Science

SF Sunday: machines and freedom from slavery

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From my Quotes File (which you can see serving up random quotes at the bottom of the sidebar):

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture, and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)

I find the search for the perfect robot society a continuing feature of SF novels,

Bedside Manner

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I shared this on my eljay the other day, and thought some Hoydenizens might appreciate it. ‘Tis a conversation I had with my son, known online as The Lad, the other day after school. I wish I could adequately communicate the tone of voice and the flourishes.

“Hi. I’m Doctor Lad.”

“Hi, Doctor.”

“I’m going to have to take an X-ray. Zzht. zzp, zzp, zht. Ohhhhh.” [serious look]

Musing on male contraception

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Until now both technical and psycho-cultural barriers have prevented the development of effective chemical male contraception, with the psycho-cultural barriers being the primary reason that there does not exist a sufficient potential market to drive investment in R&D to overcome the technical barriers. Even the MRAs who so bemoan women trapping them into unwanted paternity appear oddly unwilling to consider funding the R&D for an effective Male Pill

Contagious yawning and canine empathy

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From the BBC:

Until recently it was thought that only humans and their primate cousins displayed contagious yawning, but now it’s been shown that dogs display the behaviour as well.

Yawning, although sometimes a response to extreme stress, is more often a sign of tiredness; but the reason for why yawning is catching is not fully understood.

LIMIT OF MAPS

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So. Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ll know that Google StreetView has now indexed Australia. At first I thought it was only the cities – I idly looked up my place (feeling vaguely uncomfortable), and some places I lived growing up, and had a peek at the Perth CBD.

Then I realised they’ve also photographed a fair whack of the countryside, too. And not just the easy parts. They didn’t stint on crossing the Nullarbor:

“For want of a transporter”

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Despite several attempts, the cremated remains of actor James Doohan (Scotty in Star Trek) have not yet made it out into space.

While the family understands that being on the cutting edge of technology can mean that things often do not go as planned, they’re not finding this easy. His son Ehrich writes:

SF Sunday: intricately detailed worlds etc

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I was having a grand old discussion about space-elevators (originally called sky-hooks) with my DBH last night, in particular how Arthur C. Clarke managed to flub some of the construction-tech in Fountains of Paradise, and how Charles Sheffield’s more accurate construction-tech in his almost simultaneously published space-elevator novel was mocked for not being the same as Clarke’s even after Clarke said “hey, actually he got it right”.