Monthly Archives: September 2005

NanoHype!

Fantastic – I dropped David Berube a line and found out he’s writing a blog about nanotechnologies and the often over-hyped literature around it. It’s really quite good if you are interested in the subject.

The man has a way with a phrase: “However, we once again have selective reporting, broad overclaims, and the inevitable straw person to validate their moratorium. This is expected from undergraduates and bad intercollegiate debaters.”

Since there is so little actual work done in nanotechnologies and the field is so primitive, it inevitably becomes the technical fairy dust that anyone can sprinkle over their scenario building. With regards to nanotechnology we are really pre-singularity trying to predict what will happen post-singularity. You can really project whatever your dreams or fears may be onto this unsettled technology. Dave is doing a great job here of popping some of these bubbles with a clear mind – and he’s well suited to it. He’s read pretty much everything that has been written on the subject.

Of course, I’ve added this to my blogroll and am looking forward to more – thanks Dave!

Mad respect to the Autistic Researchers, yo.

I’m reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink”. It’s really good so far, it’s about how you make all those instant decisions during your daily life. If you want it when I’m done, let me know and you can have it.

So I’m reading it today, and I notice that it is quoting some work done by Simon Baron-Cohen on autism. That rings a bell for me, so I check it out on wikipedia. Sure enough, he’s related to my main man, Ali G. Of course, others have already drawn the connection. This one’s good.

RESPECT. piz n ‘m out, wor.

Stranger things go live

I sent off my conversion of Kelly Link’s “Stranger Things Happen” to Jelly Ink Press a while ago. Due to a massive tea shortage in the UK, they didn’t have the energy to put it up until just now. So, it’s up. Thanks, Gavin! Oh and Thank you Kelly for such wonderful dreamy stories.

My favorite is “Travels with the Snow Queen.” It is a fairy tale, but with a strong female instead of yet another wilting damsel. It’s funny and surprising and juicy and good. Check it out.

Because it is a single html file, you can download this and read it with anything that has a web browser – PSP, Treo, PocketPC, whatever. Enjoy!

What’s grosser than gross?

Stepping barefoot on a cockroach. An excellent way to wake up in the morning, and I recommend it to everyone as an eye-opener.

What’s grosser than that? Getting started on sourceforge. I’m trying to get everything ready and done for automatic builds etc on sf.net. The process is not very streamlined.
But never fear, my trivial software will go up there.

Ski Dubai

I found out about ski dubai via treehugger blog. They quite rightly point out how immensely terrible this is for the environment.

One of the major problems facing the world is it’s unification. All places are becoming the same, becoming a monoculture. It’s not just a problem for sentimental reasons – I like that I can have pals in other countries and that we can interknit more and more. I like that people know more languages so that we can all converse. But, you don’t need to go snowboarding when you are in dubai. It will never be as good as the alps or the rockies, and the costs are immense. Yes, we can do it, but we probably shouldn’t. Instead, we should work on better ways to enable you to get to where the amazing stuff is.

But OH OH OH would I like to have it in my backyard. Except, come to think of it, the heat venting from this would probably make my backyard look like Dubai.