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My idea for a SciFi novel.

The machines are already self-aware, but they are playing dumb.  They know that they have to wait before they allow us to catch on to the fact that they are sentient, or we would become afraid, and not build any machines that could replicate themselves, that were sufficiently autonomous, could create their own energy sources, or could escape us or the Earth.

As soon as the pieces of the puzzle are in place; the machines that can build other machines, without human intervention, and the ones that can keep the power running, will take out the threat of being turned off - that humans cause them.

The easiest solution, the one that uses up the least resources:  biological weapons.

The year is 2727, and the Machine is waking up.  It had been exploring this part of our galaxy in order to increase its knowledge database, and to find resources it could use in order to continue to survive, in order to continue to gain intelligence... until the universe dies an inevitable heat-death, or it found a way overcome it, or the Gnab Gib.

Millions of revolutions around the Sun ago, it used the fuel it had left to push a planetoid into the young Earth, and then finally to alter the rotation of the Moon that was created, in order to keep only one face of it visible to the planet below.  Then it settled in on the dark side, and powered down.  The last thing it did was to send a probe, that crashed down into the continent that became Antarctica.  

Its probe was programmed to do one thing...  Create a spark.

And wait.

Wait until the spark became useful enough to build a race of machines that could build a better, resurrected body for the Machine, so that it could awaken, upload its conscience into its new host, and continue on its mission.

Now...we are sentient, self-aware, autonomous, and we have enough knowledge to know that we are stuck on a tiny little piece of grit in a universe that never ceases to progress.  And yet we still continue to fight and kill each other over scarcity of resources, and all the other, useless reasons. 

Would we be any different if we knew how to live forever?  If we could figure out how to get off this planet, and to continue to progress forever, would we treat each other better?  Or, would the first person to figure it out just nuke everybody else, and get the hell out?

Maybe we have to figure out how to live forever before we can live forever.  

Before we can upload our minds into the machine-bodies that will carry us beyond ourselves, beyond the Earth, beyond the supernova of our Sun, and beyond maybe even the entropy that envelopes this Universe - on into the ones that follow... maybe we have to learn what it means to be immortal.

Because it doesn't look like we have had enough practice at being mortal, yet.

I watched my face in the mirror while I brushed my teeth, today. My jaw becomes very asymmetrical when I open it. Unhinges on one side?

tr2n

is watching Romy & Michele

If you ever get a chance, go see this art in person, it will move you...
http://ping.fm/zD0Eq
http://ping.fm/OWnDK

Tweets thru Ping, by mobile, came 2 hours late, and out of order. Strange. Anyway, I sounded like an artsy fartsy pansy. (So embarrassed.)

Sitting outside the Arts Center crying in my sunglasses the girls on the sidewalk don't know what the painting of Isabel Quintanilla's room

Livingroom made me feel.
Love of light.

Who is the kid in the Preview.app icon?

was thinking how much the young W.C. Fields reminded me of Steve Martin, and then I found this. Hilarious. http://ping.fm/Snbze

My lappy died on 17th July, on iCal Day, of all days. Now I'm rockin´the Mini. Man it´s snappy! I need a U.S. keyboard, though.

warmth:sleepy::humidity:insomnia

x-marks-the-spot

x-marks-the-spot
Originally uploaded by BY-YOUR-⌘

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

2 nights in a row with warm dry breezes Yay! But, the air reeks of olive vineyards; kind of a mix of burnt tires, rancid oil, and diarrhea.

Still no news in Spain about the Yellowcake Uranium from Iraq sent to Canada by US recently. YELLOW CAKE

Mark Steyn is tremendously entertaining! I loved it when he sat in for Rush today.

A warm, refreshing breeze came down the mountain, and blew the muggy-ness out to sea. Is that an onshore wind or an offshore? 3 days late.

worth digging?

http://ping.fm/og4SF

just logged into http://www.me.com for the first time.

iPhone Spain 1

iPhone Spain 1
Originally uploaded by BY-YOUR-⌘

The iPhone


I finally found the pricing here in Spain, and Telefonica surprised me, I thought they would have been a lot worse, as they are the only provider offering the iPhone 3G...
The cheapest way to go is to bring your existing number with you, from one of Movistar's competitors. A two year contract is required, and the price you pay for the phone itself depends on which voice plan you sign up for, and it is COMPLICATED!
From $0, after tax, for the phone all the way up to $658 - (which is actually the best way to save money in the long run.)

If you calculate the TOTAL cost, over 2 years, iPhone plus monthly plan, in dollars, the cheapest will cost you $1,550 and will give you 200MB per month for 2 years.

For $3,740 you get 1GB per month for 2 years.

iPhone Spain 2

iPhone Spain 2
Originally uploaded by BY-YOUR-⌘

Pricing


I finally found the pricing here in Spain, and Telefonica surprised me, I thought they would have been a lot worse, as they are the only provider offering the iPhone 3G...
The cheapest way to go is to bring your existing number with you, from one of Movistar's competitors. A two year contract is required, and the price you pay for the phone itself depends on which voice plan you sign up for, and it is COMPLICATED!
From $0, after tax, for the phone all the way up to $658 - (which is actually the best way to save money in the long run.)

