Meme-tagged: "Interests"
Meme from oreobot. Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.
Y'all got that? Anyway, here's what I was tagged for...
3d printing
One of the things about me is that I like shortcuts. Efficiency. Ways to get from A to B which don't require going through C, Q, and 7. Being able to get more done in less time. Instant gratification. One of the burgeoning technologies which lands squarely in this ballpark is the 3D printer, which is currently closing the gap between $20,000 office machines the size of a fridge, and semi-self-replicating desktop models like RepRap, Fab@Home, and Fabr. Able to shape a variety of materials from plain plastic to metals and even simple circuitry, these devices will allow a lot of ordinary people to make a lot of things either from their own designs, by copying things they have lying around, or by downloading the schematics from the internet. If these things get to the point where they can completely replicate themselves from raw materials, as well as being able to produce items up to the complexity of simple electronics on command, then effectively they'll be able to upgrade their own hardware to be able to produce many other kinds of products as well. There are a lot of implications from such a technology, social as well as technological.
cosplay
I tend to approach this from a technical viewpoint - it's kind of interesting to see people replicate fictional designs in the real world with often astonishing levels of detail. It's also on that blurred line between a change of clothes and clomping around in a large-scale mechanical exoskeleton or controlling a jointed vehicle.
fanfiction
Fanfiction, at its best, invites people to explore the possibilities lying just beyond canon, or examines deeper concepts which may have been glossed over by source material. It was fanfiction which drove home the point for me that the source material does not matter - it's the ability of the writer which makes a story brilliant or unreadable. A good writer can pull an epic saga out of the weakest source material. The best fanfiction writers are actually better than the canon authors. I also think fanfic is a great tool for teachers who are trying to get their classes interested in writing and comprehension. If the framework for a universe, characters and backstory has already been established, it can be easier to continue with that momentum than starting something new from scratch. Not to mention that kids may be interested enough in their favorite show/movie/book to do more writing than they might otherwise.
kitbashing
Creativity, making the imagination tangible, and toys. What's not to like?
telemetry suits
Whether being used in live-action shows, as movie FX, or for motion capture, telemetry suits have that supernatural appeal of being able to affect things without personally touching them. Plus, when the other end is hooked up to suitable robotics, it's like having a little mechanical Mini-Me. There's nothing stopping scaling, either, resulting in directly-controlled micromanipulators or construction equipment acting spookily humanlike.
toy design
Mainly from being a part-time toy collector. I started collecting examples of interesting engineering, and most of the cheaper ones were in toy form. After 25 years of looking at the way they work, I think I could make something at least as elaborate (if not as cheap).
teleportation
Again with the efficiency. Sure, sometimes the thrill is in the journey, but the vast majority of travel time these days is boredom. If public and private transport took minutes or seconds to get you anywhere, people would have a lot more free time and use a lot less resources sitting in traffic. Plus, of course, primitive teleportation experiments are already underway, even if they do use the "fax-and-destroy" Trek-style approach more than my own preference, the Spacewarp (which I find more elegant in concept).
At one point, I wrote the outline for a fiction book (and penned the related filk) which examined the social effects that the invention of easy, cheap "booth-style" teleportation (ie, teleporters in fixed locations which could transmit to any other teleporter, with public ones every few blocks) would have on the world. There are some surprising knock-on results - for example, what happens to the trillion-dollar industries built on oil, cars, real estate, transport, shipping, tourism, hotels? How would governments (especially local or totalitarian ones) react to the knowledge that their entire tax base / workforce could decamp overnight at the slightest provocation? What happens to social and economic distinctions when the richest cities and the poorest people on the planet are within walking distance of each other? What happens to national boundaries, and the concepts of import duties, smuggling, quarantine? How is business and industry in general affected when your raw materials and factories are always right next to your salesroom and a customer base of seven billion people? When 'delivery anywhere on the planet' consists of two minutes and moving something from one room to the next?
Most interestingly, what about differences in international law - is there a point to banning a product or activity in one location when it's effectively legal down the street? One block away from your office or home, it's legal to commit environmental vandalism, take whatever drugs you want, ignore copyright, get an abortion, hold demonstrations, and vote for the opposition. There are locations in the world which pay no fees or rates for living there, so what's the advantage of having your house somewhere expensive?
Now imagine trying to introduce all this as a fledgling technology and imagine what opinion certain industries and governments might have about it, especially if they start off embracing it and only realise later they've grabbed a tar baby. It might be a futile struggle, but when entire national economies and militaries become involved, it might not be pretty.
