Posts

On Dog and Cat Language

On Dog and Cat Language   Imagine that in the future, dogs and cats acquire the power of speech. This may be by evolution, or by our genetic manipulation, or a combination of the two; and the result gives dogs and cats the full human mental mechanics of vocabulary acquisition and grammar; by which they could send messages of great complexity and specificity. I predict that they would express this ability in different ways. Dogs would learn the human’s language; they would struggle to approximate human pronunciation; and it would mostly be about giving human orders to the dogs. Typical dog utterance; “What can I do for you?” The dogs would also talk to each other, in a doggy sub-dialect of the human language, with more words about smells. Some of these neologisms will be appropriated by the humans. Whereas the cats would teach a language to their humans; it would be in normal cat sounds, which the humans will clumsily approximate in reply; and it would be mostly about giving...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Democratizing Magic

On Democratizing Magic        I propose ‘democratizing magic’ as a trope fit for several genres: superheroes, fantasy, science fiction. A story with this trope subverts and transforms its genre. A story democratizes magic this way: 1. There are magical superpowers, poorly understood, which a few wield to dominate the many. The superpowered fight among themselves, with collateral damage; more oppression for the normals. 2. A low-powered superhero, alienated by low rank, teams up with rich and/or smart normals to investigate the science of superpowers. 3. Montage sequence of labs, experiments, chalkboard scribblings, an ‘aha!’ moment, gizmos and tests. The team solves the superpower riddle through the power of technobabble. 4. They invent super-tech, which can give anybody superpowers. These superpowers include strength, invulnerability, shields, flight, levitation, telekinesis, telepathy, super-senses, and healing touch. 5. They finance mass-produc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Magic for the People!

Magic for the People!                     Consider these three fictional worlds: Harry Potter, Star Wars and Avatar, the Last Airbender. In each of these worlds there is efficacious magic, wielded by a genetic elite; and in each of these worlds those elite magicians constantly bicker, and the common folk just have to take it.           I object! And I counter-propose that, in each of these worlds, the common folk shall scientifically investigate magic, deduce its nature and principles, and invent technologies to duplicate or surpass the powers of the magicians. Magic for the People!           Obviously most of the magicians would oppose this move; but a few renegade magicians would side with the common folk for reasons of their own. This creates conflict, which is always good for story-telling. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Broken Battlefield

                 The Broken Battlefield    Once upon a time, there was an ancient battlefield, on which many a war had been won or lost. The generals knew it well. But then one day the earth shook. The quake broke open a wide fissure all the way down the middle of the battlefield.           From then on, whenever the generals sent their armies there, their men and horses would fall into the fissure, and battle was impossible. The generals would then withdraw; but they always returned, to find the fissure still there.                       Moral: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.     Comment: Jonathan Schell compared the condition of war in the nuclear age to this.    
Post a Comment
Read more

Lunar Defenses

          Lunar Defenses   The first words spoken by Neil Armstrong when he set foot upon the Moon were, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” He intended to say “a” man, but somehow that word got lost. He blew his line! He and others then planted American flags. But in the 48 years since, the unfiltered actinic lunar sunlight has bleached those flags pure white. So those solemn first words turned into glorious nonsense, and the flags into flags of surrender! The Moon was better defended than we realized...    
Post a Comment
Read more

The Helbertian Formulation of Adeledicnander

                 The Helbertian Formulation of Adeledicnander   On occasion I have used the word ‘helbertian’ in my SF stories. This is because when I subscribed to Analog, they sometimes sent me a magazine addressed to Nathaniel Helbertian. I figured that a helbertian is a wave operator in quantum mechanics.   When I subscribed to F&SF, they sometimes sent me a magazine addressed to N Helleretti. I figure that the Helleretti is a tribe of mischievous sprites. Now, just what kind of wave operator is a Helbertian? I have decided, for story purposes, that the Helbertian measures the intelligence of an elementary particle. You can also call it the energy of the particle’s mindfield. This makes the Helbertian fundamental to the theory of Electron Psychology, a.k.a. Adeledicnander, as cited in the A.E. Van Vogt story, “Far Centaurus”. The Helbertian formulation of adeledicnander echoes the Hamiltonian formulation of quan...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Daylight Savings Time Was Invented

How Daylight Savings Time Was Invented               You may have heard this story about how Daylight Savings Time was invented; one summer morning in Paris, Benjamin Franklin awoke to find summer sunlight streaming through the window. Shocked by this waste of sunlight, he resolved to set the clock ahead one hour in the middle of spring, and one hour back in the middle of fall. Frugal old Ben calculated that this system, which he called “Daylight Savings Time”, would save a huge amount of candle-usage in the summer evenings.           True enough, but economies there may be diseconomies elsewhere, such as in the winter evening. Daylight Savings Time is like sewing a foot of cloth to the top of your bedsheet – cut from the bottom of your bedsheet. Is Daylight Savings Time penny-wise, pound-foolish?           I would like to clarify a l...
Post a Comment
Read more