In the far flung future, it looks like we get our own planet, but the lack of vitamin D has led to drastic mutations!

Still, not as bad as what happens to Emos…

 

One of the Holy Grails of post-humanistic / cyborg enhancements would be increasing the memory capacity of the human brain, either via genetic enhancement, drug therapies, or actual grafting of some sort of mechanical device, such as a microSD card that gets spliced directly to the brain using some kind of wetware… probably made from rats brains. The increased memory capacity, and surety of information retrieval provided by non-organic devices (let’s face it, your DVDs fail a lot less often than your brain does), makes this one of the most attractive areas of development.

After all, who wouldn’t want an eidetic memory? (more…)

I know I normally try to post something about Cyberpunk stuff on a Thursday, but Steampunk is kinda Cybperunk… or at least an offshoot of the literary vein.
So here we go!

Turns out that large scale airships, of the kind we’re always fantasizing about, may actually become a commercial reality within the forseeable future! Or at least they may according to recent chatter surrounding statements by a former chief scientific adviser to the British government, David King.

Now, rigid structure airships for passengers and freight kind of stopped being popular in the later part of the first half of the twentieth century thanks to the Hindenburg killing a few dozen people and exploding in a giant fireball. Filling it with hydrogen, and painting it in a substance that’s known to burn rapidly at temperatures roughly 10% of our sun’s surface may have had something to do with that. Or the way that the US wasted millions of dollars (when that was actually a lot of money) on trying to make flying aircraft carriers like the USS Macon and then staffing it with officers that figured the gas ballast would be similar to that in a submarine.

Those kinds of things tend to put people off a little. Kind of like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island poisoning the well, excusing the pun, of research and development of nuclear power.

Recently, as part of the global effort against man made greenhouse gas emissions, King (who I really need to point out is a professor and a knight of the realm… no, seriously!) suggested that perhaps all air travel that is not time critical be shifted to massive airship transport. This has naturally met with a lot of skepticism at a number of quarters.

One quarter is from the people that (rightfully) point out airships travel at about 100-120km per hour. If a train can get somewhere faster, these are going to be useless for domestic freight and passenger transport, and most people don’t want to spend 3-4 days aboard an aircraft to go overseas. These are all valid points, but totally strawman the point that this is meant to replace air transport for cargo, not passengers.

However, there are a certain breed of passengers that will pay for this, quite happily I might add, especially if it includes shopping and other fun, duty free activities. Of the dozen or so articles I’ve looked into regarding this, not a single one has considered the benefits of this idea from a tourism perspective.

Air cruises!

Airship tourism is growing fast… apparently. (Yeah, I really don’t believe that either…)

Never mind that you’ve instantly got the Steampunks and Retrofuturists that will want to get on board. There will be several every day types that are sick with the ocean going kind of cruise, having been on many before, and will want to try something new. Instead of scuba-diving off the back of the boat, there’d be para sailing or gliding. Bunjee jumping off the back. Rigid wing gliding to the destination point as the airship comes in to land! Amazingly fun times had by all, and provided the proper care is taken, people are no more likely to die from misadventure than they already do on cruise ships. Not to mention that due to the altitude, people won’t need to consume as much alcohol to have those same misadventures!

But considering that people are already using submarines for criminal purposes such as piracy and drug smuggling, I get the feeling it won’t be long until we actually see airpirates raiding these pleasure ships of the sky, like fat flying buffallo. Buffallo covered in ticks that happen to be obnoxiously rich! And no one likes obnoxiously rich parasites! Why, the fat cats riding these blimps that are only slightly larger than their own blimp like arses positively deserve the air piracy that is about to befall them! Air piracy brought to them courtesy of Robert DeNiro in a dress!

Normally, I try to keep myself out of this blog. My own personal life is not as entertaining (well, with the exception of my standup comedy featuring tentacles) as my inane ranting.

But I figure this may well be of interest to many of you, my dear readers. You see, you may have pegged me as something of a nerd. A geek. As socially graceful as my wardrobe is filled with bright colours and matching patterns. Frankly, I’m not sure what gave it away. The constant science fiction references, that I currently run the Melbourne Anime Festival, the collection of vintage calculators and Atari 2600 cartridges… Aren’t these the trappings of normal people?

I digress… The point is that I’ve recently acquired the SF&F bookstore Of Science & Swords. (more…)

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