solarray

From void into vision, from vision to mind, from mind into speech, from speech to the tribe, from the tribe into din.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Science Fiction Fairy Tales

Global Pendant

Once upon a time...

She was wearing a very interesting pendant. It first appeared to be a cloudy blue bead about an inch and a half in diameter hanging from a delicately linked chain around her neck. But it changed. On closer observation, the cloudiness moved slowly and steadily across the surface of the bead and the within the swirls of white and blue that could be water was the outline of the continents in green and shades of gray. It was a real-time composite satellite image of the Earth from space projected onto the surface of the pendant. You could see the latest hurricane developing in the South Atlantic that very evening.

She explained that her body network linked wirelessly to the Net through the PDA in her purse and then loaded the images into the bead. The Earth from space was only one of the programs available.

"Where's the dashboard for Spaceship Earth?" he asked.

"I don't know if there is one," she replied.

...and they all lived happily ever after.

But that's another story...


Earth from Space
World Cloud Cover
North American Jet Stream
Astronomy Picture of the Day

If anybody has seen something like a dashboard for Spaceship Earth, please let me know.


Nanobot Road

Once upon a time...

It started with self-repairing nanobots. These were devices that worked on the cellular level, on a biological model rebuilding damaged tissue cell by cell, protein by protein. It soon went beyond any previous DNA limits as these miraculous machines amplified our own, human repair systems. They were indefatigable and virtually immortal and remade us in their own image.

Now some of us have replaced fallible flesh with metal and plastic. We have optimized our abilities to see into the infra-red and ultraviolet, hear sounds dogs and whales are deaf to, made our skins resistant to heat or cold, the vacuum of space and the depth of the ocean. Our brains are faster than quantum computers. We can blush quicksilver and shine like mirrors if we wish.

We are immortal, self-remade clone cyborg replicants of our old human selves. Death is just a memory now and we go on forever rebuilding ourselves cell by cell every day, performing miracles each moment. History means nothing to us anymore, "humanity" even less.

And they lived happily ever after, ever after, ever after, ever....

The National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors has announced the development of nano-sized batteries which can be implanted into the body to power various devices, starting with an artificial retina (http://www.primidi.com/2006/01/16.html#a1415). The Center will design and build "nanomedical devices based on natural and synthetic ion transporters -- proteins that control ion motion across the membranes of every living cell." 

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Monday, January 09, 2006

Werner Grundl Is Video Blogging

Werner Grundl is video blogging (http://energyvision.blogspot.com/).

The clips online so far are about the peace economy from Japan, the newest Hull, MA wind turbine, and Jerzy, a kid, performing "I Want to Be a Kid."

Werner is just beginning to play with online distribution onto the Web and the Net and is transferring the Videosphere archives from VHS to .mov, from tape to DVD, the Internet and beyond. In digital format, through the video blog, Werner Grundl and Julie O'Neil, Videosphere (WJulesvern@aol.com), can make thirty years of events and performances, debates and speeches, lectures and street corner and coffee table discussions about politics, arts, science, spirit and life around the world available to the world. In theory, at least.

Thirty years ago, we used to sit around in some of those coffee table discussions and talk about a technology that would allow us to record something on the street or the studio and distribute it to all those interested in real time as it's happening. Now we can do just about that with our cell phones, when all the connections work, when we can figure out how to make all the connections work. Or so I am told.

In theory, at least.

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