Fantasist's Scroll

Volunteering to be monitored?

Well, according to this article on the International Herald Tribune, folks in London maybe doing just that. There’s a company that’s offering a cell-phone based tracking service in Britain. In theory, it’s meant to track kids and such, but I can see how this kind of thing might get misused. For instance, employers tracking employees. I know that several of my former employers would have liked to know where I was 24/7!
In any case, I can see the value of this kind of service, but I can see how it could be perverted, too.
How would you imagine this service being used in the future? No, wait, go write it!

Happy Birthday H.P. Lovecraft!

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born today in 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the creator of the Necrnomicon, which is a ficticious book which he used as a prop in his writing. It was, however, so believable that there are still people who insist that it is a real book and that they’ve seen a copy. (It’s not and they haven’t. What they saw was a way for someone to make money of their gullability.)
A very nice website on his life and work can be found at HPLovecraft.com, which includes a list of all his writings. The title of this enty is based on one of those titles (The Colour Out of Space.) If you haven’t read his work, you’ve been living under a rock. Get out from under it, get yourself to a bookstore or library and read something he wrote!

life was born!

At least, according to this article on MSNBC, that’s what scientists think. The current theory is that microbes, from which all life on Earth sprang, started in the hot primordial soup found swirling around undersea volcanoes.
Every couple of years, someone comes up with a new twist on how life started, but no one really will ever know for sure. I think we’ll have a better idea of what it really takes to create life when we finally find it on other planets and can examine their ecosystems and so on. So, bascially, I’ve reconciled myself to not knowing that answer ever because, unless something miraculous happens, I don’t expect us to get to life-bearing alien planets in my lifetime.
Still, it is interesting to speculate about….

Well, it’s going to be banned in Malaysia.

At least, according to this article on Australia IT, it’s going to be banned. Malaysia is a very Islamic country and, in their religious tradition, a man can divorce his wife by saying “I divorce you” to her three times in a public place. Well, apparently, an Islamic Sharia court ruled that sending a text message via a cell phone counted! Obviously, a number of groups were quite upset by this and that’s what prompted the legislation.
But, it interests me because someone thought to do this in the first place. It seems obvious to me that the intent behind the tradition is to announce to the community that the couple are divorced, but that would be circumvented by using the cell phone. It just goes to show that people will use technology in very unexpected ways for a lot of different reasons.
So, here’s some speculation for you… How does technology effect your world? Would something like divorce via text-messaging be allowed? Would people in your fictional world be offended? I think it’s an interesting aspect of culture that’s worth exploring.

Brian Marsden, apparently.

In this article on Scientific American, he talks about running the Minor Planet Center, which tracks comets, meteors and other near-Earth objects. I’m sure that the job is mainly trigonometry and physics, but it fascinates me that it even exists.
And, what a great bunch of ideas for science-fiction it stirs up. Of course, there’s the ever present idea of a meteor hitting Earth, but that’s been done to death. Or, that the folks who work here make first contact with extra-terrestrials. But, I imagined something more like a galactic air-traffic controller. I mean, if one has lots of space travel, it could become necessary, right? And, think about all the things they’d have to keep track of in three dimensions! Certainly there must be enough tension and action in such a setting to find a story.
Well, something to ponder, anyway.

Kind of creepy, really.

But, I can see how it would be usefull. This article on the Sydney Morning Herald describes a new way to generate power from blood. Sure, the first comparison is to the Matrix, but it’s more likely to be used like the Six Million Dollar Man. This process really doesn’t create much power, so it can only power small devices. In fact, the article speculates that it will only be used to power internal “devices” or “enhancements”.
So, now, imagine a cell-phone implanted into your jaw and mastoid cavity that’s powered by your own blood flow. I can see it in the near future. Fascinating concept, actually. What else might this enable? What enhancements would you want to see installed? The answers to those questions are science-fiction stories ripe for the picking. Go forth and write!

Try reading the news!

This article on MSNBC describes as close to evil as I think mankind is capable of being. Of course, the article is about Saddam Hussein’s infamous sons who were insanely sadistic. In fact, if anything, if one were to use them as the antagonist in fiction, they’d have to be toned down to seem more believable. These two, especially Uday, were so beyond our understanding that it’s hard to get our minds around their evil. In many ways, they’re the Adolf Hitler and Herman Goering and Heinrich Himmler of our generation.
So, when you want to make a villian, nothing you can come up with will top real-life, but maybe that’s a good thing. And, remember, the larger and more horrible your villian, the bigger and better your hero needs to be as well.

I sure do, even though I’ve never gotten one.

Here’s an entry on Slashdot about micropayments. I remember thinking they were a good way to pay for a good website with fun tools. I remember a lot of people who felt the same way, once, too. I wonder what went wrong?

You know, if you’d like to experience micro-payments, you can donate to this site via PayPal:

Or, via The Magus’ Wish List.

All right, all right, my shameless begging is over!