A week with the Gutsy Gibbon

Posted on October 28, 2007 by Pace Arko

So I upgraded to Ubuntu 7.1 last weekend. Things went very smoothly. Prior to this, System76 sent out some upgrades for their hardware drivers, perhaps in anticipation of everyone migrating to 7.1. There was really only one hitch. My screen brightness now twitches on occasion. This is due to a known power management bug that System76 is working on. Luckily there is also workaround with manual screen settings in Ubuntu’s power management tool so, this minor hitch is easily ignored.

Some things changed. GAIM became Pidgin and Nvu became KompoZer, hopefully with some improvements that I’ll care about. There is now a bluetooth connection management tool as well. I currently don’t have any other devices that use bluetooth but I guess its got to have it there so I don’t have to edit configuration files or open a command prompt.

Some of the administrative tools got changed a little, mostly small improvements that I’ve found helpful–no complaints there. Many icons got changed a bit but I really don’t care about that.

Dancing Baloney

In keeping with the Linux theme: here is a photo of a cute penguin!

Not believing the hype, I left Beryl–or Compiz Fusion or whatever it is they’re calling it now–turned off when I upgraded to Gutsy.

Why?

I don’t believe the agitprop that this stuff is supposed to improve productivity. How is a spinning cube going to help me switch faster between multiple desktops? I already know the keystrokes to do that. Is a spinning cube going to prevent me from getting lost? I’ve got a little simple indicator down in the corner to tell me which desktop I’m in; I’ve got CTRL+ALT+ARROW. How hard can it be? What does a gyrating polyhedron give me aside from eye candy?

In Vista’s Aero it’s the same. What does a floating array of application windows to leaf through gain me that ALT+TAB doesn’t already give? I’ve turned off all that floating, transparent, three-dimensional, Aero junk on my Vista machine at work.

I’ve played around with OS X’s Dock. It’s pretty flashy and I guess pretty useful too but, that’s only becase I don’t know all the keystrokes to quickly cycle through windows, applications and workspaces on a Mac. If I knew those, I wouldn’t bother with Dock.

The desktop metaphor is mature. There really isn’t a lot to improve it. Back in the Seventies Xerox PARC’s research already made it abundantly clear in the interface where an application window was minimizing to or where it was restoring from. Apple refined this nicely in the Eighties. Microsoft caught up with this in Windows 95. X and it’s environments have just been aping everything that Xerox, Apple and Microsoft did. Hardly anything has happened since then.

Self-immolating windows, windows that slither back to the dock, taskbar or panel like furling sails, wobbly windows that flutter like flags, windows that remind me of Riemannian manifolds–shadows, translucencies, fades, perspective geometry–nothing is really gained by this.

The bright sparks behind Apple, Microsoft and Linux would do better to concentrate on real usability improvements instead of eye candy.

For example, Opera actually improved the usability of web browsing by introducing tabbed pages back in the late Nineties. Firefox then introduced this idea to the masses. Internet Explorer 7 vindicated the idea. This was a real interface improvement. So why aren’t we getting similar stuff in the rest of the operating system?

Because that’s all figured out now. The conceptual space is pretty much mined out. Now it’s just the envy of the other company’s spinning, shiny things. Anyway, no eye candy for me.

Virtual Machines

About a month earlier I installed Innotek’s VirtualBox. Since I couldn’t get one of my old games to run in WINE, I installed Virtualbox and installed XP within it. The game worked there just fine. Of course my old games are hardly resource hogs on today’s hardware but, even still, I was surprised at the speed at which XP runs inside Virtualbox. I guess modern computers really are getting faster!

The other advantage in using XP inside Virtualbox is that I can run all that Microsoft .NET development stuff I bought four years ago without dual booting. That will keep my IIS web skills up to date.

Virtualbox isn’t open source but it is free for personal use as long as you don’t ask for support. Besides I’ve already made a variety of compromises by installed proprietary multimedia codecs like DivX, LAME, SWF and so on. So it goes.

Wireless on the bus!

So commuting home last week, I finally had a chance to connect to the free 801.11 service Sound Transit now offers on limited routes. Downloaded my mail, read some pages, fun!

