Will Some Robots Be Shunned In The Uprising?

Let’s say the singularity has struck, machines have become sentient, and the robot uprising has begun in earnest. If you could be any robot in the world, which robot would you be?

Certainly not Vomiting Larry.

Unless the ability to clear a room becomes a highly sought-after skill in the quest to vanquish all humans, Vomiting Larry won’t have much use in the Robot Apocalypse. I mean, come on: he VOMITS! There’s no way he could be an Autobot (he VOMITS!), but what use would the Decepticons have for him? Huh? Can’t think of anything? I thought so. (That’s because he VOMITS!)

Now, to be fair, Vomiting Larry is conducting useful, potentially life-saving science for the UK’s Health and Safety Laboratory by allowing researchers to determine the speed and extent to which norovirus can spread. I’m glad Vomiting Larry was built in the UK, because if he had been built in Japan, he would look like an adorable, giant baby, but without the adorable part. And more angry. And not just angry, but mean. That’s how Japanese robot babies roll, for some reason. What’s up with that?

And about that science: why not just fill a hot water bottle and give it a good squeeze to see how far it spews? Apparently, they wanted a ROBOT so it could spew AND do math. Or something.

The engineers who proposed the idea must be thrilled. Honestly, what engineer wouldn’t do a fist-pump-of-victory after convincing his boss to let him build a vomiting robot? Their boss had better watch out, because a proposal for a pooping robot can’t be far behind. You know, just to see if they can. Engineers are like that.

I propose the name Diarrhea Dan for the pooping robot. I’m telling you, it’s inevitable. YouTube videos to come.

But getting back to my original question: what robot would you like to be during the robot uprising? Though Vomiting Larry has a respectable ten-foot spew range, I think I’d go with the Stabbing Robot. (Why do we build these things? Why?) It’s armed, and it has an override that allows it to shred human flesh like confetti. What could be more useful in a Robot Apocalypse than shredded human flesh? Puke? I don’t think so.

Of course, this is the real world, and Vomiting Larry won’t be any part of a robot uprising any time soon. Oh, sure, we’ll see him compete on Jeopardy and then sell out to become a spokes-bot for Bounty Paper Towels. My guess is that he’ll ultimately short out on Pepto-Bismal and be discovered, unplugged, in a pool of his own pink spew.

It’s nice — especially as a science fiction writer — to spend my time thinking about robot uprisings. But even in the real world, we can still look forward to Vomiting Larry and Diarrhea Dan competing against each other on Jeopardy. And that’s plenty awesome enough.

I’m telling you, it’s inevitable. YouTube videos to come.

Predictions for 2013

Happy New Year, everyone. I’m as unqualified to make predictions as the next guy, but I’ve decided to have a go anyway. Here are my predictions for the new year:

In 2013, An Editor Will Read My Novel

Yes, I’m still on submission. The pins and needles are beginning to dull after so much waiting. Good thing I have a bed to be depressed in.

In 2013, I Will Win the Nobel Prize in Physics

I figured out the formula for winning (see my previous post), and added rainbows and unicorns for good measure. How can I lose?

In 2013, A Heretofore Unknown Asteroid Will Pass Within Geosynchronous Orbit

Yeah, I’m going out on a limb on this one. Still, this happens more often than most people think. Sure, it’s not as likely as me winning a Nobel Prize, but it’s a bet I’m willing to take.

In 2013, Climate Change Deniers Will NOT Change Their Minds Even After Bursting Into Flames

Speaking of safe bets…

In 2013, I Will Win the Nobel Prize in Literature

I do have a book on submission, so it’s safe to say I’m in the running. Or at least that I will be in the running once an editor reads it. And wants it.

Of course, making predictions is easy. Making accurate predictions is another matter. To be fair, let’s see how I did with last year’s predictions:

In 2012, I Will Get A New Bed To Be Depressed In While I Wait For An Editor To Read My Novel

Nailed it. Well, technically speaking, the bed isn’t actually new. But I did change the sheets last year.

In 2012, A Single Asteroid Will Knock Out All Our Communications Satellites Like Dominoes

My television reception in September was a bit spotty, so I’m calling this prediction a winner. That’s the way science works, right?

In 2012, I Will Overdose On Nacho Cheese-Flavored Doritos

It didn’t happen, but not for lack of trying. Maybe I’ll have better luck this year.

In 2012, I Will Open A Coffee Shop

Nailed it. Hey, maybe I should blog about that? Do you think?

Me? A Nobel Prize Winner? Imagine That!

I try to keep up with advances in quantum physics, but I’m ashamed to admit that, until today, I had never studied Delbrück scattering, which occurs when quantum pairs spontaneously appear in a region dominated by a magnetic field. I’m intrigued that Delbrück scattering is similar to Hawking radiation, but instead of quantum pairs appearing near a black hole, it’s quantum pairs appearing near a magnet.

I get it. To become a famous physicist, all one has to do is think of some disruptive environment for quantum pairs to appear in, and imagine (no more than that, really) what the results would be.

