Hope it’s a good one!
Author: Jon
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Robopocalypse
I recently read the novel Robopocalypse, a science fiction-y thriller about the, er, robot apocalypse—the uprising of robots and technology and the attempt to wipe out humanity, and overall I quite enjoyed it: a good “popcorn” book that entertaining and mostly plausible if you don’t think about it too hard. Definitely movie fodder, and I see that Steven Spielberg is indeed attached to direct the movie that’s coming out next year.From a storytelling standpoint, it’s structured in much the same way as World War Z: a history of the robot apocalypse, from various records and recollections, from the initial incidents through the finale of the war. This is a good, logical and easy-reading structure to adopt and as a result reads pretty quickly. And, it’s good at building suspense: even though the conceit is you’re reading a history—something that’s already happened and resolved otherwise you wouldn’t be reading it—you’ll keep turning the page to see what will happen next and how it all comes together.
The main quibble I have is the presence of a couple of “deus ex machina” (heh) plot threads that become key elements in the climax and resolution (one of which has a bit of a Matrix quality to it). Yes, I know it’s set in the (near) future and it’s sci-fi, but really that makes this type of thing even more jarring if you think too hard about it.
Otherwise it’s a good read, and of course there’s enough wiggle room to allow for a sequel. Because really, you can’t get enough robot apocalypse!
Further reading in case you’re interested.
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The most epic spam email ever
So I got this spam a little while back, and I couldn’t resist sharing. Here, in its entirety:
December 21, 2012:
Mayan Galactic Alignment
Once in 26,000 yearsCelebrate the end of the Mayan Calendar,
the Sun aligning with the center of the Galaxy,
and the 2012 Winter Solstice.Greetings ,
The “2012 Mayan Galactic Alignment” celebrates an astronomical event that happens once every 26,000 years.
Join me on a spectacular Cruise and Seminar-At-Sea to the sacred Mayan sites of the Yucatan, where we will gather in grand ceremonies and rituals that close a 5000-year era of darkness, and open a new eon of light – the ascension of humanity.
This is “the place to be on Dec. 21, 2012.”
The Carnival Triumph takes us to Chichen Itza and Cozumel, where we will honor this Time with ritual and ceremony, participate in seminars and healing while at Sea, and celebrate on a world class cruise ship.
On December 21, 2012, the Great Long Count Cycle, which began in 3114 BC, will end. The Fourth World will pass, and the “World of the Fifth Sun” will be born.
Now add your momentum to the vibrational energy that culminates in the peak spiritual event of the Millennium – the Winter Solstice, at the incredibly auspicious hour of 11:11 a.m. Universal Time on December 21, 2012. At that time, on that date, everything we know will change. We will enter a new world – a world of Ascension.
Learn more at http://www.mayancruise2012.com
Now hear a F’REE Teleseminar with speakers who will be on the cruise:
http://www.mayanteleseminar.comWhere will you be on Dec. 21, 2012 ?
We know where we will be – At this once-in-a-lifetime event !HIGHLIGHTS:
– Workshops on the seminar-at-sea, as amazing speakers, such as Fred Alan Wolf, expert Mayan scholars, and enlightened spiritual leaders awaken our consciousness!
– Nightly Skywatch with Richard C. Hoagland, as we view the Galactic Algnment, a once-in-26,000-year event!
– Awesome Rituals, Initiations, and Fire Ceremonies at Mayan temples with Mayan Elders Hunbatz Men and Tomasa Lissell as we prepare to enter the “World of the Fifth Sun.”
– The Sun aligning with Hunab K’u, the Center of the Galaxy, in a spectacular Solstice light transmission and telescope array.
– The precise moment, 11:11 AM GMT, the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar Cycle, witnessed in a Skywatch and Inner Journey to the Galactic Center, and with prayers, meditations, and light transmissions from the Ascended Masters.
– Visits to Chichen Itza and other pyramids and temples.
– Visit to San Gervasio, home of Ixchel, the Mayan Fertility Goddess, on Cozumel, and swim with her dolphins.
– Celebration of the Ascension of Humanity into a higher vibration with music, dance, food, and entertainment on a world class cruise ship.
– Honoring the date December 21, 2012, when the next cycle of human evolution begins, with transformative initiatory rituals by Mayan Elders, and meditation led by Babaji and other ascended beings.
This date is, by far, the epic metaphysical event of our lifetime.
And it comes once every 26,000 years!Space is Very Limited. Learn More and Register Now at http://www.mayancruise2012.com
Be a part of this vital process, as you contribute your spiritual energy to this keystone event. This gathering can transform the planet at a time when transformation is essential.
You are called to be a part of this planetary ascension of consciousness, at this time, in this place!
Space is Very Limited!
Learn More and Register Now at http://www.mayancruise2012.com
Mention my name when you register.“This is not a cruise. This is a Spiritual Experience. This is a spiritual awakening that will transform your life. You will pass from an age of darkness into an age of light. Your life will be blessed, and you will never be the same.”
