Don't Open Till Doomsday - The Redesign

Hey Gang!

So, I managed to sell the print rights to "The Redesign" to a small press, PunksWritePoems. They put a call out for "doomsday" stories, one of which I had lying around, so I sent it in, they bought it, and bam, here it is. Haven't even had a chance to read the other stories, but I know it features a bunch of other writers that no one's ever heard of, so I'm in good company!

The book you reach for when the world ends.

Check it here!

And of course, Amazon.

Short Story: The Redesign - NewMyths.com (2016)

Hey, hey, hey, y'all:

Got a fresh new story hot off the digital webs all ready for your eyes. The Redesign is live over at NewMyths.com. I workshopped this way back in 2014. I wrote this on invitation, for an anthology. Which was a mistake. At least, for me. It was so tailored to the anthology that after they rejected it, I found it wasn't really a good fit anywhere else. I mean, at least, that's what they told me when it was rejected twenty or so times. One place did actually want it for a minute, dropped me a rewrite request. I worked it over for a month, they thought about it for a while, and then decided they really didn't want it. Thems the breaks kid. But then the lovely people over at NewMyths.com decided they wanted it, so it all worked out in the end. 

It's funny. Like all other document media, it takes a while for things to come out. Like I said, I wrote this two years ago and feel I've moved way beyond this piece. Reading this is like looking back at 2014 me and shaking my head. Oh, not cause I don't like it, just my tastes and interests and style has changed, but this work stays frozen in time. Which is good. Or a thing, at least. 

I like the story, and still feel that the central concept is good: after the robots rise up and take over, then what will they do? Or more specifically, will they continue on being and making robots that reflect their human origins? And if not, what would that look like? Well, who really know. Sure as shit not me. But, this being fiction, I can suppose. And I do. I think they'd do a drastic Redesign.

Automation by Amanda Burgloff from NewMyths.com Issue 34, 2016.

The Robots Have Risen, And They Are Here To Rock

Four-armed robotic drummer and robo-guitarist cover AC/DC. Nothing more need be said:

360 Degree View From the Red Planet!

This interactive panorama, stitched together by Andrew Bordov over at 360cities.net (original post here) from photographs beamed back from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover. It's pretty awesome. Check it:

 
(Source: The Verge)

Robot Folding Socks

That sounds like a line from a haiku. But the video below looks like an act of war. Yes, war: it starts with socks, and it ends with folding human bodies into suitcases that the robot overlords (the Pod?) shoot into the sun.

It actually kinda sorta looks like Rosie the Robot Maid:

20 Years Ago Today Isaac Asimov Died

Isaac Asimov died 20 years ago today. I thought I'd throw up this interview he did on Fresh Air with Terri Gross (she sounds so young!) back in 1987.

You might know him as the most famous nerd of all time, but he was also a writer/editor of some 500 books. That's right: 500. And where did he find the time to write 500 books? Well, if you've ever read any of them I'm sure you noticed they're a bit... dry. Let's just say there are aspects of storytelling that he just didn't bother himself with. Such as character, dialog, pacing, style. Well, actually 'no style' was his style. Still, he had wonder and insight. Come on, you know it's true. He even admits as much in the interview below. Little known fact: Asimov died of AIDS.

 

So much of the industry has changed, and yet, so much of it is the same. The biggest difference is that people aren't as receptive to boiled down pulp. Nowadays all the editors are looking for character, depth, emotional center. This is a good thing. But they haven't raised the pay! They want more for the same price they've been paying for 20 years +. And with inflation that's really more for less. Anyhow, this is about Asimov, not the industry.

It's hard to really encapsulate how much we lost with his death from AIDS. Not just a genius humanist, but also an opportunity to look at the human cost of the AIDS epidemic and the embarrassment over the public reaction to Arthur Ashe and Anti-AIDS prejudice. Back then AIDS=Gay and Gay=Evil, when in reality AIDS=Human and Human=all us mortals.

Lots of people remember Old Asimov:

Kinda creepy, goes to lots of Cons.

But let's not forget Young Asimov:

Kinda hunky. I bet he had some moves.

Project Glass Gives Me The Willies

It's coming. It's near. The Singularity.