Y'all got that? Anyway, here's what I was tagged for...
3d printing
One of the things about me is that I like shortcuts. Efficiency. Ways to get from A to B which don't require going through C, Q, and 7. Being able to get more done in less time. Instant gratification. One of the burgeoning technologies which lands squarely in this ballpark is the 3D printer, which is currently closing the gap between $20,000 office machines the size of a fridge, and semi-self-replicating desktop models like RepRap, Fab@Home, and Fabr. Able to shape a variety of materials from plain plastic to metals and even simple circuitry, these devices will allow a lot of ordinary people to make a lot of things either from their own designs, by copying things they have lying around, or by downloading the schematics from the internet. If these things get to the point where they can completely replicate themselves from raw materials, as well as being able to produce items up to the complexity of simple electronics on command, then effectively they'll be able to upgrade their own hardware to be able to produce many other kinds of products as well. There are a lot of implications from such a technology, social as well as technological.
cosplay
I tend to approach this from a technical viewpoint - it's kind of interesting to see people replicate fictional designs in the real world with often astonishing levels of detail. It's also on that blurred line between a change of clothes and clomping around in a large-scale mechanical exoskeleton or controlling a jointed vehicle.
fanfiction
Fanfiction, at its best, invites people to explore the possibilities lying just beyond canon, or examines deeper concepts which may have been glossed over by source material. It was fanfiction which drove home the point for me that the source material does not matter - it's the ability of the writer which makes a story brilliant or unreadable. A good writer can pull an epic saga out of the weakest source material. The best fanfiction writers are actually better than the canon authors. I also think fanfic is a great tool for teachers who are trying to get their classes interested in writing and comprehension. If the framework for a universe, characters and backstory has already been established, it can be easier to continue with that momentum than starting something new from scratch. Not to mention that kids may be interested enough in their favorite show/movie/book to do more writing than they might otherwise.
kitbashing
Creativity, making the imagination tangible, and toys. What's not to like?
telemetry suits
Whether being used in live-action shows, as movie FX, or for motion capture, telemetry suits have that supernatural appeal of being able to affect things without personally touching them. Plus, when the other end is hooked up to suitable robotics, it's like having a little mechanical Mini-Me. There's nothing stopping scaling, either, resulting in directly-controlled micromanipulators or construction equipment acting spookily humanlike.
toy design
Mainly from being a part-time toy collector. I started collecting examples of interesting engineering, and most of the cheaper ones were in toy form. After 25 years of looking at the way they work, I think I could make something at least as elaborate (if not as cheap).
teleportation
Again with the efficiency. Sure, sometimes the thrill is in the journey, but the vast majority of travel time these days is boredom. If public and private transport took minutes or seconds to get you anywhere, people would have a lot more free time and use a lot less resources sitting in traffic. Plus, of course, primitive teleportation experiments are already underway, even if they do use the "fax-and-destroy" Trek-style approach more than my own preference, the Spacewarp (which I find more elegant in concept).
At one point, I wrote the outline for a fiction book (and penned the related filk) which examined the social effects that the invention of easy, cheap "booth-style" teleportation (ie, teleporters in fixed locations which could transmit to any other teleporter, with public ones every few blocks) would have on the world. There are some surprising knock-on results - for example, what happens to the trillion-dollar industries built on oil, cars, real estate, transport, shipping, tourism, hotels? How would governments (especially local or totalitarian ones) react to the knowledge that their entire tax base / workforce could decamp overnight at the slightest provocation? What happens to social and economic distinctions when the richest cities and the poorest people on the planet are within walking distance of each other? What happens to national boundaries, and the concepts of import duties, smuggling, quarantine? How is business and industry in general affected when your raw materials and factories are always right next to your salesroom and a customer base of seven billion people? When 'delivery anywhere on the planet' consists of two minutes and moving something from one room to the next?
Most interestingly, what about differences in international law - is there a point to banning a product or activity in one location when it's effectively legal down the street? One block away from your office or home, it's legal to commit environmental vandalism, take whatever drugs you want, ignore copyright, get an abortion, hold demonstrations, and vote for the opposition. There are locations in the world which pay no fees or rates for living there, so what's the advantage of having your house somewhere expensive?
Now imagine trying to introduce all this as a fledgling technology and imagine what opinion certain industries and governments might have about it, especially if they start off embracing it and only realise later they've grabbed a tar baby. It might be a futile struggle, but when entire national economies and militaries become involved, it might not be pretty.