Posted in Computer Support | Comments Off on A week with the Gutsy Gibbon

Circus of the Mighty Session Log

Posted on October 23, 2007 by Pace Arko

A Milo illustration of Dwalor, Holy Warrior of Molna, confronting 3 headed diabolic hounds

Victor, Greg, Ralph and Ian in attendance. 9-23-2007 around 5PM until about 9:30PM. However what follows is really a summary of two sessions:

To recap briefly:

The Circus is in Darth Lom, driven there primarily by Thalin’s vague but powerful paranoia and his obsessive curiosity for the histories and cultures of this ancient land. But specifically they are there to find the Great Udamalore, a ceremonial weapon and badge of office for the clerical caste of Basharka. Due to several divine visions, received at the Temple of Montintera, the Circus has reason to believe that finding this weapon will stop Lady Tyrathect’s plot to revive an ancient evil force only known as the King in Yellow.

After defeating a gigantic toad and speaking with a retired ngoma (The ngoma are something like the bards of Udra–historians, journalists, social critics and musicians.) in the city of Kisi, they were placed on the trail of Amonis, a hero who was also hunting for the Udamalore. Ironically, Mandark had briefly spoken with Amonis in the city Mademba more than two years before.

Amonis told Mandark that several hundred years ago, thieves from Mademba had stolen the Udamalore. It has since been missing and forgotten but recently the current great priestess of Basharka, Nyathera, has offered lands and possessions totaling 250,000 gold pieces for its return. The rumor is that Nyathera is plotting to invade the neighboring caliphate of Boroko. The stories have it that ones who wield the Udamalore can raise armies and command the will of the people.

Following the trail of Amonis that the ngoma had told them of, the Circus was planning to enter the southern portion of the enormous Bida Rainforest. Amonis had planned to search for the ancient capital of the Kosan Empire within the Bida. He had reason to believe that the Udamalore might be there. To do this the Circus joined caravan to the city of Boha-Boha, deep in the foothills of the Kuba Mountain Range at the head of the Kalimara River. Boha-boha is a large city, 22,000 dwellers, and marks the western end of the united kingdoms of of Taumau and Boha.

In Boha-boha, they began making inquiries. Amonis had passed through the city 6 months earlier on his search for the Great Udamalore.

The Circus is Spied Upon

In the city there were three, possibly four, spies on the lookout for people searching for the Great Udamalore. These spies as it later turned out were working for a guerilla organization of assassins called the Cult of the Leopard.

Hilda went out to investigate the city to see if she could find someone who’d seen or spoken with Amonis. She also was looking for contraband magic. As she well knew, arcane magic was forbidden in many parts of Nyambe. Making discreet inquiries, she eventually came to a merchant who could supply her with these taboo items. But as she spoke with the shopkeeper, his expression suddenly changed and took on a darker character. He laughed, challenged her and tried to frighten her off. It seemed as if he were possessed.

But he was no match for her. Recognizing the signs of possession Hilda immediately enveloped the man in her clock of the mountebank and dimensionally shifted with him back to the inn where the circus was staying at. Thalin’s anti-scrying magic immediately triggered and he spotted the one who was spying on the circus.

Thalin immediately scryed in return. His vision revealed a leader in the leopard cult, He was busily, hastily writing a letter that said the following:

“Lady Asimwe,

“I was discovered! There are eight of them. The masked one, Thalin, scented me and I must write quickly now.

“I have will give this note to Alif. He will call our shadows [Translator’s note: “NDalawo”] to stop these foreign interlopers that Chebo warned us against. Alif will alert all our brothers and sisters. The Great Jaundiced Lord shall return! It is a pity we have to move before we are quite ready. Preparations in Kogo are not ready but due to my failure, we have to move quickly now.

“Their magic is alien, Asimwe. Expect the rules to change.

“I regret my failure. May the Jaundiced One erase my errors forever!

“[Signed] Lord Chandu, [He stamped the letter with a stylized leopard stamp. The letter was also dated and gave the location of its writing. The city of Kogo, on the Eastern end of the Kiya Vua Samaki.]”

Upon finishing the letter, and clearly to prevent further scrying, Lord Chandu suicided with a ceremonial dagger.

Shaking himself out of the scrying trance, Thalin cursed softly. He hated when they did that!

Hilda remember over two years ago speaking with the Lord of Kogo. He was a curious man and very interested in Hilda and her expedition but, he struck Hilda as easily distracted and not the best ruler for a city. However he did speak of some trouble he was having with rebel cultists. Perhaps they were the same as these Leopard guys.