—The Immortal BabajiMayan Apocalypse cruise. It’s hard to beat that.
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Reamde and Bill Cosby
No I’m not entirely sure how those two things go together: one is the latest novel from Neal Stephenson which had me riveted all the way through the 1000-odd pages, the other is the comedian best known for his influential TV series from the 1980s. I suppose it’s a pop cultural thing, but I’ve been trying to figure out what theme might be running through both topics in order to produce something profound out of a blog post.
Instead, well, here we are. The “theme” if any is that both were things I experienced in July, and it now being the end of July I figured I’d get it written down.
Reamde is a terrific novel that I nearly couldn’t put down; it weaves high-end World of Warcraft-style MMORPG
cyberpunker, nowpunk(?) with straight thriller style shoot-em-up almost seamlessly and so adeptly that you have to keep turning the page. I loved it and it occupied the better part of my mind while I was reading it, and except for one nagging minor plotline that never got addressed by the end, it’s nearly a perfect read.Seeing Bill Cosby live in Central Oregon was, despite its significance for Central Oregon, an event I was less excited about. Mostly because it took place on a Sunday afternoon (during a kid’s birthday weekend) out at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds—not exactly the ideal venue for which to see a comedian (seriously, the Tower Theatre would have been much better) but my wife won free tickets so what are you gonna do? The performance itself was fine, not entirely the caliber of his earlier years, and despite several issues with the handling of the venue and event itself (not Bill Cosby’s fault), it was an entertaining hour and a half.
So what does one have to do with another? Well nothing really, but there’s an interesting contrast between stories of a childhood framed by an era very few of us can understand (Cosby was born in 1937), and the modern future-is-now headspace of works like Reamde from authors like Neal Stephenson. And it seems like there should be something profound in that.
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Lost planet
Saw this article on Discover.com earlier this month and thought it was really interesting: The Solar System’s Lost Planet.
Nesvorny, who runs computer simulations to study how the solar system evolved over time, kept encountering the same problem: The four giant gas planets, whose orbits are comfortably far apart from each other today, kept violently jostling with each other in his models of the early solar system. Jupiter would end up tugging on Uranus or Neptune and casting one of them out into interstellar space. Obviously, that never happened. So Nesvorny came up with a clever explanation: He proposed that a fifth gas giant emerged from the planet-birthing cloud 4.5 billion years ago. Suddenly his simulations started matching reality. The outer planets still jockeyed for position, but this time Jupiter spared Uranus and Neptune and ejected the extra planet instead.
Not that we’d ever be able to know if this is correct (probably), but it certainly sounds logical. I just hope the Planet X/Nibiru nuts don’t jump all over this as proof of pending doom.
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The best chicken article I’ve read in awhile.
Actually this might be the only chicken article I’ve read now that I think about it. It’s long but really good. Did you know the Egyptians “mastered the technique of artificial incubation”? I did not.
Oh, and don’t forget, chickens are basically the descendants of dinosaurs which is awesome.
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WTH?
Zoom in on the Google Map of Corvallis, Oregon, near downtown and this is what you’ll see:
Er, what? How on earth did “Illinois” and “Nebraska” get in there?
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Timeline of the far future
On a similar topic to my previous post about the scale of the universe, I’ve been enjoying Wikipedia’s Timeline of the far future for equal amounts of mind-boggling scale. Really, once you hit 1020 years from now the numbers are pretty much meaningless to realistic human comprehension. But when you start hitting the exponents of the exponents? Like 10^10^50 (or to steal Wikipedia’s image:
) then all you can really do is quote:Although listed in years for convenience, the numbers beyond this point are so vast that their digits would remain unchanged regardless of which conventional units they were listed in, be they nanoseconds or star lifespans.
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The Scale of the Universe
I realized I missed posting in April entirely(!), and I don’t like the look of the gap in the archive calendar, so I’m back-dating this entry.
And you need to check this out, a Flash-animated Scale of the Universe that is simply mind-boggling. From the smallest structures known (quantum foam, the Planck length) to the largest (the size of the observable universe), that you can zoom in and out on, and it’s all to scale (relative to the zoom level). The coolest thing I’ve seen online lately.
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Cartoon theme music…
Does anyone remember the music in the ’80s Transformers and GI Joe cartoons that I can only best describe at “battle music”? It was only really played when the good guys were staging some sort of comeback, and the best example I can think of (supreme nerd alert here) is in the GI Joe “Serpentor” mini-series which introduced Sargent Slaughter, where Sgt. Slaughter led the charge against the BAT battalion in the first few minutes and then later in the third episode or something, fighting Dr. Mindbender at Sun Tzu’s tomb.
(Yeah I told you it was supreme nerd alert!)
It was reused a number of times in both series, and while I can find the clips on YouTube, I can not find any other references yet on the web—much less an MP3 of said music. Other than most of that music for those cartoons was composed by Robert Walsh, I think.
Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? Or am I just crazy?
) then all you can really do is quote: