The Audience Chamber, for celebrations » Birthday Thread and Other Celebrations » 12/06/2024 10:17 am |
Seems reasonable to me, too.
Sorry I haven't been very active in the past year or so. I've been very distracted by opportunities to create pictures using various free AI image generators. Note: free = highly censored = only G rated images allowed But this topic is probably appropriate for a different sub-forum.
Between Two Lanterns, a memorial place » RIP Vernor Vinge » 3/21/2024 3:29 pm |
Vernor Vinge, the SF author who popularized the Singularity, passed away yesterday, March 20, 2024.
See, for example, his Wikipedia article at
The Audience Chamber, for celebrations » Today Is Nighthawk's Most Felicitous Natal Day » 12/10/2023 8:40 pm |
The Audience Chamber, for celebrations » Today Is Scenario_Dave's Most Felicitous Natal Day!! » 11/21/2023 11:51 am |
:whee:
Babbling Books » Halonic Symbiosis » 11/19/2023 10:45 pm |
Recent developments in AI do make the likelihood of a near-term Singularity seem all that much more likely.
Some of the other underlying technological features of the Orion's Arm Universe Project ( ) seem a bit less likely, though. (E.g. wormholes and magnetic monopoles.)
Babbling Books » Halonic Symbiosis » 11/16/2023 10:18 am |
In many respects, it's still a work in progress, so any suggestions would be *very* welcome. Please feel free to post them here, even though the contact information in the document says to post to the Orion's Arm forum.
The Audience Chamber, for celebrations » Double Felicitations to Selden and 82 Eridani » 11/15/2023 10:11 pm |
Thanks!! I only belatedly saw this, so you're easily forgiven.
After a long hiatus, I made a post in the Babbling Books section. I hope it's the right place for it.
Babbling Books » Halonic Symbiosis » 11/15/2023 10:08 pm |
Gentle friends,
(I debated putting this in the "babeling" section, but what the heck... )
One of the stories that I've been working on (for years!) is now available at
It's an "Interactive Fiction", meaning that it's in the form of a Web page. To read the (very short, partial) story and the (much longer) associated essays, you should click on appropriate links. To start with, you either can click on the link "Contents" or you can click on the picture of the book's front cover.
I'm sure it'll be somewhat confusing, since it takes place in the far distant future, 10,000 years from now, when AIs rule the galaxy.
Selden
P.S. It started out strictly emulating a physical book, meaning it was intended to be read sequentially. However, some early readers objected strenuously, so now you have to select between "Linear" and "Tabular" navigation options.
Most "Interactive Fictions" are actually "text adventure games." Given that expectation, you should explore some of the "book's" not-so-obvious options to fully experience what it has to offer.
s.
The Cherryh Grove » Cyteen/Regenesis sequel ?? » 1/03/2023 8:45 pm |
I think there are two different scenarios where artificial wombs could be justified.
One is where potential parent(s) are unable to give birth themselves. It could replace the current solution of having a surrogate mother and would avoid some of that procedure's pitfalls (e.g. the birth mother not wanting to give up the baby). I'm assuming in this case that the parent(s) would be active in the process, visiting their child-to-be frequently, for example.
The other has already been mentioned, where there's an on-going population crash and additional people are desperately needed to maintain the society. This "solution" does have serious problems to be resolved, though. Group homes are far from ideal and the lack of sufficient social contact for babies is known to cause serious psychological problems. But not having enough people willing or able to act as parents is the underlying problem already. Birthing farms are not going to be a good solution, I fear. Maybe parental AIs? But the TV series "Raised by Wolves" certainly points out some of the potential problems with that "solution."
Babbling Books » Has your reading changed in the age of reading online? » 11/24/2022 4:39 pm |
I wholeheartedly agree that reading print on paper provides an experience which is very different from reading glowing dots on a screen or listening to an audio version of thet same story.
I've found that there's a similar problem when trying to write a story. When I was writing in plain text (a few years ago now), I could manage to write several hundred words in a few days. Now that I'm trying to write a story in "Interactive Fiction" format, I manage to find many more ways to procrastinate since there are so many options to explore in how the words get presented to the reader. In other words, I find debugging software to be much easier and more fun than writing the story itself.
FWIW, I'm using the SugarCube story format, compiled into HTML (I.E. a Web page) using Tweego. One can also use the "Integrated Development Environment" called Twine2 to implement Interactive Fiction, but I found it too limiting in some ways.