Google just honored Grace Hopper with a doodle and once you see her in action, you'll know why. Grace Hopper was an accomplished naval officer/computer scientist with a wry sense of humor and a down to earth style of communicating. One of the first programmers on the Mark I Computer (IBM's Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator or ASCC), Grace Hopper once described the Mark I as having " 72 words of storage and could perform three additions a second." In comparison, the cell phone in your pocket has more computing power than NASA's first moon launch, so if you are using your phone to send lol cats.... think about it. It's not the power, it's what you do with it. The early behemoths Hopper worked on were as large as 51 feet long and 8ft high. She also worked on Harvard’s Mark II and III computers as well as the UNIVAC I computer. Affectionately known as "Grandma Cobol," because she lead the team that invented COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language). She was one of the first computer scientists to campaign for "coding" as a computer language rather than strings of … [Read more...] about Scientist Grace Hopper explains Nanoseconds
Archives for 2013
Future Shock: Writing Sci Fi, Drones & Paranoia
Dystopia. The word hisses off the tongue with sibilant ease, a slow slide into the dark cellar of the collective psyche. The black regimes of our fears, the fascism, the rage, the oppression which mirrors our inner shades, often realized in nightmarish reality. Conversely, Utopia sounds so hopeful, so inclusive, like a suspended note of a celestial choir. A future where technology is used compassionately to further creative pursuits, knowledge and collective awareness. What's it going to be? One of the great tasks of Science Fiction is to explore humanity in the context of earth shattering change. In the case of Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 with its mechanical hound or George Orwell's 1984, the startling portrait of the darker probabilities of the future, shaped the minds of a generation. The word "Big Brother" is now part of our lexicon of ideas. On the Utopian side, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek inspired cell phones, interactive computers and has scientists noodling over the possibility of matter transfer and warp drive. Because I'm writing a dystopian novel, I … [Read more...] about Future Shock: Writing Sci Fi, Drones & Paranoia
Amazon Prime Air: Will Drones Deliver?
Remember The Jetsons? The cartoon about the future where the Jetson family had a plethora of wacky, futuristic gadgets to make life easier? Well it looks like CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos took that show seriously. Just when you're getting used to an irobot vacuum scooting around the floor, Amazon just revealed the next level of droid services. First Amazon created automated warehouses and now flying drones will deliver packages in under 30 minutes. The drone delivery service is called Amazon Prime Air: … [Read more...] about Amazon Prime Air: Will Drones Deliver?
Astronaut Chris Hadfield sings Space Oddity
I'm posting my favorite space clip, starring astronaut Chris Hadfield channeling David Bowie as he sings Bowie's iconoclastic song Space Oddity. Not only is Space Oddity an exquisite piece of music, framing Bowie's compassion and intrinsic sense of humanity, the song was also iconoclastic, capturing the emotional charge of a generation as we left planet Earth for the first time. Chris Hadfield has always had a great sense of showmanship, whether he's conducting experiments in space, visually illuminating physics, imparting wisdom through his amazing book An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, or singing a song that everyone secretly wanted to see performed in space! The man knows how to swagger, so as astronauts go, kind of a rock star. After attending the premiere of the film Gravity, Hadfield tweeted: “Good morning! Gravity was fun last night. Fantastic visuals, relentless, Sandra Bullock was great. I’d fly with her.” When asked about his own tour of duty, Hadfield said, “Fortunately, the five months that I spent on the space station went way … [Read more...] about Astronaut Chris Hadfield sings Space Oddity
Space Craziness with Astronaut Chris Hadfield
I am going to miss the amazing videos from Commander Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut who streamed his odd missives from the International Space Station with an earthiness that was both hilarious and informative. Many of his videos are practical demonstrations about the reality of our physical bodies meeting a gravity-free environment like space. Watching these videos will change your perspective of gravity. Hadfield's experiments create a visceral understanding of the fact that everything we do from moving to eating and everything we experience around us is in a complex dance with gravity. Our very existence depends on gravity. What better way to show it than to wring out a wash cloth in space? Hadfield demonstrates crying in space: Chris carries out student experiment by wringing out a wash cloth in space then waxes philosphical: Chris talks about "space vision" and testing eyeballs in space: Hadfield talks to William Shatner AKA Captain James T. Kirk: … [Read more...] about Space Craziness with Astronaut Chris Hadfield
Simulation Theory: Is God a Computer Programmer?
Computers and the Internet have changed the way we conceive of the universe. Complex systems, algorithms, programming, pixels, data-mining, viral propagation and virtual realities are new additions to the vocabulary of modern thought. These concepts have migrated to books, films and TV and to the single most powerful way we create models of our universe, scientific hypothesis. Welcome to The Simulation Theory, because without computers, this theory couldn't exist. If you've seen The Matrix, you already know a lot about this theory. Neo is trapped in an extremely compelling artificial reality. He wakes up in the real world which is nowhere near as seductive or addictive as the illusory Matrix. The theory was first proposed by the futurist Hans Moravec (Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University) and was elaborated on in a paper by Professor Nick Bostrom (Oxford University) who theorized we could all be living in a simulation. But Bostrom doesn't stop there. He goes on to say it is likely we are already in a simulation being run by a “post human” … [Read more...] about Simulation Theory: Is God a Computer Programmer?
A Million Robot Army
"Whatever distinctly human qualities war calls upon—honor, courage, solidarity, cruelty, and so forth—it might be useful to stop thinking of war in exclusively human terms. After all, certain species of ants wage war and computers can simulate "wars" that play themselves out on-screen without any human involvement. More generally, then, we should define war as a self-replicating pattern of activity that may or may not require human participation— Barbara Ehrenreich I was watching TV pundit/editor of Mother Jones Magazine David Korn commenting on Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld's botched Iraq war when he said, "...it's almost like saying if we had an army of a million giant flying robots things would have turned out better. It's denying reality... it's all a giant experiment for them..." Those two ideas struck me; irresponsible, inexperienced leadership and a million robot army. A scary proposition, fast becoming a very real possibility. DARPA is slowly crafting robots around the art of war. What is DARPA? The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency . DARPA funds an … [Read more...] about A Million Robot Army