Category Archives: The Future

A 1000 Hours of AOL Free!

Despite the fact that AOL/TW knows they’ve saturated the US market and have got all the customers they’re gonna get here, they still keep sending out those stupid disks. Just today I got the AOL 7 disk, unsolicited, in the … Continue reading

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Why I Don't Read Science Fiction Anymore

When I read stuff about giant arcologies and I note that hardware stores still don’t sell robot housekeepers or personal jet packs, I just sigh. Hopefully I’ll see these things before I die.

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The cyberpunk movement got it wrong

Asia will be old hat, along with Europe and North America, when nano and AL really get going. I predict the real interesting technological churn will happen in the finally developed, finally stable countries of Africa. Think I’m nuts? Stranger … Continue reading

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Pre-Colonial, Sub-Saharan African History

A few days ago, Ms. Carlysle pointed me in the direction of some interesting historical scholarship namely, helping Steve Jackson Games to compile a GURPs source book on the pre-colonial history of the kingdoms and nations of Sub-Saharan Africa. It’s … Continue reading

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"…the hours in an offhand way."

Another link round up: Yahoo bought GeoCities and got WebRing as an afterthought. Now, a year later they’ve sold WebRing. Not that anybody really cared being that lots of imitations sprung up after Yahoo bought it. People decided that the … Continue reading

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Transportation in the XXI Century

Hey look! Paper Models of High Speed Trains! Automobiles powered by fuel cells!

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Progress as Entertainment

I’ve changed my mind in the last few years. I’ve always found some of the political and economic ideology of the extropians, transhumanists and their ilk objectionable but now, I think some of them are getting a little too religious. … Continue reading

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Is civilization speeding up?

I read James Gleick‘s Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything nearly a year ago and today I came across a skeptical review of a book with, in my mind, a similar theme. Is technical progress accelerating? An odd question … Continue reading

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On the Morality of Superhumanly Intelligent Artificial Organisms

Let me explain what I mean by that title. I don’t mean to ask if the creation of superhuman artificial intelligences is a wise decision or not because a lot has already been said about that. Also I am not … Continue reading

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Zip the commercials!

Advertising is everywhere these days. It’s becoming like that Pohl and Kornbluth story, where advertising was even on the wallpaper and toilet paper. I think it’s gone far enough. I think people should be allowed to pay more for no … Continue reading

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