Fantasist's Scroll

Hmm, there have been a lot of rat-brain stories lately…
No, really, there have been a lot of stories about experiments done with rat brains. First, there was the story about the scientists in Florida who got a rat brain to pilot an aircraft. Then, there was a story about the android run by a rat brain. But, when I got really got me thinking was when I saw this article about how rats can tell the difference between two languages.
Taken separately, they don’t seem like a big deal, but, what happens when you combine them together into a single package? How long before we see these freakish things on the battlefield? Truth is stranger than fiction. But, you know what? A science-fiction author predicted this kind of thing back in the early 80’s. Yep, Joe Clifford-Faust, author of “Company Man”. He didn’t get much attention back then, I thought, but he sure seems right on the money with his predictions. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Okay, this is a little scary.
You know that old urban legend about the guy being murdered or killed with an icicle? Well, now someone has created a mold that you can use to make an ice push-dagger. No, I am not kidding. Is it the ultimate murder weapon? Use it once and then let it melt away. No fuss, no muss, no evidence. Hmm, somehow I think a TV detective could figure it out and get a conviction… Still, the idea has a lot of fictional possibilities. Well, check out Objects of Violence and decide for yourself.

Yes, it’s a little morbid for a Friday Fun Link, but, dammit, it is fun in a sick twisted way. So, go click on the link! (Please note that I do not advocate killing anyone, outside of a just war, and this post has been presented for informational and educational purposes only!)

No, really!

I am not making this up! This is really real. Honest! Click the link, if you don’t believe me.
They’ve finally created a robot that can “recharge” itself off garbage, or whatever else it sucks up. Hmm, sounds like a great addition to the robo-vacum-cleaners that have been advertised this holiday season. I’m sure it’s just around the corner. Of course, I’m just as sure the military are looking at how to use this on the battlefield….

Ah, well, it’s Friday, so check out the fly-eating robot!

Hooray for science-fiction become reality!

I almost never post a picture, but…. But, this is just way, way too cool! This picture is from an article on Wired News about new robots being used by the military. In fact, this bad boy, dubbed the Talon, is ready to ship to Iraq in just a few months. This ought to liven up things for the last of the insurgents and resistors from the old regime. And, hopefully, it will let more of our soldiers come home alive and in one piece. That urban warfare stuff is just brutal and I’m all in favor of anything that will take some of the heat off our military.

Now, add to that this article about mutating robots…
Well, they say that the idea is to have robots that can more efficiently explore disaster sites to find and rescue people, but I can see how an urban battlefield would be pretty much the same as a disaster site. A mutating robot with a gun. Yeah, that sounds like a science-fiction story to me, allright!

Anyway, interesting food for thought.

The ultimate genius.

I have long admired the genius that was DaVinci. He did a little bit of everything and he did it all so very, very well. An artist and an inventor and now, it seems, a bit of an entertainer, too.
This story on Wired examines another aspect of Leonardo’s genius: robots. More accurately, automata. Think of Disney’s animatronics in the Middle Ages. These drawings, which have been long interpreted as some kind of spring-powered “car”, were drawn and presumably built in roughly 1478. Their modern recreation, painstakingly recontructed from numerous drawings and sketchs, have produced a a cart that runs along a predetermined path. A path that can be changed based on gears and other settings within the device itself. In other words, a Middle Ages robot.

Now, there’s got to be some great ideas for fantasy worlds and stories in that! And, it’s a great article. Check it out.

Here are two stories to make you think.

First, there’s the story about the archeological dig in South Carolina that may provide evidence that early man migrated to North America as much as 25,000 years earlier than originally believed. It could change everything we believe about the early migration of primative humans. At first blush, that may not sound like a big deal, but it really is.

Secondly, there’s the story about a recently discovered “new” ape fossil that may be the so-called missing link. The creature that made this fossil may be the earliest known, not to mention closest, ancestor to both modern apes and modern man. Of course, this is very controversial and may not be true, after all, the science of hominid evolution is very, very speculative due to it’s nature. It’s not a living process that we can actually observe in real-time. Still, it does provide more information and a whole lot of food for thought.

Anyway, it seemed like a pair of interesting, inter-related, stories. Enjoy!

No, this is not something out of the back pages of Wired.

It’s a real thing being put together by the DaVinci Institute, called, yes, the Museum of Future Inventions. Their idea is simple, actually, dedicate a museum to future technologies that haven’t been actually invented yet with the hope that someone will be inspired to make them reality. I don’t know if it will actually work, but it sure sounds like a fun museum to visit! In any case, anything that promotes hope for future generations is all right in my book!

And, what the heck, it’s Friday, so go check it out.

You’d think this belongs on my other blog, which is tech oriented, but…

Well, okay, it probably belongs there, too. Wired News ran this story about the efforts of researchers to localize cell phones for Ethiopia last week. It’s interesting to me for a number of reasons.
First, there’s the “alphabet”, which is actually a syllabary. It’s got over 300 characters and is nothing at all like the Roman alphabet. (You can see what it looks like at Omniglot.com.) A bit of a challenge for the English-speaking cell phone designers!
Second, it’s a fascinating look at the way technology effects us and the way we effect technology. The goal was to get SMS into the hands of farmers who could use it for communication and weather prediction to better manager their crops.
Thirdly, it’s a look at a section of the world that I hear about all too little. Africa is most likely the birth-place of man, or at least the tribe of man from which modern Europeans descended, but it seems so primative by our, oh, so refined Western standards.

In short, it was a very interesting look at an aspect of life that I rarely see. How will all that change in the future? Where will it all end up? How much will situations like that be the norm out on space colonies, if we ever get them? Language and technology make for very interesting idea combonations. There’s lots of stories there.