Oculus Rift, Second Life

and just the state of things

 

 

 

   There has been a lot of talk - and a lot of hype - around Oculus Rift over the last few months. Now that some of the hysteria has died down a bit I want to say a couple words. The fact is this is a new gadget worth paying attention to. Will it be bringing on a new 'paradigm' in technology? Maybe, then again maybe not, the sheer amount of money being thrown at it argues that it is going to matter in some way. We just don't know what yet.

 

  Now I've seen a few people who think that Oculus Rift is going to be the death of Second Life as we know it. I really doubt that. The fine management of Linden Lab has made it widely known that they're going to create a whole new Second Life. The new virtual world will be of their creation initially and will be so superior to the old Second Life that we residents will abandon the old and flock to the new without any regrets.

 

I doubt all of this.

 

   First off, the Lindens might well not want us to all give up our sims and rush off to the New World. Right now we are their cash cow; they haven't made a single penny off Oculus Rift yet. The money they are using for all of this nifty research and development is coming from the users of the current Second Life virtual world platform. They need us, they need us badly.

 

   I also have my serious doubts that they are going to match the creativity of all those builders and creators that have worked so zealously to create the current Second Life. They seem to believe they'll create something that will capture our imaginations more than what we currently have. I really do think the Lindens need to spend more time inworld and seeing just how much so many of us have created.

 

   Sure, I say let them work on their nifty new virtual world. I just think they would be making a mistake to turn their backs on the people who are essentially bankrolling this for them. If anything they should be working as hard on making Oculus Rift usable in the current Second Life as the coming brave, new virtual world.

 

Enough said.

 

 





Once again from the Desk

of Bernard Broono

 

 

 



   I haven't posted anything in a great awhile. I'm sure quite a lot of you know what it's like to have life to take on it's own momentum and things like blogging and creating get shoved on a back shelf. It is time for me to catch up though. So very much has been happening.

 

 

 

   Kwai and I have added a new member to our family. Please meet the completely wonderful Piper Hanriot. The three of us are rapidly getting very fond of each other. Our only difficulty is that dear Piper is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean; seven time zones away in the United Kingdom.

 

  I'm a bit philosophical about this distance issue. Distance is a barrier, not an obstacle. It has been my experience that where there is a will, there is also a way. I have faith in myself and as long as my ladies have faith in me then nothing can really stand between us.

 

   Real life is also bringing new adventures and new hopes for the future. Kwai and I are both within a short few months of retirement from our Real Life professions. This will open a whole new chapter in our lives with new challenges to meet. I believe in a sort of destiny though; that this next new phase in life will bring with it new hopes and new discoveries.

 

 

Kwai on top of the World

 

  With a bit of luck I'll stay on top of this blog for the coming future. Who knows what stories we will have to tell...



 

 

 

Damn! Has a lot of stuff

 been happening...

 

I missed a week of updating this blog; just so much stuff happening in the world. Sometimes it seems to me like we are racing towards some significant event. In the past I've talked about what I call the 'Sarajevo Moment'; this is some single event that triggers a cascading chain reaction of other events. Maybe we are in a sort of nose dive towards such an event?

 

 

 

Do you remember when I was doing the 'Dark Future' series of pictures on Flickr? I was telling my own speculative fiction story on the near future. One of the key events in this story was going to be Sino-Pacific conflict that would be called the "47 Minute War".

I imagined a short, violent war between the People's Republic of China and a coalition of Pacific states - including the United States of America.

 



 



 

In this little war the militaries of both the People's Republic of China and the United States have largely turned over control of various strategic weapons systems to Artificial Intelligence based computer systems. The computers can evaluate situations and make strategic decisions faster than any human can.

 

 



 



 

In my story the war starts over some foolish incident on some speck of land in the middle of the South China Sea. Nobody knows who really fired the first shot but within minutes missiles are being launched, low yield nuclear weapons are going off and the near orbit space of Earth is filled with debris and death.