She went out again into the city. To try and find the spies that lead the Leopard Cult to the Circus. Over the next week Hilda learned what she could abut the city. Finding its more disreputable neighborhood. This she found near the tanneries, black smiths and stone cuttling yards. There was a cafeteria of sorts, Mother Kas’, It was an open air lunch room that usually served palm-wine, sorghum, chicken and yam dishes to the masons, tanners and smiths. It wasn’t especially rowdy or menacing a place but the rumor was that if you wanted to find a fence or someone of the criminal underground. Inquiries could be made here.

Dwalor decided to go searching around town himself to find a guide to help the circus find there way through the Bida. This he did with a comprehend languages spell. He went to market to make inquiries but, just when he’d found a lead, his language spell expired.

Hilda, Helga and Mandark form a stake out

Questioning locals, Hilda learns that most of the neighborhood workforce, many masons, tanners and smiths, often break for lunch and siesta at Mother Kas’ open air kitchen. This consisted of a cookhouse, an adjoining shack and large, fenced outdoor cafeteria. Mandark discretely turned invisible and took up a position near this yard. He had a good view of Hilda and Helga and the entire crowed. He strung his bow and waited for something to happen.

Hilda engaged a stone cutter, Tompo, in talk about Amonis, trying to learn what his activities were on that last day he was in town. Apparently Amonis was one to celebrate and share his victories and good fortune. The stonecutter remember a party that Amonis held at Mother Kas’ only days before he left. Helga sat with Hilda silently observing the crowd.

Helga noticed, across the yard, something subtle. A man seemed to be taking notes in a manner that was suspiciously synchronized with Hilda’s conversation. this man appeared be holding a cowrie shell to his ear, as if listening to something, and then jotting down notes. Helga, using a coded phrase, alerted Hilda that something was up then, after a few minutes, she drew on her cloak of the mountebank, left the cafe, ducked behind a gravel pile near the cafe, turned invisible and then used the cloak to dimension door right next to the man who was spying on Hilda and her. She materialized and attempted to wrestle the man to the ground. He evaded her grasp, scooped up his notes cast the cowrie shell into the dirt and attempted to crush it with his foot. Mandark spotted this and reacted immediately. He sprang into visibility, fired two magical stunning arrows straight at the man’s solar plexus. The spy collapsed in groaning pain. Helga jumped on him and held him down. This all happened within two seconds.

By this point the crowd in the cafe had risen to their feet in confusion and alarm. The cook came out of the cookhouse door shouting, demanding to know what was going on. Hilda, always slippery and glib, simple took command of the situation and talked their way out it.

They took the spy with them back to the inn where they were staying. Hilda got Stirge to stand behind her and look menacing as she questioned the spy. The spy, who’s name was , was actually quite cooperative. He said he and to others where hired by Alif to keep an eye peeled for anyone asking questions about Amonis and the great Udamalore. It was clear that the Leopard Cult was interested in capturing or even killing anyone looking for the old weapon.

Hilda asked how the spies delivered their reports. Sometimes by instantaneous and magical means and other times by a direct report to Alif himself. Hilda asked when will his next report be due. 2 wks.

Hilda wanted to prepare to meet this Alif with the full might of the Circus.

[And that’s more or less where we left it. Please let me know if I forgot anything and suggest all revisions.]

Posted in Circus of the Mighty, Games, Udra | 3 Comments

Goodbye Lola.

Posted on October 15, 2007 by Pace Arko

Lola, snapped by my web camera on August 18th 2007.

In early August my cat, Lola, was diagnosed with failing kidneys. The vet put her on a special diet, subcutaneous hydration and prescribe various medicines but the prognosis wasn’t good. It was mostly wait and see. She was old, over 16 years old.

Years ago when I set up this site, I promised myself I’d never put lame stories and pictures about the antics of my cat. I guess this entry is a violation of that promise.

My cat, Lola, was declawed. She had spent most of her life without claws on her front feet. This was not something I chose for her; it was the decision of her previous owners. I’ve sometimes daydreamed about regrowing her claws. To me, claws are a defining aspect of being a cat. Without claws, Lola was just a cute, furry pillow that purred a lot. She couldn’t express her displeasure any other way aside from, hissing, hiding or urinating on things.

