.

Face it, slidewalks, city-sized computers to <font title=”mmm, pi crunching…”>crunch pi</font>, or transfer booths might be cool plot devices, but Reality doesn’t have a plot (<i>pace</i> thousands of crazy-ass conspiracy theorists), the natural resources or the laws of physics (that we’re aware of so far…).

D’y'ever read David Brin’s ‘Earth‘? Published in 1985, it took place 50 years into that future, 2035. The title simply means that story action takes place everywhere in, on, and around Earth from the core to orbit. In terms of what he ‘predicted’ for the evolution of a shared global data network (and yes, I know, SF writers don’t predict; they’re storytellers first and foremost), almost everything he imagined (think of this kind of imagining as a type of private, subjective, storytelling-focussed prediction, spare and stripped down) is available now (1985+22) to some lesser or greater degree of sophistication, and then some.

‘So Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Dave. Where ya headed?’

The Wiki. Brin didn’t call it that, but it’s here already; Wikipedia is probably the most well known example.

For my many soon-to-be-famous SF&F stories, I need to do background development, and occasionally considerable research and development. A while back I had downloaded an interesting looking wiki setup from SourceForge, called Wikka, free and open. I figured it would complement FreeMind, an excellent, simple and easy to learn Java-based (and thus cross-platform) mindmapping application, (like a much easier to learn and use Visio; flowcharting and the like) again from SourceForge. Wikka was okay, but a little like 1985 email, if anyone remembers those anymore. Very Flintstones. MS Word-style GUI functionality is mostly missing for formatting and editing - most commands are things like two apostrophes before and after a text string to italicize it, or two equals signs before and after to bold it. To be fair, wikis are web-based and some Word type highlight-and-click functionality is present, but it’s rudimentary, and sometimes even warmly funny for its earnestness, like a nerd doing a box-step at the prom.

Then, God bless me, I found Mediawiki. It’s the wiki engine that Wikipedia uses, free to download and install. (I’m running an Apache/MySQL/PHP server and it slots right in.) Its back end is more sophisticated than Wikka (and one or two others that I tried) but it’s got a GUI (still a bit too fancy a term for what it is, but hey, we’re living in the Future, not the Future Perfect), and it takes no time to learn.

The ability to order and categorize information, research, ideas, and connections - all interlinked - is built in (that’s one big idea of a wiki, after all) and I can construct glossaries, dictionaries, and encyclopaedias, with tables, images, and lists of all types to help me keep my ideas straight. Granted, one other big idea of a wiki is collaboration, but I like to think of this as a collaboration with myself over time.

MS Word is still the main tool to actually compose the oeuvres, but my beloved Mediawiki helps keep all my ideas straight.

What’s next? Well, I’ve always (insofar as a sentient adult creature with a limited lifespan can use the word) liked the idea of Geordi Laforge’s e-worktable in the engine room on the Enterprise, an IPhone-like touch-screen tabletop for whatever you need to do. Well, just this morning I saw on TV that Microsoft is introducing a prototype Surface Touch-Table, which they’re showing off at a downtown hotel today.

And next after that? The Lost In Space robot, a flying car, the space elevator and immortality.

C’mon, Future!!

For the first time in a jeezes long time, I watched three full hours of CBC last night.

First was that Japanese-Canadian sciencey guy whose first name I always forget, with an excellently beautiful hour of Canadian geology, the first of a series (Geologic Journey), focussing on the history and formation of the Great Lakes, with some great geology of the Niagara Escarpment. Cool shots, cool knowledge, cool host - you know the guy I mean, right?

Second was The John Chew Show - I mean, Test the Nation, during which, out of 70 questions, I answered 63 correctly. Seriously, John was there as part of a group of word-gamers and he got talked to by one of the hosts, Brent Bambury. There were teachers, puzzle guys, comics and ad-writers, too.

Either Firefox, WordPress or Youtube are screwing up my post on the Darby ‘You Suck’ Prank.

So sorry.

Just shit-disturbin’…

Google string for”’science vs religion”…

Found this right at the top. What a deep, earnest guy.

What a lively debate!*

* Wikipedia article on the old European Catholic practice of ‘auto da fe’.

