For a writer who grew up in an age when his chosen genre was routinely derided in polite company— when even impolite company could be forgiven for thinking that SF boiled down to megablockbusters about snarky sapient raccoons and alien-punching fighter pilots— it doesn’t get much better than waking up to find that a big […]
Author Archive
11
Jul
2017
The 600.
When a pop science symposium takes place in Bulgaria’s premiere, state-of-the-art convention hall— when past speakers include bestselling authors and actual scientists talking about their own cutting-edge research— and when they ask you to give a talk on a profoundly difficult branch of science in which you have no formal expertise whatsoever— it’s reasonable to […]
29
Jun
2017
Promises, Promises
Yeah, it’s been a while. There’ve been deadlines: stories to complete, talks to give. Mostly met now, for the time being. I’m never deadline-free but the pressure’s off for a month or so. I’m back. There’s Bulgaria to report on, the usual crunchy science if I can get caught up. Today, though, I’m going to […]
07
Jun
2017
Proof of Principle
Dateline Munich. Scribbled in a near-coma while sitting in a chair which has been designed by aliens who obviously never looked at a human body. Which is to say, at an airport… Something slipped under my radar last week. I was nose-deep in “Freeze-Frame Revolution” and the upcoming Ratio talk, and when I looked up […]
02
Jun
2017
An X-Prize for Irony.
You may have heard of these things called “X Prizes”: big cash awards, handed out by the non-profit Xprize Foundation to encourage advances in everything from spaceflight to genomics to undersea exploration. It’s run by some pretty big names; Craig Venter may ring a bell with some of you. Or Ray Kurzweil. Or, um, Arianna […]
10
May
2017
“You Tried So Hard”, The Toilet of Poking, and Other Tales of Adrenaline Week.
Three days in Warsaw. Three in Poznań. Four days in Berlin. Fifteen hours travel time stapled to either end. It rained the whole time. I’m typing this 15000 meters over the Mid Atlantic Ridge. Behind us, Europe is turning bright and sunny after its long deluge. Ahead of us, Toronto braces to evacuate waterfront homes […]
12
Apr
2017
Noms and Cons and Metal Alms
Stuff’s been piling up in the wings as a side-effect of my ongoing battle against ego creep— enough now, as it turns out, to warrant a whole catch-all catch-up post in its own right. And since some of the following travel plans might intersect with the occasional fan, I should probably outline where I’m going […]
05
Apr
2017
Whispers in the Vomit Vale.
The hatch closed at our backs, swallowing us in brief darkness; it brightened to dim twilight as our eyes adjusted to luciferin constellations glowing dimly on all sides. We stood on a catwalk half a meter above rock and drifts of thin soil. (Eri‘s botanicals take their lead from the rainforests of Earth’s long-dead tropics: […]
29
Mar
2017
Cambridge Analytica and the Other Turing Test.
Near the end of the recent German movie “Er Ist Wieder Da” (“Look Who’s Back”), Adolph Hitler— transported through time to the year 2015— is picking up where he left off. On the roof of the television studio that fueled his resurgence (the network thought they were just exploiting an especially-tasteless Internet meme for ratings), […]
06
Mar
2017
Oprah’s X-Men: Thoughts on Logan
Lers of Spoi. You have been warned. There’s always been a contingent of X-Men fans who insist on seeing Mutant as Allegory, a metaphor—albeit a heavy-handed one— for prejudice and disenfranchisement. Mutants routinely get invoked as a sort of Other Of The Week: stand-ins for unwanted immigrants, untrusted ethnicities, oppressed orientations. I’ve never been a […]
