Poisoning, throttling, and otherwise killing the goose

You know the goose I mean -- the one that lays the golden eggs

DVDs (in which category I'll include Blu-Ray discs) are a big market. In 2011, the last year for which I've found data, movies on disc represented an $18 billion business. Lots of after-theater money for movie producers.

A vanishing breed?

But it's a business that's shrinking -- and all too often, the purveyors of DVDs are bringing it upon themselves.

I enjoyed DVDs. I used to buy lots of DVDs. The picture quality is fantastic. I can watch a DVD movie even when my Internet service is interrupted. But in recent months, almost exclusively, I stream video content.

As a consumer, videophile, and technologist, what's gone wrong with DVDs and (especially) Blu-Ray discs? Let me count the ways.

Maybe another time

Routine be damned ... after yesterday's horrific events in Boston, posting is the last thing on my mind.

Another day ...

The poster child for, well, posts

Welcome to the third annual review of popular posts and topics here on SF and Nonsense. The first such round up, Postscript (or is that post post?), continues to run a strong second place in all-time popularity among my posts.

The winner is ...

The most popular all-time post? That continues to be, in a cake walk, the October 12, 2010 post Betrayer of Worlds. It's hardly intuitive that the announcement of book four (of five) in the Fleet of Worlds series (with Larry Niven) should be so popular. My theory is that a page name that is a straight book title -- rather than my wont, a play on words incorporating the book title -- ranks higher in Google's secret search algorithm.

Number three, down a single peg from second place in previous years, is Trope-ing the light fantastic (life-sign detectors) (from February 25, 2009, about a particular SFnal trope). Does this post draw Star Trek fans? Biologists? I don't know. Other entries in my Trope-ing the light fantastic post series aren't as popular.

Ranked fourth (up from sixth a year ago), from February 11, 2011, we have Creative Destruction. That's another Lerner book title, drawing upon the concise description of capitalism by economist Joseph Schumpeter.

To those of you Googling the phrase "Creative Destruction" out of dismal-science curiosity, two comments. First, my Creative Destruction -- a themed collection of eight stories, ranging from flash fiction to a short novel -- deals with computer science. IMO, computer science is a primo example of Schumpeter's virtuous cycle of the better supplanting the no longer competitive. Second, beyond my techiness, I have an MBA.

Quoth the Gw'oth ...

I won't say nevermore—if only because never encompasses a very long time—but there are no plans for further novels in the Fleet of Worlds series. And so ...

Debut of the Gw'oth

I invented the Gw’oth for Fleet of Worlds (coauthored with Larry Niven); the little guys returned in three (of the four) sequels. As often happens with species- and world-building, much background is merely hinted at in the eventual story or is omitted entirely. That’s okay. I needed to understand the Gw’oth before putting them through their many-tentacled paces. Hence: four novels after their debut, some details about the Gw’oth remain untold.

I recently wrote "Alien Aliens: Beyond Rubber Suits" for the science side of Analog Science Fiction and Fact (see the April 2013 issue). The Gw'oth served in the article as an extended example of how an author might go about creating alien worlds and alien aliens.

If you read the zine (and if you enjoy hard SF, you really should), check out the article. And if you don't? Read on for an extract (slightly adapted) from the article for a peek at the science and thinking behind the Gw'oth.

But be advised: bits of what follows are spoilers for Fleet of Worlds (though not the remaining books of the series) ...

Of hacks and Higgs

The more things change, the more they remain the same ...

What hasn't changed? Chinese hacking of American infrastructure. What has changed is substantiation of something long suspected: that the Chinese government is behind the hacks.

From the Washington Times, see "Meet China’s super-secret military hacking unit:Chinese hacking team responsible for more than 141 cybersecurity breaches."

The findings come by way of a new report from the Virginia-based Mandiant Corp., which claims its "research and observations indicate that the Communist Party of China is tasking the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to commit systematic cyber espionage and data theft against organizations around the world."

