Be sure to pay a visit to the new Web site of Calgary author Danita Maslan, whose first novel, Rogue Harvest, will be launched at Westercon in a few days. And buy her book!
The glowing tower
The Tower Originally uploaded by Edward Willett. That’s not the title of my new fantasy novel (though it wouldn’t be a bad one). It’s the Conservatory of Music and Dance here in Regina, lit by the late evening sun last night just after a thunderstorm passed over. We were at the Conservatory because my daughter …
Somewhere over the rainbow…
Rainbow Originally uploaded by Edward Willett. …bluebirds sing, but under this rainbow, it mostly rained last night.
Orange sky at night
Orange Sky at Night Originally uploaded by Edward Willett. This is why we call Saskatchewan “Land of Living Skies.” This was taken last night, looking west, just as a thunderstorm moved off to the East.
Dungeons and Dragons artist dies
Not to speak ill of the dead, but candidly, I always figured the reason they used this guy’s artwork on the D&D rulebooks was because they couldn’t afford anyone better at that stage.
More on brain emulation and consciousness copying
The Speculist has an interesting discussion on the effort to emulate the human brain…and how that ties in with the prospect of someday copying the human mind into a computer.
Hard-drive video cameras debut
When I bought a digital video camera last year, I remember wondering why I couldn’t just record straight to a hard drive (yes, I know, I can, but only when connected to a computer; there isn’t one in my camera itself). JVC has taken the logical next step and created a camera that can do …
A new supersonic airliner?
Japan and France have announced they are jointly developing a new supersonic passenger plane, with up to three times as many seats as the dear departed Concorde and able to fly Tokyo to New York in six hours. And about time, too. Weren’t all passenger planes supposed to be supersonic by now? I’m sure that’s …
Rise of the seedless watermelon
I clearly remember one summer night when I was a kid, sitting on the back porch of a farmhouse near Manchester, Texas, eating the hearts out of the yellow watermelons grown in the fields out back, throwing the remnants to the dogs–and spitting seeds. Lots of ’em. Kids today may never have to spit a …
Only Imperial Stormtroopers can dance with such precision!
Words fail me. From the CBC account of a tribute held in George Lucas’s honor, at which he received the American Film Institute’s lifetime-achievement award: “Also on hand was William Shatner, who performed a reworked version of the Frank Sinatra song My Way to describe Lucas’ career. The Star Trek actor was accompanied by a …
What he said
I love this quote from Howard Lovy’s Nanobot. If I understand correctly,it’s a paraphrase of a statement by Neil Gershenfeld, director of the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT: “This is the assumption I wake up with every day — that there is a crucial need for as many people as possible to understand …
More on the simulated brain
Here’s an interesting Q&A about the effort to simulate the human brain using a supercomputer. An in response to my question, ignored in most of the news items I’ve seen, about the possible emergence of intelligence… “Q: How do you relate your research to the field of artificial intelligence? “HM: We are not trying to …
My latest live walk and vlog
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