Fantasist's Scroll

Okay, now it depends on how they do it.

According to this article on The New York Times, Amazon is going to be expanding their “Look Inside The Book” program to include more readable text and a search engine. It’s the search engine part that really gets me. Now, I can search books that I haven’t bought to see if they have what I’m looking for or not! What a great idea. Now, I don’t have to blindly buy books from Amazon, hoping that they’re as on topic as they look. I have to admit, that’s burned me at least twice before.
Anyway, I guess this is why Amazon got on top of the on-line book market, and seems to stay there.

Now, this is just cool!

When I read this article on Wired News, and in Wired Magazine, I was totally entranced. The idea of a working anti-gravity drive is just so mind-boggling and, really, the “Holy Grail” of every science-fiction fan that it’s easy to get carried away. Of course, the article eventually debunks the “anti-gravity” portion of the story, but it opens a new possibility… An efficient, working ion drive. Hmmm, now that’s something to think about. Imagine a single-stage-to-orbit craft that uses an ion engine to get up where the atmosphere is thin, then ignites a rocket engine to finish it’s assent. Or, even a lander that uses the ion engine, powered by solar energy, to explore, say Mars. (In fact, that’s just what NASA is contemplating!)
Now, if they can get this working with a form of ionization that works in a vacum… Well, it wouldn’t be anti-gravity, per se, but it would be just as good.

Cheap computing makes research easier and more feasable!

Researchers are using low-cost “super computing” ala Linux to figure out how species differentiate, according to this article on Wired News. They’re also investigating the relationship all these sub-species have to each other currently. It sounds so simple that I think it’s deceptive. They’re inputing tonnes of data, including habitat, diet, and reproduction statistics. Then, they’re analyzing all that for subtle relationships that might not be obvious to human researchers.
But, what’s cool is that they’re doing it on a budget using an Open Source operating system! Truly, we are all standing on the shoulders of giants as we march into this new century of high-technology. And, that, as far as I am concerned, is very, very cool.

Of course, I also wonder what they will find. Can we ever know how things evolved? More importantly, can we begin to predict in what way things will continue to evolve? Will we then try to steer that evolution? Should we? As always, new improvements in science and technology provoke moral and ethical questions that we, as a race, will need to answer eventually. We try to skirt these issues now, but we must deal with them or they will deal with us!

(And, again, this appeared on my other blog earlier this month. This, BTW, is a shameless attempt to promote my Diary of a Network Geek.)

Will memory that remembers make faster, better hand-helds?

Well, maybe, but I’m waiting to see the actually products. See, according to this article on Wired News, there’s a new kind of memory coming that doesn’t get emptied when it looses power. So, the upside is, allegedly, faster startups and better hand-held devices. The down side, to me, is that when you want to clear memory, it’s going to be more complicated than just killing the power. Still, it’s being backed by Motorola, and I’ve always enjoyed their technology. Of course, it helps that my older brother works in Motorola’s R&D department, but, still, they are innovators.
Well, maybe it will help invigorate the IT industry. Now, you’ll have to be an expert to reboot your machine!

(Oh, yeah, this post also appears on my other blog, Diary of a Network Geek. Go check it out!)

How old is it all, really?

Well, this might seem like an esoteric topic, but it really effects how we percieve the universe quite a bit. According to this article on MSNBC, scientists think that there’s a planet that’s much older than it should be. Which means that the entire universe is older than people thought, which, in turn means that life, the universe and everything may have developed at an entirely different rate than was previously thought. So, while a little heavy on the theoretical side, it can really change some things we “knew” about the universe.
Makes you wonder what really did happen a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

Over all, not bad.

Okay, I have to admit that I didn’t read the comic book on which this was based, but it was still an enjoyable movie. The basic plot, without giving too much away, is a mad genius is out to cause world-wide chaos and mayhem and, somehow, plans to turn a profit off it all. To thwart this madman’s nefarious schemes, a group of quite unusual adventurers are gathered together. Adventure and mayhem ensue.

The characters are well developed, and unique even though they’re based on existing literary figures. The writers manage to make these characters their own fairly well. Of course, that means making some changes to them. The most disturbing of the changes, I found, was making Captain Nemo Indian. Not that I have anything against Indians, and certainly, the character in the movie was great, but it really has nothing to do with the literary character at all! But, once I set that aside, I’d say that Nemo became probably my second favorite character. My third favorite is a tie between Dorian Grey and Skinner, the second invisible man. Both were well thought out and “real” in a way that such gimmicky characters rarely seem to be in movies like this.
My favorite character, however, was the aging Alan Quartermain. And, that, of course, was due to Sean Connery. I’ve loved him as an actor since he was James Bond.

There were only a few internal inconsistencies that were troubling. The first being a vampire walking about in the sunlight. The second being the aforementioned Nemo changes. And, of course, there was all of Nemo’s technology. It was far, far in advance of anything even thought of at the time. It relied on concepts not even dreamt of yet.
The other thing I found both troubling and intrigueing was totally personal. There was quite a reference to Freemasonry in the film, not all of it flattering. But, that only bothered my because I am, in fact, a Freemason.

Over all, a good movie, but hit the matinee and save a couple of bucks.

Well, maybe not so mighty, but I think it’s cool!

So, I finally did it. I went and made myself an on-line sound changer. It’s based on The Sound Change Applier by Mark Rosenfelder and utilizes the Lingua::SoundChange module from CPAN. Other than that, though, I did the whole thing on my own, just using the examples and the Internet. So, I’m really proud of this one.
As far as I know, there’s not another one like it on the web, so enjoy it. And, now, I’ll be taking a break from doing any programming for the site. So don’t ask!

(The poem from which I stole my title, BTW, is Ozymandius by Percy Bysshe Shelley.)

Here’s a follow-up story to yesterday’s post.

It’s on MSNBC. The article is all about the expedition that produced the lovely website that I posted about yesterday. Apparently, the whole discovery of new species was a product of serendipity.
These folks went out to study a totally different feature of the ocean floor, had trouble with that, then quickly revamped their mission and made some good progress. The interesting thing, to me, though, is that the article really illustratres how little we know about our oceans. The Earth is 2/3 ocean, but we have almost no idea how their ecosystems work or how much of an impact we have on that ecosystem. I know it’s been done to death, but the ocean really is the last frontier on Earth.
Of course, the list of science-fiction books with the ocean as a major component are almost limitless, too. And, I think, there’s still plenty of room for more.