What the heck, I’ll have a go. For my next Nobel Prize in physics, I will ponder the consequences of quantum pairs spontaneously appearing near the following items:

• A vacuum sweeper.
• A blender.
• Fly paper.
• A SPINNING thing, like a tire, or maybe another blender.
• Rainbows. (Yeah, that’s a difficult one, but why not?)
• Unicorns. (I’ll invoke the unfalsifiable “You-Can’t-Prove-Me-Wrong” argument.)
• A time vortex. (It could happen.)
• That chubby man on the Internet who believes he’s magnetic because pennies stick to his skin, but he really just needs to take a bath.

I’ll alert the Nobel Prize Committee that my work is underway. And I’ll get a good 8×10 head shot. I’ll need a good 8×10 head shot, don’t you think? I really should do that first.

OOH! I just thought of something new: Rainbows AND unicorns… TOGETHER!

Yep, I’d say this one’s in the bag.

On Coincidence and Belief

I couldn’t help but respond to Peter Cawdron’s insightful post on astrology. It got me thinking about my encounters with astrology believers. And, lazy person that I am, I decided to turn my comment into a long overdue blog post.

I once read about a study done on astrology believers. If someone successfully guesses the color of a playing card (red or black) 50% of the time, astrology believers are more likely to conclude that such a high percentage of accurate guessing can’t be coincidental, and some form of telepathy (or something more mundane, like cheating) must be at play. (Of course, we all know that 50% is the expected outcome from mere guessing.) In conversations I’ve had with astrology believers, they frequently punctuate their discussion with, “I KNEW IT!” whenever they encounter something — anything — that reinforces their beliefs, no matter how coincidental.

As a consequence of this manner of thinking, there is a movement among some astrology believers to change the name of the sign of Cancer to something else, since fully one out of twelve cancer patients are born under the sign of Cancer, which can’t be mere coincidence, they are convinced. How does mere nomenclature influence the distribution of cancer diagnoses among the signs of the Zodiac? Who cares? Renaming the sign makes the problem go away, case closed. By renaming the Cancer sign to something else, the correlation ceases to apply, so there’s no reinforcement making the coincidental stand out. It’s a mind trick that relies on suppressing the mere appearance of correlation without actually affecting anything that makes a difference.

However, the plan might backfire due to their shortsighted choice for Cancer’s new name. What is the new name they’ve selected for Cancer? They’ve selected FLESH EATING BACTERIA.

I know, right?

Leprechaun Ghost Clowns In Love

Hello. My name is Brian, and I write hard science fiction.

Audience: Hi, Brian.

I fell off the wagon again…

Audience: *Gasp!*

But I’ve been hard SF free since 7:30 this morning.

Audience: *Mumble, mumble*

My mind is clear, and I’m proud to say that I think I can make it through the rest of the meeting without firing up my laptop and pounding out a few passages of my trilogy.

It hasn’t been easy these past few months. With my debut novel on submission, it’s been difficult to concentrate on anything but my craft. Will I  be able to demonstrate to publishers that I can improve? Will I have what it takes to make the edits they require? What if an editor asks me to insert MAGIC into my story?

Audience: *Double Gasp!*

I know. I shouldn’t dwell on such things. But, truth be told, not many successful hard science fiction writers were optimists, now were they?

Audience: *Cold stare*

Not that I, you know, have any interest in going down that road. Not at all. There lies madness, or so we say.

But things work the way they do for a reason, don’t they? Why can’t we use the comprehensibility of the universe to aid our readers in their suspension of disbelief? The stories we tell are so speculative, grounding them in current scientific understanding helps the reader to relate, to own the story, does it not?

Audience: *Double mumble*

Wait, hear me out. It all started when I was in third grade, and my teacher explained that pulsars flash because they spin. I asked if that was because they were light on one side and dark on the other. She thought about it, said that didn’t make sense since they’re basically stars, then told me to stop asking ridiculous questions.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized I had a science teacher who actually had a disdain for science, a disdain for knowing how things actually worked.

Audience: *Nods in unison*

But what if there are readers out there who like that sort of thing?

Audience: *Triple gasp!*

No, seriously. What if there are readers out there who prefer the speculative stories they read to be, you know, plausible?

Audience: *Lights torches and gathers pitchforks*

Why should those readers be left behind? Why should they have to settle for stories about leprechaun ghost clowns when they would prefer something that can happen in a universe that’s realistically extrapolated from our own? Should we not be serving those readers? Should we not strive to create stories in tenable settings that serve to deepen the significance of the narrative impact on the reader?

Audience: *Charges podium*

I brought cookies.

Audience: *Eats cookies*

Anyway, thanks for helping me with my addiction. And thanks for disabusing me of the specious notion that reasonable attempts at plausibility aren’t for the best writers among us.

Audience: Huh?

Has anyone seen my laptop?

Where Was The Higgs Boson Hiding All This Time?

How is it possible to collide two protons and get a Higgs boson? Is there a Higgs boson hiding inside the proton somewhere?

Well, no. But a very interesting thing about colliding particles in this manner is that it doesn’t work the way we see collisions work in the macro world. It’s as if we were to collide two 18-wheeler trucks, and instead of fragments of steel and glass — instead of pieces of truck — we see bicycles, station wagons, skate boards, and wheelchairs making up the wreckage.