 

Then the war just stops. The computer systems suddenly just call it all off. The Artificial Intelligences decide that China "wins" the scenario so further destruction is pointless. The United States is suddenly relegated to being a third world country - especially since 20 minutes into the conflict several Electro-Magnetic Pulse devices are detonated in orbit above the continental United States. The country has been reduced to an economic basket case and in my story we are forced to ask for humanitarian assistance from India.

 

The scary thing for me was that some of the news in the All To Real World was bearing some of this out. The saber rattling and arms race in the Pacific Rim. Did you know that India is building modern aircraft carriers to counter the Chinese? Or that Japan is going back to some of their old militaristic ways in the face of threats from both China and North Korea?

 

And we are right there in the middle of it...

 

My story was just getting a little too real for my comfort.

 





 

Transhumanism

Approaching the Singularity

 

One of my daily activities is checking out movie trailers on YouTube. I'm always looking to see what new science fiction might be coming out. I'm not really so interested in 'Space Opera' or 'Monster of the Week'; my interest is more in seeing some credible speculation on what the future just might have waiting for us. Recently I saw a trailer for a movie that might be hitting close to home sooner than we think.

 

 



Transcendence

 

 

The idea of merging human intelligence with machines is nothing new. I think I first read a novel featuring it in 'Neuromancer' by William Gibson.

 

 

Neuromancer by William Gibson

 

 

I eventually met William Gibson at a book signing in a science fiction and fantasy bookstore in 'Dinkytown' outside the University of Minnesota Minneapolis Campus. I remember somebody asking him where he got his ideas from and he told about how he was given a tour of the campus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to talk with some of the students there. He stated that it didn't matter how crazy an idea might sound, with the right motivation, dedication and determination some bright mind could and would achieve it.

 

The fact of the matter is there are already people working on merging human intelligence with machines.

 



Ray Kurzweil and the 'Singularity'

 

 

Let's get Michio Kaku's take on some of this.

 

 

Now this gets me thinking about what would happen if you transfer your conscious mind into a machine? Let me take this a step further, rather than put yourself inside some wire and metal robot what if you moved yourself into a virtual world similar to Second Life?

 

What if you were given the chance to trade your frail and imperfect human 'meat' body for a self-aware computer program? You could actually live in a virtual reality. How many of you would do it?

 

While you think about that question just remember there are people working on actually doing it...

 

 

 



 

 

 

 



 

 

 



 

 

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to get you!

Spy Lady Kwai

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to get you..."

The next time you log into Second Life you might want to be looking over your virtual shoulder a bit more often. It looks like we all might be under surveillance.

 

The NSA might be watching you!

 

I'll be honest with you; I really have a hard time trusting the United States government lately. Don't get me wrong, I've got incredible faith in the patriotism and dedication of most of the people serving in our military and civil agencies. What I have a real problem with is many of the politicians calling the shots on this. One day it might be protective surveillance, the next day it can be the New Police State.

 

So the next time you're in that sex sim pounding pixels and caught up in the cyber madness of your hot, throbbing monkey love think twice about what you blurt out in your mindless passion.

 

Big Brother could be watching.

 

 



 





 

 

New Year's Day 2014

 

   Happy Freaking New Year to you all! The calendar had turned and the clock has struck and we are wandering into a new year like a ship sailing into a fog bank. We just never know what is going to pop up in front of us.

 

    Now 2013 was a heck of a year for me; it's done and gone now, just a lot of memories and unpaid bills. I did accomplish some things over the year. Had a life changing bit of surgery done. Lost a few people I cared about. Reconnected even more strongly with somebody I love. That was 2013, let it slide into the history books.

 

 

Kwaibebe is always along for this ride



 

  This year I have some New Year's Resolutions to live up too. For one thing, this blog is BACK. I am going to strive to update it at least weekly. Back when I had another blog called "The Booming Prairie Chicken" the updates came every Saturday. With 'Bernard's World' they'll more likely be Saturday or Sunday. It all just depends on when I'm sober.