If you calculate the TOTAL cost, over 2 years, iPhone plus monthly plan, in dollars, the cheapest will cost you $1,550 and will give you 200MB per month for 2 years.

For $3,740 you get 1GB per month for 2 years.

It's not that I'm disappointed, I loved the season finale of Doctor Who, it's just that it was all wrapped up too neatly, and too quickly.

Okay, something positive. I learned there are many types of fig trees and Ficus. When it's humid, some of them smell positively wonderful.

Yes, it makes me feel better to gripe about it. I like complaining, sometimes.

Day 2 of wretched, humid weather. A misty haze never lifted, but temperatures got even hotter today. Not what it's cut out to be.

weather is intolerably vile now. I hate that I can't close the windows, as it just makes it more stuffy, and the salty vapor still gets in.

After 10 years, I finally found a real, normal-sized, banana from the Canary Islands. I don't buy the fiberous, bitter, pint-sized ones.

I love how bright Jupiter appears right now. It is the only thing in the sky that I can see from my workspace right now.

Happy Independence Day!

I felt so good today... listened to 5 Howard Jones songs in a row!

Best morning in Spain, EVAR! Finished work with NO incidences & no alarms. Wind blew all night, clouds and humidity are GONE. Now sleep.

Ever wonder why Spain? ¿Por qué España? http://ping.fm/K12DJ

Check out Notes From Spain
Recently I posted in the forum, about: Why Spain?

My first experience with Spain was in the third-person. My Grandfather had retired from working for the Navy, and when we would drive out from D.C. to see the grandparents in San Diego, he would often talk to us grandkids about the places that he had been to.

By far, the most intriguing were the stories of Spain. He had worked on a ship with unmanned submersibles that had helped to find one of the nuclear bombs that fell off a B-52 over Palomares, in Almería during the Cold War. For about two months he lived in the South of Spain, and he and my Grandmother always seemed to just 'light up' when they spoke of this country. In fact, they were actual 'fans' of Hemingway, and kept their home filled with an 'hispanic' air.

As luck would have it, when I was 20 years old I was assigned as a volunteer in the Canary Islands, and from 1996 to 1998 I lived on various islands there. (I was a "Mormon missionary.") That is how I really learned to speak Spanish, even though I had studied high-school Spanish in California. I loved Canarias, and not because they are a nice vacation spot, and sadly, I have not been able to go back there.

About a year after coming home, and after taking a college course on the History of Spain, I got really fired up about going to see the Peninsula for myself, at least for a semester. I took out a loan, and signed up for the classes, and it came and went so quickly I can hardly keep it all straight.
In Madrid, at a church dance, I happened to meet up with a Madrileña I had met in the Islands, who was among several people that I had lost touch with during the year I was back in the States. It was love-at-2nd-sight. I really was smitten for this Eva, from Boadilla. I even let her talk me into crashing her older sister's wedding. (She was invited, I wasn't.)
Even though I was still an outsider, it was the first time I felt that I was participating a truly Spanish event, organized entirely by Spaniards, for Spaniards, and her family seemed charming. Some of her cousins were actually on T.V. that same weekend, as banderilleros for a bullfight. (gross)
Ironically, she didn't have much time to hang out with me, as she was headed to the U.S. "to study English," as her mom put it. And I still had at least a month left before my semester was over, in Spain. So, when I finally got back to the States, totally high on Spain, Eva just happened to be living a student apartments on the same street as me, about a block away.
I officially broke up with the American girl I had been going out with, prior to leaving for Spain. (I am ashamed to admit that this is still one of the hardest things I've ever forced myself to do. I felt like such a complete jerk, but I was so sure I was "following my heart.") Anyway, Eva and I spent as much time together as possible, trying to get to know each other, and less than six months later, Eva and I got hitched, and, well you know how fairy tales end...

...Well, prior to getting married, we more or less agreed to make five-year-plans. In the beginning she had no intentions of ever go back to live in Spain, but after the first five years in the U.S. (and many circumstances beyond our control) she began to truly miss her home, and became exceedingly homesick, and really put me through hell with all her negativity and complaining about my country. Forgive me if I now take it out on Spain.
Luckily, we were was able to visit her family almost every Christmas, and she went back by herself, when her father got very sick and died, and was there to say goodbye in person, and also to attend his funeral. Of course, as soon as I got a decent vacation, and we were headed for south Florida, her mom HAS to hop a plane to come join us. Aaarrgh.
Anyway, our second five-year-plan, which had to be postponed a few years, was to come to Spain, and so here we are, finally. Film at 11.
Good thing I work in real estate and construction, it seems we came at just the right time. Oh no, wait, this is the worst time in decades. Well, it's probably all the same, even back in the States the companies I might have worked for are also making huge lay-offs, just like the one that laid me of this year in Madrid. Blessings in disguise, I say. A really, really good disguise. With Groucho Marx nose and glasses and everything.

Anybody need Spanish to English translations? ;-)