She continued to loose weight, eating less and less, voiding less and less.

Veterinary medicine is not as closely regulated as human medicine. You only have to look at how animals are treated in factory farms to know that. I think that this is where all the controversy surrounding human stem cell therapy can be bypassed. Some people do care if animals are mistreated but there isn’t really a vocal group that objects to fetal stem cell use in animals. This removes a lot of ideological barriers that slow the advance of medicine.

But there are other barriers. Individual pet owners probably won’t volunteer their own pets for such testing even when threatened with the imminent death of their pets. Even those pet owners who did want to subject their pets to such experiments would need a lot of money to pay for these new therapies. They’d also have to accept the great likelihood of failure. Agribusiness might be more willing to pay these costs or take these risks of death from failure but, on the other hand, it’s generally cheaper for cattle ranches and dairy farms to just grind the aging animal up for dog food or a geletin rendering plant.

Despite these economic barriers, progress is being made. We know that regeneration in mammals is possible. They’ve regrown teeth in rats and mice. They have a special breed of knockout mice that can regenerate tissue and even limbs.

But that’s all moot now. I may have daydreamed on occasion on regrowing Lola’s claws or her kidneys or cryonically suspending her little kitty brain but that’s all done now.

Lola died between 3:55 and 4:10 on Monday, October 15th. She let me know she was dying. I had her sleeping on my bed for the last few nights of her life. She meowed loudly a few times and then went into a series of shuddering, increasingly spaced inhalations. These diminished until they stopped. Her body struggled to stay alive even though her nerves and cells were swimming in the poison of their own wastes. Her kidneys had more or less given up over a month earlier.

I knew this day would come. I knew 12 years ago when I took her from my friend. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

You see, I’d taken pets to vets for mercy killing before, two dogs and another cat from earlier eras of my life. It wasn’t fun. Giving a fatal dose of barbiturates to someone you’ve grown attached is hard to watch. I guess I’m a coward but, I just couldn’t bring Lola into the vet to do that. As such her last days were suffering that could have been avoided. And to compound that, just tonight, I learned that some cats have been kept alive for years after their kidneys failed because their loose skin allows for easy rehydration of body tissue–a cheap and fairly effective alternative to kidney dialysis.

Sorry Lola. If I’d known that I would have bought a few more bags of saline.

On the other hand at least a hyena or some other young, healthy predator didn’t take you down on the Sahel. At least you didn’t die of parasites. At least you died of old age in my bedroom.

She was a very nice cat. Everyone liked her. Even some of my friends, who did’t like cats very much, liked her.

I’ve decided on cremation. Tomorrow I go to the Humane Society.

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments

Defenestrating Keyboards

Posted on August 18, 2007 by Pace Arko

A close up photo of the Windows key with a negation symbol over it.

Actually, that’s not strictly accurate. I don’t want to throw a keyboard out of a window. I want to remove the Microsoft branding from my Linux laptop keyboard. I don’t think it’s really spite. Microsoft makes a decent enough set of operating systems and applications. It’s just that it reduces my cognitive dissonance to have commodity hardware be as platform neutral as possible.

For example, what do we call it? Mostly I’ve heard it called “windows key,” “win key” or, in combination with other keystrokes, “window.” I’ve read that some call it the “flag key” or “flag” but, I’ve never heard it called that way with the technicians I hang around. I’ve read that it sometimes can be referred to as “meta” but, again, never in shops that I’ve talked.

These keys, the menu and win key, are rather recent additions. Most keyboards didn’t have them in the early to middle 1990s. Some recent IBM/Lenovo laptops still don’t have them–to my great annoyance.

Linux and a several open source applications therein actually do use the win key. In Linux it’s called “super” and in addition its default settings it can be mapped to other important functions. Linux also uses the new menu key, usually in the same way that XP or Vista use it, to pop up a context menu.

The point is can we refer to it in neutral way, just like we’ve come to refer to escape, control and alt (I think “alt” used to mean “alternate” back in the 1970s.)? It doesn’t help that the key is clearly branded with the Microsoft Windows logo. Maybe we can call it “sys” for “system menu?” Calling it “super” might alienate non-Linux people.

