In BRINGER OF LIGHT, M. Thomas Apple crafts a satisfyingly complex future where mankind has moved off Earth but must fight and struggle against the harsh realities of physics—and each other—in order to survive.
Despite the fact that the manga Golgo 13 is about as conservative as you can get (openly misogynistic and racist at times, as well), I’ve been a fan since before coming to Japan in 1999. I hadn’t realized that the original anime movie that I saw back in Boston was based on what became the manga with the most printed volumes in the world in July 2021. This year marks its 50th anniversary, and the stories are being reproduced in larger format, grouped according to physical region.
The group of stories based in Japan came out a short while ago (I already got copies of stories based in France and the Middle East, and a book based in Italy is due soon). Interestingly, one of the stories is reproduced from December 2001 — four months after JAXA successfully launched the H-IIA rocket following a previous failure (hence, the “peeled metal plating” title).
Way back in 2015, my good friend Rami Z Cohen came to me with an idea for a story. He had written two or three scenes about a group of asteroid hunters who stumbled upon something bizarre. The idea of mining asteroids was news at the time (and still is, although probably too expensive right now and not a worthwhile investment until we actually get some people in space who need metals without relying on NASA/ESA/JAXA/ISRO/etc).
So Rami and I began to email ideas back and forth for a few weeks, then we started to flesh out his characters and plot. I wrote a synopsis and outline and we hashed out the background.
To explore new ways to control this fundamental force of nature, scientists from the City College of New York (CCNY) trapped light inside a magnetic metamaterial and made the material itself 10 times more magnetic in the process.
Next up, magnetic lasers and lots and lots of more magnetic memory savings.
(Note that Popular Mechanics links the phrase “magneto-optical technologies” to an article claiming that the US has somehow managed to reverse-engineer alien technology from crashed UFOs…Um…OK…)
[ChatGPT] could teach his daughter math, science and English, not to mention a few other important lessons. Chief among them: Do not believe everything you are told.
They’re all the rage online. Type in a request for a description how two historical people who never actually met would respond to each other had they actually met, and the program will oblige.
They’ll cause all sorts of rage online, too, once the peddlers of incessant false news and innuendo realize what a bonanza they’ve stumbled upon.
You want an image of an event that never really happened?
No problem. A program can generate one for you. We can even call it “art,” for what that’s worth.
No, BIG problem, especially when it convinces the gullible that it DID happen.
“Perhaps most intriguing among the documents are the several dozen Defense Intelligence Reference Documents (DIRDs), which discuss the viability of various “advanced technolog[ies].” This collection includes reports on “traversable wormholes, stargates, and negative energy,” “high-frequency gravitational wave communications,” “warp drive, dark energy, and the manipulation of extra dimensions,” and many other topics that will sound familiar to fans of science fiction.”