 

 

Let's remember those things that inspire us



 



  I'll be writing about both Second Life and Real Life. I personally believe the two are intertwined with each other; the more time you spend in Second Life the more it shows up in your Real Life. I'm not going to judge whether this is a good thing or a bad thing but it definitely happens.

 

 

Marco Vey Cigars - inspiration to me



 

  I've made a lot of friends in Second Life. They'll be involved in this blog to one degree or another as well. So if you're a resident of Second Life don't be shocked if I ask you to post something or add your picture to my literary mania.

 

 

 

My Greatest Inspiration

Kwaibebe and the beautiful woman

behind Kwaibebe Kaventipovic



 

 



 



Ruminations on the Steam Tank

Ruminations on the Steam Tank

 

 

 

 

   The steam powered armored fighting vehicle has long been a staple of Steampunk fiction. Lately it has lead me to pondering if such a steam leviathan would have been probable or even possible? I decided to turn to history to see if there was anything there that could shine some light on this.

 

   I'm an avid reader with a my trusty but not-so-Steampunk Nook HD I was able to consider a volume of material. One of my first discoveries was that that the Victorian British were ahead on this as early as the Boer Wars:

 

http://www.patriotfiles.com/forum/showthread.php?t=109688

 

 

 

 

Fowler Armored Steam Train circa 1900

 

   Now this bit of British innovation had some limitations; it was strictly a means to move supplies and war materials through the contested areas of South Africa amidst raiding Boers. It was limited to roads and not really designed for offensive action. It is interesting that it could mount some small artillery as well as riflemen in order to defend itself. From what I'm finding it seems to have been a success in it's limited role.

 

   It was really the horrors of trench warfare during the First World War that turned people to considering the armored fighting vehicle again. In February 1915 the British created the 'Landship's Committee' under First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. What they wanted to create was a vehicle that could cross the mud and devastation of the 'no man's land' between the trenches and then defeat the barbed wire and machine guns of the defending army.

Some of their inspiration might have come from what could be considered an early Steampunk bit of fiction by none other than H G Wells, 'The Land Ironclads'.

 

 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-land-ironclads-h-g-wells/1029282061?ean=2940012060716

 

You can get 'The Land Ironclads' for the Nook at the Barnes & Noble website for as little as 99 cents!

 

   Now most of the World War One armored vehicle designs were based on the use of the internal combustion engine. When you consider the technology of the time it makes sense since the gasoline engines of the time produced considerably more efficient energy than the steam engines of the time. Even so the gasoline engines of the time were barely sufficient to power these first armored war machines and gasoline itself offered significant dangers to the vehicle crew if the armor plate was defeated by enemy fire.

 



Interesting little video about a replica World War One tank.

 

   It is interesting to note though that steam was considered as a power source for at least one World War One era armored vehicle.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_tank

 

 

   The fuel for this vehicle was actually kerosene which was not a lot safer than gasoline and steam itself had more than a few dangers to the crew if the steam lines were to break. It does seem logical to use kerosene for a steam powered vehicle rather than the more common coal used to fuel boiler fires in this era. This tank was not particularly mechanically reliable according to the records I've found; it even embarrassingly broke down during a parade to show it off to the public.

 

   Still this whole bit of research leads me to ponder what would have happened if military minds had decided to develop a steam powered armored vehicle despite the inherent problems and dangers of this propulsion? Let's say that the American Civil War had gone like what is depicted in Cherie Priest's 'Clockwork Century' series of novels.

 



http://theclockworkcentury.com/

 

 

Somebody already has a game coming out on this sort of historical fantasy.

 

   What if instead of four years the war had lasted twenty years? With the sort of bloodshed that was taking place in the trench fighting that took place outside Petersburg and Richmond in 1865 maybe the idea of an armored fighting vehicle would have been as plausible to the Union Army as it was to the British in 1915?

 

   Maybe the British or the French would have created an armored vehicle to sell the struggling Confederacy to oppose the Union Behemoths? Would they have figured out more efficient designs for these steam powered weapons? All just a bit of rumination on my part...