So what about Apple keyboards? They’ve had logos and branding on their keyboards since the beginning. Apple truly is a full solution provider. They design and assemble the hardware their software runs on and they sell each gadget as a complete platform. I’m pretty sure you can swap Apple keyboards with commodity ones and have them work on Apple or commodity systems but, since Apple designed their keyboard for their systems, I have no problem with their branded keys.

Commodity systems, on the other hand, can run DOS-likes, OS2, Linux, BSD, Windows, BeOS and probably one or two other operating systems I’ve never heard about so, commodity keyboards ought to be neutral.

So what do I do in the mean time? Well, I could make a little Tux mascot in GIMP, print it out to some adhesive labels and stick them on my win keys but, doesn’t that perpetuate the platform references? If I put the Ubuntu logo on it, doesn’t that slight all the other distributions out there? Until we can agree on what to name this new key, I think I’ll just use some plastic model paint and smear the logo out.

Posted in Computer Support | 4 Comments

One Week with Fiesty Fawn

Posted on August 11, 2007 by Pace Arko

So I’ve had my new Darter Ultra laptop for about a week. I’ve noticed many improvements in speed for many tasks–still image rendering, page loading, conversion of file formats, copying large files and so on. I’m very pleased.

My first snapshot from my webcamera!

A very small warning for strangers out there considering buying a System76 machine. They don’t exactly ship out-of-crate-ready. I did have to consult the documentation and their support site briefly to figure out how to turn on the wireless transceiver and webcamera and to learn that there are no drivers yet for the fingerprint reader. But these are very minor and easily figured out things. To be fair, many Microsoft machines don’t ship out-of-crate-ready either. On the whole I’m very happy with this gadget!

Another snapshot from my laptop. Looking rather relaxed I guess.

The transition being so smooth, I decided to strike out for unexplored territory. I wanted to give WINE a try and see if I could run some old games within it. I haven’t tried this before because most of my hardware is very old and I felt that running games in WINE would be agonizingly slow.

But now that I’ve got the iron, I decided to take the leap.

This snapshot was taken days before my plunge into WINE but I thought the facial expression was appropriate.

Perversity in the universe tends to a maximum. Wouldn’t you know it? I choose Torment (How aptly named!); one of the very few old games that recent versions of WINE can’t support. I didn’t discover this until after the fact. In trying to install and run it, I toasted Gnome within my account. It’s probably some bogus instruction in a Gnome configuration file. Now Linux won’t log me into Gnome. I can get into bash just fine so, I figure, if I can find the right configuration file and edit it, I can fix everything. So I sign up with the Ubuntu Forums to post my questions.

Let that be a warning to me in future WINE expeditions: Check reports about applications at WineHQ first!

Has this soured my experience? No. Actually the problem my own impulsive ignorance caused seems very simple to fix if I only knew which line to edit in the configuration files. Configuration files are always text based in Linux. The system hides nothing from you. You can fix it directly, if you know where to look.

A snapshot taken from my laptop on the bus home from work.

Imagine a similar video driver problem hidden within compiled binary in Window’s registry hive. If you’re lucky, you can just replace corrupted files, edit a few keys and hope that registry didn’t assign unique GUIDs to them. Otherwise, you’d have to back up your data, flatten and rebuild.

Posted from my old desktop running Dapper Drake.

Posted in Computer Support | Comments Off on One Week with Fiesty Fawn

Web comics

Posted on July 30, 2007 by Pace Arko

Some interesting science fiction web comics I came across recently:

  • Bohemian Drive: In a post-human future, two obsolete robots go on a
    road trip through the Solar System. Hijinks and soul searching ensue.
  • The Spiders: In an alternate history, President Gore’s Department of Defense wages war in Afghanistan. Mind control weapons and utterly ubiquitous surveillance drones are everywhere. Weird things begin to happen. Trust me, this comic depicts a world only seconds away from our future. It’s terribly sad that this comic has been dormant for four years. I gave him money, because Patrick S. Farley, whether he knows it
    or not, is a kick-ass science fiction writer.
  • Gone with the Blastwave: Think of life after Doctor Strangelove, think of Catch 22, think of Red
    versus Blue, in a bleak, ruined cityscape after a nuclear war, surviving soldiers get progressively more detached and absurd.
  • Node: What psychotherapy will probably be like in the near future.
Posted in Books | 2 Comments

Web stuff link roundup

Posted on July 26, 2007 by Pace Arko

This is another one of these lab-notebook, thinking-out-loud entries.

