Waiting for a technological singularity
I know, I know. Star Wars? Yeah, it was terrible. However this trailer looks really cool, in the way that The Matrix and Point break were movies which provided a suitable vehicle for Keanu Reeves the main actor to perhaps, begin to shine. Plus it has Samuel Jackson.
A friend recently hit me with some good advice via IM: “Hang in there Manfred.” (Thats a reference to Accelerando for those not in the know)
The way William Gibson describes the future seems to fit better every year. “The future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed.” Most of the technologies that appeared in 07 were measurably cool: the iPhone, the end of analog TV, GPS in cars & phone / blue tooth proliferation, Moore’s law and multi-core CPU’s, etc., etc. These are things that a number of years ago I looked forward to the way I now look forward to neural nanonics, private space flight, bioengineering, and other amazing stuff. Now they appear rather blah, about as exiting as a car or television set. The future is already here alright. I guess I just need to be more patient.
However it was a good year in the reading department. Accelerando by Charles Stross, Spook Country by William Gibson, The Night’s Dawn Trilogy (paperbacks 1 2 3 4 5 6) by Peter F. Hamilton to name some of most interesting ones. Of course Cory Doctorow and the usual crowd had some excellent blog posts. Penny Arcade had some truly great comics reminding yet again that “my people” are out there and going strong. 2007 certainly had an abundance of daily slack to consume.
I’m still holding out hope for my tribe. I expect we will continue to kick some ass and make sure things end up OK, preferably with lots of super bad ass scientific stuff.
Here’s to 2008 and the pursuit of slack and knowledge!
Looks like we understand a little better how to optimize our biology, check out this article on mice that are basically Lance Armstrong on crack:
The mice over-express a gene responsible for the enzyme phosphoenolypyruvate carboxykinases (PEPCK-C). Normal expression is in the liver, in the production of glucose.
The scientists found their new mice would eat twice as much as normal mice – but weigh half as much. They could also give birth at three years old – which in human terms is akin to an 80-year-old woman giving birth.
via BBC NEWS
The folks over at autounleashed.com have a super little article on the new Lamborghini concept, the Embolado. The concept was developed by Luca Serafini.
Hot damn, just look at that thing. It’s like a shark meeting a fighter jet.
I don’t know what the deal is with the slew of video posts lately, but they are just oh-so-easy to link. And really cool, like this one. A pinhole camera in an internal combustion engine chamber 
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