 Another choice quote from the article:

Fox News says the "secret group" has hacked U.S. information at energy, aerospace and IT and telecommunication firms. Hackers obtained access to the likes of blueprints and contact lists, Fox News reports.

Before you discount these assertions as somehow tied to a conservative viewpoint, see, "Feinstein Statement on Chinese Military Hacking of American Targets." That's Senator Dianne Feinstein, (D-California), and an official statement from her senatorial office.

Beyond untold millions of dollars in economic losses, the latest attacks the report attributes to ‘Unit 61398’ does not focus on obtaining information "but obtaining the ability to manipulate American critical infrastructure: the power grids and other utilities."

Perhaps the US State Department will send China a concerned note.

Now here is something completely different that remains the same ...

Publishing (black and) blues

As a working author, I'm a (tiny!) part of an interesting marketplace -- adjective as per the supposed Chinese curse.

Loosely related eye candy

Not the least of that curse/interest lies in the continuing battle of titans over the pricing of ebooks.Viewpoints widely differ.

• The pirate's view: Why shouldn't an ebook's price reflect the marginal cost of production (i.e., be free)? 
• The producer's view: Because, apart from production, there are other costs. That is: payment (one hopes) for the contributions of authors, editors, cover artists.
• The retailer's view: Looking at single titles is too narrow a focus. No matter the conflicting wishes of the author (for whom each book is a unique product!) or the publisher (who wants the product category of books to retain intrinsic value), retailers find opportunity in books (or other intellectual content) sold as loss leaders. Etailers use loss leaders to lure a consumer to a particular gadget and ecosystem (Kindle, Nook, iBook, etc).

No time to go googly-eyed

As a working author, I'm no fan of copyright piracy. (Big surprise there.) But neither am I a fan of commercial organizations judging me. Such as with the forthcoming Copyright Protection System. As in, "ISPs plan to hijack browsers and limit Internet access to combat copyright piracy."

Illicit enrichment facility at Fordo

Comparatively speaking, that's only a small-scale worry. What's more anxiety-producing? For one example, look no further than this interview with Olli Heinonen, a retired deputy director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency: "How Iran Went Nuclear." The takeaway:

Mr. Heinonen is emphatic that the IAEA is in the prevention business, yet he also explains that Iran might be past the nuclear point of no return—and that years of IAEA missteps are partly to blame.

Seeing (or not) what they wanted to see ...

Really small (with big implications)

Today's post deals with news of the really tiny.

We'll start at nanoscale -- and that's as big as we'll consider today. (One nanometer, 1 billionth of a meter, is the scale of small molecules. Living cells are no larger than microscale, measured in millionths of meters.)

There's been a fair amount of uncertainty about the health implications of nanoparticles. Why? Much of the allure of nanotech has been that materials often act differently in nanoscale particles than in bulk -- and yet for a long while, safety studies (if any) were performed only using bulk quantities.

A few years ago, at a nanotech conference, an insurance-company rep brought up, off the record, fears of a parallel between nanomaterials and asbestos. Asbestos is a useful material whose health implications (asbestosis and mesothelioma) went unrecognized for decades.  Related health science was behind the curve and insurers were taken entirely by surprise.

Chemotherapy with nanoparticles

So what are nanoscale particles of zinc oxide in some new sunblocks doing to us? Or the nanoscale silver particles sometimes used as antibacterial agents? Or nanoscale ... whatever in cosmetics?

Although this article has languished in my files for several months, it's encouraging to note (from IEEE Spectrum) that "New Study Indicates Nanoparticles Do Not Pass Through Skin."

Sticking for a bit with nanotech, consider (again from IEEE Spectrum) that "Hybrid Nanomaterial Converts Both Light and Heat to Electricity." Many forms of distributed tech require devices to power themselves by local harvesting of energy. (Remember when that meant self-winding watches?) The article's conclusion:

"By increasing the number of the micro-devices on a chip, this technology might offer a new and efficient platform to complement or even replace current solar cell technology."

Now let's consider some really small stuff ...