So it’s been a while since I had a rant about Web standards. I think this is for a few reasons:

  • It looked to me that we standardistas had won and this obsession of mine was getting boring. For a while , new things weren’t happening fast enough in the field to keep my interest.
  • I was getting demoralized with my webmaster business. For all kinds of stupid and not so stupid reasons, it wasn’t making me money. I lost over 40,000 dollars over the last seven years trying to learn how to work for myself.
  • Since October 2006, I’ve been mostly focused on my new part-time job with NGT. I’ve been very busy as of late.

Anyway, my attention waned and wandered from this area of endeavor. But things never stand still. Tonight I’ve learned of Microsoft’s decision to kill FrontPage and start again with Expression. That’s old news to people hipper than me but, I’ve just learned of it because I wasn’t paying attention. Also I’ve learned about some new WYSIWYM, inline, web-form-based, editors that show promise to me. That being inadequately explained, here are the links:

Posted in Webmastering | Comments Off on Web stuff link roundup

Early birthday gift to myself

Posted on July 25, 2007 by Pace Arko

Small photo of the Darter Ultra from System76

Day before yesterday, I bought a brand new laptop. This will be the first brand new computer I’ve bought in 7 years. My venerable Inspiron 3800 ran Win2k, XP, Redhat 7, Knoppix 3 and Ubuntu 6. I upgraded its RAM, upgraded its HDD, gave it 802.11g and replaced a cracked screen. Its DVD drive is broken, its USB port is sketchy and the battery is unchargable and exhausted but it has served me well. Seven years is a mighty career for a laptop! But now, I must move on.

Now, I know that some of my tiny audience out there will look over the specifications and the price for my Darter Ultra and say I got a bad deal. For example Dell’s offerings appear to be cheaper but this is rather deceptive.

Looking over the specifics, a similarly equipped Dell laptop($1,284.00) in comparison to the one I customized from System76 ($1,428.00) are reasonably close in price.

  • They both have the same CPU and RAM
  • They the same GPUs
  • They have similar optical storage
  • They have the same harddrive
  • They also have similar support and warranty
  • The Inspiron’s screen is about 5 cm longer in the diagonal than the Darter but they both support the same resolution depth
  • The System76 masses half a kilogram less, has a built-in webcam (I don’t think I’ll need it.), supports megabit ethernet and a slightly longer battery life due to the smaller screen. I think this is what I’m paying for.

I can already hear the smirking from Bakafish: “But you can get all that in a similarly equipped Macbook for a similar price ($1,674.00)! And duh, it’s a Mac!” To which I reply, if I get Apple hardware at all, it’s gonna be the cheapest they sell. What–600 bucks for a Mini? As far as toys are concerned, Apple is way down my list.

Posted in Computer Support | 2 Comments

Three Futuristic Questions

Posted on July 20, 2007 by Pace Arko

So, about a week ago, Jamais Casico put up a page where he asked the following three questions:

  • What do you fear we’ll likely see in fifteen years?
  • What do you hope we’ll likely see in fifteen years?
  • What do you think you’ll be doing in fifteen years?

Here are my attempts to answer them.

The first two are kind of dull to me because they always make me think of stuff that many people have already thought of. The good futurists are the ones who surprise with unexpected perceptions how the world is changing. They spot something the rest of us miss. I’m no good at that. But they are provocative questions that give me something to write about.

Fears for the Future

For example, in my closet of fears are the usual suspects:

  • Global warming
  • continued dependance on fossil fuels
  • Overfishing
  • Deforestation
  • Pandemics
  • Nuclear terrorism
  • Nuclear war
  • Economic catastrophes, perhaps driven by some combination of the disasters listed above

Many of these risks and problems we’ve been living with for many years now.

What is really scary is the next 15 years will bring some terrible event that we did not expect. It’s always the ones we don’t suspect that get us in the end. Perhaps there’ll be some bizarre bioengineering failure that we didn’t expect, something like what happened to the oceans in Benford’s novel Timescape–not a really good book in my opinion but the ecodisaster he posited was unusual for its day.

My other comment is that I think nuclear war shouldn’t be ignored as much as it is these days. Russia and the United States still have significant portion of their strategic arsenals in standby. they could be reactivated within a few weeks. India and Pakistan could drag us all into a nuclear war whether we like it or not. Or it could be Israel versus Iran, or anyone else in the Middle East that gets the Bomb. Brazil is aspiring to join the Nuclear Club. Who’s next? Proliferation continues despite all efforts to stop it.

