If you’ve followed my Corrosive Knights books, you know that nano-technology is a big element within them (Note: I’m not claiming to be the only person to come up with the concept or use it in my stories!).
As they say, fiction is approaching reality as scientists have developed tiny nano-motors that can move inside cells, a first step toward targeting and destroying, possibly, cancer cells…among others:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/health/nanomotors-cells-science/index.html
Perhaps…
http://io9.com/heres-the-first-recorded-instance-of-the-f-word-in-eng-1519247071
If you click on the link, you’ll discover the word (in this case “fuckin”) was written by a monk in this particular book in 1548, though the context of the statement is in question.
For whatever reason, I find the above simply amazing. It’s fascinating to look at how far back certain phrases/words go, and how the permutations in their meaning changed or, in the case above, apparently didn’t.
Did you hear about yesterday’s exciting Superbowl? How the Seahawks pulled it off on the last few seconds to beat the Broncos?
Yeah, right.
It was one of those games where the very first play by the Broncos effectively told viewers what we were in for…
There was talk/analysis that the more veteran Broncos with multiple players who had already experienced at least one Superbowl would have the edge over the far younger Seahawks, a team of which not one single players had so much as come close to a Superbowl before this year.
Yet it turned out to be completely the opposite. It appeared Denver and their players were jittery from the get go, perhaps only too aware of the magnitude of the event while the far younger Seahawks just played hard. And the Bronco’s jitters quickly turned into a nightmare and, for them, a blowout.
As a fan of neither team, after it became all too apparent this game was over before the end of the first quarter, I was hoping at least the commercials would offer entertainment.
Sadly, that proved not to be the case either.
The only commercial I thought was genuinely clever and funny was the Stephen Colbert two part pistachio one…and that was more for the second, unexpected commercial that followed the more blah (as it turned out, on purpose) first one…
The surprise is what made it so appealing, and I’m not sure watching the two side by side this way reflects the cleverness.
As for other commercials, there were a couple of somewhat humorous ones (the Doritos one, the Audi commercial with the mutant doberhauhau and a very funny cameo by Sarah McLachlan) along with a whole bunch of very weird ones (the Bob Dylan one really sticks out, as does the Danica Patrick one where she was wearing a muscle suit(!) yet barely showed her in it, the Arnold ping-pong one).
I’m threatening to slip into complaining/whining mode but in the cold light of morning, I regret wasting all that time yesterday.
But that’s what makes sports what it is. Unscripted entertainment means you never know if you’re going to see something amazing (the Heat’s Ray Allen corner 3 to tie what looked like a championship win for the Spurs and turned out to be the impetus for the Heat to eventually win the series) or something absolutely boring like yesterday.
Taken from -where else?- Cracked.com:
http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_777_26-hilariously-inaccurate-predictions-about-future_p26/
The very first one had me in stitches…
If you liked that, you should find the rest of the list very entertaining. In case you’re not yet sold, here’s one more, #15:
If you’re at all like me, I think you’ll want to check out the rest.
Found this article by Alex Goldman over at Slate magazine and it involves the above, a mystery “code” written by a “non-communicative” grandmother on index cards shortly before she passed away.
The mystery of what the Grandmother wrote on these index cards lasted 20 years…and was solved in a matter of 14 minutes after a relative posted a query asking for help figuring this out on Metafiler!
Read the whole thing here:
The Metafiler link, which shows the very quick process of solving this mystery, is presented below:
http://ask.metafilter.com/255675/Decoding-cancer-addled-ramblings
A fascinating story, and I’m glad the family has closure on what their relative was trying to “say”.
…on its way to the UK?!
That alone could be one of the most eye-catching headlines written this year!
As for the story itself, it concerns the possibility of an abandoned (ie, ghost) ship floating out at sea and lost which may be headed in the general vicinity of the UK. As for the cannibal rats, the theory is that the ship probably has rats on board and since they don’t have food, the only way to survive is, you guessed it, by eating each other.
The most interesting thing about the article, to me, was this line:
(Ghost ships are) just the term used for ships with no living crew aboard, and according to Quartz, they’re not that rare — sailors have spotted at least seven such ships in the past 15 years.
Seven “ghost ships” spotted in the past 15 years? That means we’ve got roughly one popping up every couple of years. That is quite intriguing.
Courtesy of the Weather Channel, a fascinating bit of news regarding melting glaciers in Northern Italy revealing the corpses of WWI soldiers and historical artifacts…
…in the blink of an eye.
A husband and his wife decided to start taking a picture of themselves and then infant child starting in 1991 with the same photographer, lighting, and background. They took a photograph of themselves from that year all the way through the present, amounting to 22 years worth of photography and (gulp) aging.
Fascinating stuff. Check it out if you’re curious:
http://mom.me/toddler/10736-one-family-one-pose-22-years/item/1991/
Fascinating article by Eric Stern for Salon.com relating to a question I had when Colorado eased up on their marijuana laws: What happens to all those who are in jail and/or are being prosecuted by incidents involving marijuana yet happened before this new eased regulations were instituted?
