“Value, Emotions, and Survival”

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I ran across an article the other day that baldly stated that the survival instinct is not the strongest and most universal instinct. Creating value is.

Surprising on the face of it, but the more I thought of it, the more I had to admit that there’s something to it. Conventional wisdom (which may actually be right in this case) says that many men don’t live very long after retirement, no matter how healthy they are before it, but that women don’t seem to have that problem. I’ve heard it speculated that that may be due to the fact that most men’s self-worth and self-image is tied up in their work, whereas with most women it’s more their connections to others.

I can only think of three people I know that I consider selfish (as in, they’re reluctant to help even family or close friends if it would cause them even minor effort or discomfort), and all three of those have chronic health issues. An interesting potential correlation, but not enough to draw any firm conclusions on, especially as the health issues may well be the cause of the selfishness in at least one case. I wonder if scientists have ever explored that? A quick search didn’t turn up anything.

“Space junk at ‘tipping point’, now getting worse on its own”

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I’ve mentioned before the problem of man-made junk in low-earth orbit, and the three plans (American laser, Japanese fishing-net, and Italian robo-satellite) so far suggested to combat it.

Apparently the problem is even worse than I’d realized, and has reached a critical stage. If I read the American laser proposal correctly (which isn’t guaranteed), it would work best on larger pieces of debris. The Italian version will only work on large pieces. If either one is going to be used, it needs to be done now, before the stuff starts colliding and getting ever-smaller. The Japanese proposal is the only one that looks like it might work on smaller pieces, and large groups of them; it also appears to be the most viable technologically, as it doesn’t require problematic high-powered lasers or poorly-tested AI and robotics.

In any case, I doubt this will be a problem in the long term. Someone is going to find a viable solution, and there’s enough money sunk into satellites that it’ll get funded. It’s just a question of how soon — and what the cost will be, as the longer it’s delayed, the more and smaller pieces of junk there will be.

(I just re-read Battlefield Earth, which includes a minor bit where a spacecraft goes into orbit to snatch pieces of debris floating there. Unfortunately the type of motor the craft uses is entirely fictional at this point, so it doesn’t offer any viable ideas for a solution.)

“Replica of Disney-Pixar ‘Up’ house for sale in Utah”

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Science fiction fans have long been known to make replicas of things from their favorite books, movies, or shows. There was even a fellow in Britain who turned his apartment into a replica of the Star Trek ship Voyager a few years back. This, however, is the first full-sized building created from a cartoon movie that I’ve heard of.

At essentially $400,000, it seems a bit steep, even with the novelty value. In the current economy, I wonder what it’ll really sell for. Does Up have the kind of fanatical following that major science fiction shows do? I kind of doubt it, but I could be surprised.

“Reusable Printer Paper”

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In 1985, the Wall Street Journal had a quote from an unnamed Xerox executive to the effect that “we’ll have a paperless office when we have a paperless bathroom.” Well, paperless bathrooms are here, but offices still use a lot of paper.

In a bid to reduce that, Xerox has come up with self-erasing reusable paper. I’m not a member of IFTF, so I don’t have access to the full article, but it does sound interesting.

And, as I so often do here, I can point out that this sort of thing has long been part of science fiction. I don’t recall which ones, but several stories have included mention of paper that’s printed on demand and tossed into a recycler when done with, from which it’s quickly erased and sent back to the printer. One specifically mentioned a newspaper that, when dropped into a recycler, was destined to be re-used for tomorrow’s news — literally the next day.

I just hope no one tries to do the same sort of thing for bathroom paper. I’d like a little more distance between myself and used toilet tissue, thanks. 😉

“Terrorism in the U.S. Since 9/11”

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Bruce Schneier points out a newly-published analysis on recent terrorism in the US, and provides his own comments (which I fully agree with).

From one of the final paragraphs:

The risk of dying in the U.S. from terrorism is substantially less than the risk of drowning in your bathtub, the risk of a home appliance killing you, or the risk of dying in an accident caused by a deer. Remember that more people die every month in automobile crashes than died in 9/11.

“NASA to work on approved sci-fi books”

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A primary theme of this blog is that science fiction drives science. Apparently science is now directly feeding back into science fiction too. 🙂

I don’t expect this to really go anywhere. The motivation for it is pretty transparent: keeping NASA in the public eye now that there are no shuttle launches, so that Congress can’t decide that they’re not doing anything and pull all their funding. But I might be surprised.

“iPad bridesmaid attends wedding via FaceTime”

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I doubt this sort of thing will become the preferred way to attend a wedding any time soon, but until recently it wouldn’t have been possible for the home-bound bridesmaid to attend at all.

Telepresence will only get better — easier to use, more reliable, with more control for the remote user — over time. It wouldn’t surprise me to see, in ten or fifteen years, car-rental companies keeping a few specialized vehicles on hand for this sort of thing: a self-driving rental car that would act as a base station, with a telepresence robot (essentially an iPad-like screen and camera on a mobile body controlled by the remote user) that detaches itself on command to wander among other, mostly flesh-and-blood guests. It might become a viable alternative to air travel, as the TSA makes it ever-less convenient and less pleasant to take a plane.

(I recall seeing things similar to the basic idea of telepresence in science fiction, but only rarely, and I don’t recall exactly where. The storyline generally requires that a human body be present — to be at risk for the heroes, and to be capturable for the villains.)

The future that humanity envisioned in the fifties isn’t here yet, but it’s shuffling closer at an ever-increasing rate. 🙂