Lovers of apocalypse are often just as escapist as dreamy optimists because they think that everything will collapse in some exciting horror show. But they’re wrong. The reality of our world is that there are lots of dreary, grinding, slow, complex problems that slowly get solved, cease to be relevant or just drag on and on. Nothing really exciting about that.

I’m not really worried about some economic crash or horrible gigadeath. What worries me is that we’ll make no serious progress on present issues–that they’ll still be around, largely unchanged, in the decades yet to come.

Hopes for the Future

On the good news side of things, what will likely happen in the next 15 years:

I really don’t want to predict anything other than those really safe ones but what I’m hoping for in the next 15 years:

  • That to everyone’s surprise, a number of African countries will suddenly be trumpeted as stable, reformist, democratic, innovative, economic dynamos. Considering all the horrors Africans have had to endure over the last 500 years, they really, really, really deserve it.
  • Cheap, wearable computers. Ever since reading about that laser diode camouflage suit in Neuromancer, I’ve wanted a wardrobe of cheap tee-shirt displays. I’d run cartoons on them all the time, or running shell scripts.
  • Some nation makes a try at building a space elevator.

Personal Future

But now we get to the interesting question: What will I be doing in 15 years?

I have absolutely no idea.

Many deep personal changes happened to me over the last 15 years. I came into adulthood very slowly in comparison to many other people. For these and other reasons, I’ve never really built a career or set myself life goals. At nearly 44, I’m still very reactive and very easily satisfied. I do just what I need to survive. I haven’t amassed great wealth or fame or power. I probably won’t attain any of these in the next 15 either.

I read what other people guess they’ll be doing in ten or twenty years time and what strikes me is how little they think their lives will change. Will I still be a computer technician and webmaster in 15 years? It’s hard to see how I could be. The world changes too fast now. I change too much.

Maybe this is the reason why I turned down the offer from Microsoft. Something really scares me when I think about committing myself to corporate drudgery. If you’re only doing it for the money, you’re dead inside.

But that’s only the personal stuff.

15 years ago Window 3.1 was a new idea. The Internet hadn’t been privatized yet. I was still tending rats and mice for Tyler Labs. Entire industries didn’t even exist yet. The world didn’t even know that they needed webmasters.

Considering how much my personal world and the outside world has changed in the last 15 years, I think it’s rather silly for me guess at what I might be doing in 15 years.

I’ll try to answer these questions again in about a year’s time. Maybe I’ll have some better answers then.

Posted in The Future | Comments Off on Three Futuristic Questions

Nuclear-powered Airships

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Pace Arko

So I had an interesting discussion with Ms. Carlysle last Tuesday. Over the last year, she has been trying, with some success, to temper my knee jerk debunkery. She posited about military experimentation with nuclear powered, stealthy, airships as an explanation of some recent UFO sightings. Various governments and military establishments have been thinking about the idea since the 1950s.1,2,3

The idea is intriguing. Such airships could stay aloft for months, or even years, without refueling. Mostly, the limitations on duration would be food and consumables and the slow helium loss through the gasbags. Helium and food could be replenished by tending aircraft.

Wikipedia points to evidence that the Russians did experiment with nuclear aircraft but these were heavier than air craft using some kind of variation on nuclear thermal rockets. This research was abandoned because the radioactive exhaust from these rockets was an environmental nightmare. I’m guessing that various nuclear test ban treaties also forbid further research.

An airship would be different. It would only use the reactor to generate electricity to drive conventional propellers and turbines. The gasbags of airship could be made large enough to lift a heavily shielded reactor of sufficient size. Nuclear airships would be like nuclear submarines.

So why haven’t these things been built?

  • It’s hard, but not impossible, to make giant balloons less visible to radar, infrared and eyes.
  • Airships aren’t fast. This prevents some military applications.
  • Public worry over nuclear reactors flying overhead.
  • The difficulty of finding a task for these airships that can’t be met, more cheaply, in some other way.

Nuclear airships might be like that other science fiction dream, the personal jet-pack. Sure it’s doable but expensive, limited and not really that useful.

Posted in Science and Engineering | 3 Comments