Actually, it's probably been around for some time. Since the 60's. Maybe sooner, maybe since the Industrial Revolution (at what point on a exponential curve can one demarcate the beginning of the curve?).

It's a point of no return, really: by the time you realize you're there you've been so for some time and can no longer get out (think waterfalls and event horizons). So, we've actually been in the Singularity for a while (it would have been very difficult for me to explain to 14 year old me in 1990 how Facebook and Twitter would dominate popular interactions). For me, there's no greater emblem of the rate of technological change than interactive augmented reality. We have it on our camera phones and now we're about to have it in our field of view: Project Glass.

It's Vingean Heads-Up-Display (Fire Upon the Deep, Deepness in the Sky), it's Strossian Glasses (Accelerando), it's every first-person-shooter (Doom, Halo), it's RoboCop's targeting system (at 5:25, though the whole video is frikkin' awesome). This technology will start a bridge between the virtual and the Real. Imagine a book with blank pages. Slip on these glasses and the pages fill with text as the video feed is edited en route to your eye. Play first-person-shooters in the Real. You'll be able to handle faux-objects that exist only in cyberspace (imagine the tamagotchi they'll come up with). You'll be able to tele-presence. 3D viewers and photography will be obsolete as 3-dimensional looking objects will be able to appear in your field of view (maybe not obsolete, maybe finally rendered realistic and manageable, no need for projectors other than those in the Glasses). You'll be able to book mark locations, and leave faux-graffiti notes on Real objects for your friends who are tuned into your 'channel'. The Web will exist in the Real. You'll be able to walk into a webpage, thumb through the blog, fold up text and put it in your pocket. This is great, this is the future, this is knowledge at my fingertips. 

So, then why when I watch the video above do I feel abject revulsion?

Perhaps because of how it's presented: a better way to consume. A better way to advertise. "Where's the music section?" Seriously? That's what you're going to do with your Glasses? Ask directions to where you can buy more crap you don't need? Actually, yes, that is what you're going to do with your Glasses. Makes me feel like, "Oh, it'll be that much easier for them to advertise to me. Wonderful. All I need is Visual Spam." Reminds of a recent Stross Diary entry: 

a) All advertising tends towards the state of spam (which is merely free-as-in-dirt-cheap-and-unregulated advertising),

b) Funding content via ad sales holds our public arts hostage to a boom/bust bubble economy. Furthermore, there is an incentive for web publishers to prioritize paid ads over editorial content, and to censor editorial content that threatens advertizing revenue,

c) The idea that "most people only want to consume" is profoundly offensive and serves the interests of abusive "producers" who tend towards rent-seeking,

So, the future will be the Gap scene in Minority Report? More data gathering, more marketing? Will Google sell off what I've been looking at? Pump ads tailored from what I've been viewing in the Real? Will they sell it all to the NSA (and don't give me no paranoia/conspiracy shit until you read this)?

Another aspect of the Singualrity is something that Vinge wrote about in Deepness in the Sky: Ubiquitous Policing. We think, because of Twitter revolutions and Facebook activism (and advertising that fosters these images. Wait, what am I saying, those revolutions are the greatest ads those companies could have hoped for) that the internet exists as this system of unfettered expression, democracy, and information. And it can be. But what if the GPS in your baby's pacifier is also being monitored by a police parolee surveillance program, or is gathering data for a custody and divorce case you don't even know is coming your way? Or the urinal you're pissing in can also test for THC and can cross reference who's pissing when by querying your WiFi-enabled desk chair when you got up, and pinging your phone and Glasses for position? (If you haven't yet, take a look at episodes 2 and 3 of the BBC mini-series Black Mirror). I personally don't think it will all be this doom and gloom tech-paranoia dystopia (well, anymore than it already is). The point is, it easily could be. David Wall, in his book Cybercrime: the Transformation of Crime in the Information Age, puts it this way: "Unless checked, the 'ubiquitous policing' that follow this 'hard-wiring of society' could contribute to the destruction of the democratic liberal values". Okay, maybe that's putting it on a bit thick. But, still, watch the above, tell me it's not creepy. Tell me I'm wrong. Please. 

Robot Cutting Hair

It starts with a haircut and ends with Skynet.

I can't help but think of that scene from The Ice Pirates where those dudes get emasculated... literally (at 1:30).