The neural interface you always wanted is (at least, could be) coming

I spent most of last week on Hilton Head Island -- I know: real hardship duty :-) -- but I was working. And having a great time.

I'm a member of SIGMA (which, despite all those caps, is not an acronym). SIGMAns are authors of hard SF -- but first (and in many cases, still) we were scientists, physicians, or engineers. We consult on matters of futurism, often -- where the public interest is involved -- pro bono. As the logo would have it, SIGMA is The Science Fiction Think Tank.

Bringing me to the just concluded Hilton Head Workshop 2014: A Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Workshop. The event's scope extends to -- though, curiously, the term is omitted from the name -- nanotechnology. Nor was this just any such workshop, but the 30th anniversary edition.

In addition to many a lookback, such as befits a major milestone anniversary, the conference organizers decided to bring in a few SIGMAns to look thirty years ahead. More than a few of our merrie band tossed their hats into the metaphorical ring. The four of us who went: 

• SIGMA founder and onetime White House science fellow Dr. Arlan Andrews. 
• Interstellar Woman of Mystery and twenty-year veteran at NASA, Stephanie Osborn.
• Polymath and onetime manager at Aerospace Corporation, Boeing, and other interesting places (and longtime Byte columnist), Jerry Pournelle.
• Your Humble Blogger.

Beyond my own high-tech career, I have to my credit nanotech-intensive novels and a novelette featuring both gnat bots and nanotech.

Eventually the big night came for the SIGMAns (and remember my subject line? This is where we get to neural interfaces) ...

State of the art

A few days after the fact, I have copies of Fools' Experiments -- the mass-market paperback re-release -- in hand.

Liking what Tor Books did with the new cover, I'll let it speak for itself.

Fools' Experiments redux

2009MM PB cover

Latest update: September 3, 2024. New editions: hardback, trade paperback, and ebook. Huzzah!

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We are not alone, and it's our own damn fault.

This is a commercial announcement ...

Fools' Experiments -- my 2008 novel of artificial life, artificial intelligence, and unintended consequences -- was re-released today as a mass-market paperback. This latest format joins CD and tape options from Recorded Books, an audio download from Audible.com, a book-club edition, and an ebook from Amazon Kindle.

I posted about Fools' Experiments when it was newly released last fall, and my website has a sampling of the rave reviews. Here's one I quite like:

"Lerner’s physics and computer science background serve him well for this pulse-pounding yarn about the creation of the first artificial life form inside cyberspace."

— BookPage Notable Title

But the proof of the book is in the reading, so here, courtesy of the publisher, is an excerpt.

And this being an admittedly commercial announcement, here's the Amazon link for Fools' Experiments.

Hollow (er, holo) episodes

Fair warning: today's post is a bit of a rant (and perhaps a bit of heresy).

I've mentioned revisiting the Star Trek universe. At this point, I'm well into Star Trek Voyager. Overall, I'm enjoying myself -- but I can fairly predictably spot episodes that'll make me sputter: anything holodeck-intensive.

To name just a few gripes:

1. Could the safety provisions be any less reliable, or the safety protocols any easier to disable? And after, say, the tenth incident, why has no one thought to fix things? It's lazy writing, pure and simple.

2. Holo matter is magical stuff that people can touch -- or that can strangle them -- when it is convenient, and is ephemeral at other times. It's limited to the holodeck, except (and I'm not referring to the "mobile holo-emitter") when it's not. More lazy writing.

3. Why, exactly, does the holographic doctor use a terminal to interact with a computer? Isn't he already a two-way, real-time program within the ship's computer network?

(And as to the shipboard network, a non-holo gripe: Why hand-carry little computers to deliver crew reports? Is email too advanced?)

4. Holo matter is projected and/or maintained by force fields. The illusion of a space much larger than the physical holodeck comes from a sort of virtual treadmill -- more force fields. And still no force fields to keep people in their chairs on the bridge during battle.

Virtual reality -- good. Holodeck -- faugh. I won't even dignify the latter as a respectable SF trope.