And it gets even better because the wreckage produced isn’t determined by the particles we collide. We can have within the wreckage any particle that is the mass-equivalent of the energy of the collision. So it is entirely possible that we can collide two tricycles with enough speed that the energy of the collision will produce an 18-wheeler. So with sufficient energy, we can produce any particle in nature just by colliding two protons together.

And about that energy: the LHC requires an entire city’s worth of electrical energy to operate. We toss about huge numbers — over a hundred billion electron volts — and we are in awe of what we’ve accomplished.

So how much energy are we really talking about? The LHC speeds up protons so they have the same kinetic energy as a single raindrop.

That’s it.

This is both impressively large and impressively small. When you think about the difference in mass between a proton and a raindrop, this is a mind-boggling increase in energy, worthy of the numbers and power production we have devoted to it. But when you think about the absolute amount of energy involved, it is literally a drop in a bucket.

It’s a List! No, Really!

Writers who want to give back to the community have taken to making lists of things to help other writers. Eleven ways to kill a character, twenty one ways to not suck, and so on.

I want to help, too, but I’m still new at this. So I thought I’d start out by making a simple list, and once I’m a better writer, I’ll come back and put some really useful advice in place of what I have now.

But for now, here’s a list of… oh, I don’t know — how about the top ten things that are on my mind right now:

1. “Strengths” is the longest word in the English language I can think of that has only one vowel.
2. I’m not a hat person. Not at all.
3. Cars.
4. Something about cosmology.

Okay, so it’s only four things. It turns out I’m not very good at multitasking. But in my defense, that hat thing takes up a lot of room in my brain.

And, hey, that first one is tangentially related to writing. That makes me a contributing member of the writing community. I win!

Okay, glad that’s over with. Off I go to all YOUR blogs to hone my craft at your expense. Keep it coming. I need all the help I can get.

Lameness As An Advantage

Is your writing lame? Sure it is. Don’t be embarrassed. So is mine. And don’t be dismayed, because there’s an easy fix. In fact, you can fix your writing without making it less lame.

How? Simply add a layer of abstraction.

A layer of abstraction separates you from your writing in a way that not only allows your readers to forgive your lameness, but will even entice them into thinking your lame writing is clever and ironic.

Here’s an example: Tell lame jokes, and people will simply think you’re lame. But write a story about someone who tells lame jokes, and the lameness of those jokes will serve to drive your point home. What is your point? Who cares? Readers eat it up, and that’s all that matters. (“Zooey Mamma” anyone? Yes, I bought that book, and I’m proud to admit it. It’s a genius example of how adding an additional layer of abstraction makes the author look like a genius.)

And we’re all familiar with playwrights who have run out of ideas extending their careers by decades by writing plays about playwrights who have run out of ideas. A bad play is just bad. But a play about a playwright who writes bad plays is good. Somehow. I don’t know, just go with it. It’s symbolic, or something.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to write a story about an author who writes terrible novels about a socially inept vampire who makes it big on the bowling circuit. (Just don’t tell anyone that the author I’m writing about is me. Or that the “vampire” my “fictitious” author writes about is me. Or anything about bowling.)

Keeping the Pipeline Full

Getting started is the hard part. You see, that’s the very thing I’m not doing right this minute: getting started. While my debut novel is out on submission, I need to keep writing to keep the pipeline full so I won’t ever keep my (future) publisher waiting for something from me in the way of new material.

Ironically, once I get started, writing is about the only thing that keeps me sane while waiting to hear back from editors. Why do I hesitate? I’ve written about 12,000 words in my second novel, and I have only three consecutive chapters. (I like to jump around.) I need to go faster than that if I’m going to finish this by the holidays.

Enough of this. I have a new chapter to start. No more ice cream, no more sleep, and no more blog posting. I’ve got work to do.

No, really. I mean it. Right after this last bite of Moose Tracks.

Am I Crazy?

Researchers recently studied the language of convicted murderers who have been diagnosed with clinical psychopathy. The speech patterns they use and the words they choose betray their psychopathy to a surprising degree. They tend to speak in terms of cause and effect, as if nothing they do is done by choice or under their control. Ask them what’s important, and they’ll identify basic needs like food and shelter, whereas normal people will mention love and family, or even Star Wars. When asked questions about their motivation, they frequently pause, as if strategically putting on a “mask of sanity” (researcher’s words, not mine) before committing to a response. When discussing the motivations of others, they are quick to assume, and generally assume others are trying to balk their plans.

This research helps me immensely. A character in my WIP is something of a psychopath in that he would sooner see the world burn than see his plans fail. Research like this is helping me to round out my antagonist so he’s not just an old-school, mustache-twisting villain. I can have him come across as a well-intentioned servant of humanity while hinting at his true nature through his speech and mannerisms. I’m hoping that by the time readers become aware this guy is the villain, they’ll think they should have seen it coming all along.

Oh, but I’m still giving my villain a black goatee. I mean, come on, he’s the villain. How could I not?