In many ways I’m a real “square”. Throughout my life I’ve hardly ever had alcohol (I have never been drunk and I don’t drink because I don’t like the taste of most alcoholic beverages), I don’t smoke (tried it for at most two days in high school before giving up), and have never taken any illegal drugs (though like many I certainly had the opportunities to do so, again in high school as well as college). That last bit obviously includes the use of marijuana, which I haven’t so much as had single puff of. In fact, during the years when I was exposed to its use via friends, I was very much against it though I don’t recall ever pontificating against its use (I could be wrong but throughout my life I was never much of a “strident” type).
Over the years I’ve come to the opinion that drug laws in this country are both too harsh and ineffective. It is also my opinion our society is repeating the mistakes of Prohibition. Drug laws, like the Prohibition laws of the 1920’s, have spawned a vast criminal underclass devoted to selling these illegal items, some of which are clearly more damaging than others. The bottom line remains the same as it was during the Prohibition years: If people want to use an illegal substance, they WILL find a way. Many may get caught while many others won’t, but the use will continue.
So now that marijuana, an illegal drug many consider no stronger and less damaging than alcohol, is essentially “allowed” in Colorado (there are fine lines in the new law, which are addressed in the article) while “medicinal marijuana” is looked upon more and more favorably in other states, a very legitimate question is raised: What happens with the people of Colorado who are in prison specifically for the use and/or distribution of marijuana?
Should they be immediately freed? Should their records be wiped clean? And what if this legalization seeps into other states? What happened to all the others in prison for similar offenses?
Culturally, we’re in interesting times and the above article offers some food for thought.
The following article, from Newsweek, is about Airbnb, an upstart (small) Hotel company that is going after the “big boys”. Although this may sound like something only those in the Hotel business may find interesting, the article touches upon something that has intrigued me for several years now: the evolution of businesses in the age of the internet.
Read the article and you’ll see what I mean:
http://www.newsweek.com/end-mass-production-225700
If you’re not interested in reading the whole thing and/or too lazy to click the link, let me offer you this quote which neatly summarizes what the article has to say about the current business world:
Information technology is eroding the power of large-scale mass production. We’re instead moving toward a world of massive numbers of small producers offering unique stuff – and of consumers who reject mass-produced stuff. The Internet, software, 3D printing, social networks, cloud computing and other technologies are making this economically feasible – in fact, desirable.
Let me repeat one small part of this great paragraph: Massive numbers of small producers offering unique stuff.
I see this today in Amazon whenever I check out my books, for am I not very much a part of this very game? I’m one small independent writer out there offering my wares (books) to everyone out there. At this point there is no major publishing company distributing my works.
Back when I first got into the publishing business in the 1990’s, being an “independent” publisher involved considerable investment and therefore potentially big loss. Why? Because the only way to publish works was to actually publish them at certain minimal quantity levels and on actual paper. If you were publishing “Book X”, you could list it in the trades and pay good money for a full page add. Eventually you’d get your order and you hoped it would be a sufficient quantity to pay for the publishing costs and still make you a little bit of money.
If the orders were too low, however, you could do one of two things: a) cut your losses (both in terms of money and time) and cancel the book or b) go ahead and publish it at a loss and hope that over time you can recoup your publishing costs and sell whatever material you were forced to over-produce.
This changed radically with the advent of the various tablets. Now, you can “publish” works that can be read on your computer and tablet via Kindle or Nook or any other e-reader. There are now “print to demand” companies that do just that, print your book in the numbers you need them printed without any minimal orders.
But even more importantly, the internet has given regular folks the ability to review the works of others. Moving away from books for the moment, we as consumers can comfortably go to a McDonalds restaurant in all corners of the United Stated to get a meal and we know what we’re going to get. Yet we may avoid the small, independent (and mythical) Billy’s Burger Joint right next door to a McDonalds for the opposite reason: We don’t know what we’re going to get. The food may well be far fresher and tastier than that found at McDonalds yet as consumers we may shy away from this place because we simply don’t know if that will be the case.
In the book world, you may avoid a book authored by one E. R. Torre because you haven’t the foggiest idea of whether this fellow has any talent whatsoever (if you should even stumble upon him!) and time is money and you have neither available in healthy enough quantities to devote to this “newbie”. Yet you buy novels by, say, Big Author X because s/he has a track record of sales and past successes which make you as a consumer more likely to try his/her latest novel out.
This in spite of the fact that you may not have enjoyed any of this author’s books in many years.
The wonderful thing is that the internet is in the process of changing all this.
Now, if you see Billy’s Burger Joint and are not in the mood for a Big Mac, you pull up your smart phone or any other internet device and see what others say about Billy’s Burger Joint. If the reviews are good, you feel more comfortable in giving the place a try.
The same may well benefit someone like me.. I’ve been blessed with mostly good reviews for my books and I suspect that makes it easier for others who are not familiar with the works of E. R. Torre to give them a try. While sales of my books certainly are not on the level of, say, a Stephen King I can’t help but feel each positive reviews has to encourage potential buyers. And the reviews have the bonus effect of encouraging me to keep writing and releasing new works!
Perhaps the end of “mass production” is the future of not just the food, lodging, and writing industries but of all fields.
We will certainly see!