This is an interesting article from the Guardian

Take a read, it’s short, then come right back. I’ll be here.

Basically, I agree with his idea about humans being hard-wired for Religion, but that Science, for a true believer, fills pretty much the same function of any religion*; causing a sense of awe and wonder, a sense of belonging to something greater, made by something we don’t really understand, encouraged to explore the world in terms of the tenets of Science, seeking answers to the great questions of cosmogony, teleology, eschatology, 42, and just what the hell is this crazy little thing called Life anyway. All the stuff you find in Augustine and Aquinas and Hildegard of Bingen, but also santeria, scientology, the Mahabharata, and Jack van Impe.

Difference is, I’m right. And I know it.

* Not the least of which is a smug sense of superiority to beings whose beliefs aren’t true, right or good.

Well, not quite.

So about 10:30pm on Friday, I’m taking a shower in the basement bathroom at the Nairn estate and almost finished when the lights flash off, then come on again, then go out and stay out.

It’s pitch dark with only a useless glow through the frosted window.

I finally manage to - slowly and carefully - get dry, get dressed, and find my way to the first floor where I discover the whole neighbourhood is dark. One thing that helps is the power flashes back on for about one second while I’m trying to remember where the stairs are. I happen to be looking right at them when the lights flash on and off, and make my way over by retina memory.

I go outside and hear sirens. I’m just about to check on the little old Italian lady next door when she comes outside too. She’s fine.

Then I decide to follow the sirens because they’re close and a lot. I look south and can see that St Clair West is just fine, but everything north, east and west seems out. I can tell from the usual crepuscular glow around the area that the blackout is local.

I walk up Nairn to Rogers Road, then west on Rogers. Near the western edge of Prospect Cemetery a car has crashed into and nearly knocked over a telephone pole and two people are being worked on, then transported away by ambulance. (Oh, so that’s why the cemetery is called that!)

There’s a huge crowd of gawpers, and me, standing around. Finally I’ve seen enough so I leave.

I’m in an internet cafe on St Clair writing this.

Now we’ll see how long it takes for the power to come back on.

So WinDVD and ITunes (perhaps others too, but these two for sure) won’t work if, on a cold boot, the system spontaneously resets the year to 2079, which isn’t even the highest the year can be set.

Keep that in mind for future reference.

I was doing a search for the Doctor Watson log to see if there was anything in there about the failures of ITunes and WinDVD, when I noticed the time stamp.

They work fine now.

One of the coolest Astronomy Picture of the Day shots I’ve seen in a long time, although they’re pretty much all cool.

The write-up about the shot is amazing.

From Science Jokes, where there’s more of the same.

Submitted to them by a “dcoble”, credit where credit is due

Test your knowledge of chemistry by filling in each blank with a word
from the list below.

1. What a ship does when it’s torpedoed. ____________

2. When there’s no gas left, we say it’s ____________.

3. The weather in Antarctica is quite ____________.

4. Overtime for British policemen. ____________.

5. What we do when we’re in pain. ____________

6. ____________ is a measure of, uh, light intensity.

7. What you get if you put Robin Williams in jail. ____________

8. The power company’s special cocktail. ____________

9. She hit me with an Eveready, so I charged her with assault with ____________.

10. Old Chemistry profs never die, they just fail to ____________.

11. What the cowboy did with his horses. ____________

12. When I meet a 6′6″ mugger, ____________ away very fast.

13. The element that comes after nine. ____________

14. An original inhabitant of North America. ____________

15. Motto of land developer: ____________ is better.

16. Slang for “You got it correct”. ____________!

17. ____________ only at the finest restaurants.

18. When a Chemistry prof dies, we have a funeral, then____________.

19. How can you expect me to do all these problems? ____________ little boy!

20. “I’ll knock down these buildings!” “You mean you’ll ___________?”

———————————————————————-

a) Aluminum       f) Beaker            k) Iodine         p) Rhodium
b) Ammonia        g) Copper nitrate    l) Iron           q) Silicon
c) Argon          h) Gold              m) Platinum       r) Sulphur
d) Barium         i) Hydrogen          n) Radon          s) Tin
e) Battery        j) Indium            o) React          t) Zinc