Posts tagged excerpts

Teaser Tuesday: Vera and the Coffee Shop

15 years
by in The Sequel

It’s getting to the point where it’s more difficult to post sections from the sequel without giving too much away about new characters and plots, so the Teaser Tuesdays may become less regular and shorter as I have to limit what I can show you. This week is just a short little paragraph about an excursion Vera takes to a local coffee shop, and reflects most of the frustration and annoyance I feel when I go to a coffee shop myself (which is rare itself).

Vera left the coffee shop, sipping on her mocha, which was quite delicious. It was nice when baristas actually knew what they were doing. All too often they would utterly fail at creating a drink. In fact, the last coffee that Vera had drank in the twenty-first century was watered down, too sweet, and flavored far too strongly. To even call it a coffee was an insult to the arabica tree that the coffee beans had been harvested from. This time, however, the coffee was perfect. She walked along, enjoying the evening breeze coming off the ocean. It wasn’t long, however, before she arrived at the block containing the bookstore and had to put a stop to her evening stroll.

So what’s next? Well a bit of the bookstore scene will probably show up in the next Teaser Tuesday, which will be in a week or two.  Stay tuned!

Teaser Tuesday: Cloning

15 years
by in The Sequel

For this week’s Teaser Tuesday I bring you two paragraphs from a chapter that has a brief discussion on cloning (why, specifically, I will not reveal). This is only part of the narration from this section, and is part of my efforts to make more of the revelations about future life and tech come from the narrator and/or the character’s personal experiences rather than having Darin, Lyla or someone else explain things directly. Enjoy!

The major problem with clones is not so much the feelings of deja vu one experiences after encountering several of them in rapid succession, but rather in the semantics involved with keeping track of them. When the technology to clone first came into use, the scientists involved briefly experimented with numbering, lettering, even code-naming each clone to try and distinguish them from one another. This practice was quickly discovered to be rather ineffective due to the fact that as soon as the clones moved around the room, it was impossible to know which of them was ‘Alpha’ and which of them was ‘Beta’. It was rather disheartening for the scientists because the idea had seemed so good on paper, but in use was rather futile. This realization resulted in brief trials with name tags, but this too failed when the clones realized how much fun it was to distort the results of the experiments by switching name tags halfway through.

The labeling system caused just as much frustration for the clones. After all, it was rather disheartening to hear that Victoria M had gone off to a really great party and met a dashingly handsome young man while you, Victoria E, sat at home watching a sappy romance for the sixth time. Thus, most clones came to refer to themselves as if they were a single entity, causing the lines between which clone had done what to blur. Of course, with the technology to truly merge memories still based entirely in theory, the clones were left to merely revel in the delusion that they had all done really cool, awesome, and exciting things.

Teaser Tuesday: A Bit from the Introduction of the Sequel

15 years
by in The Sequel

For this week’s Teaser Tuesday, I bring you a small portion from the introduction to the sequel. Enjoy!

Ever since mankind has inhabited this planet, a great number of seemingly impossible events have taken place. The odds against these events were so mind-bogglingly high that the universe’s top historians wrote the planet off before it had a chance to make any history to begin with. Earth took no notice of this, however, and puttered on, unaware that it had caused the complete upheaval and replacement of those top historians. The universe’s current top historians have since called this “the greatest blunder in the history of historians,” and have since wrote many books on the subject, including The Little Planet That Could, See Earth Spin, and the all-time classic Where the Wild Earthlings Are.

Still, the same historians—and most of the rest of the inhabitants of the universe—were caught completely off-guard when humanity managed to pull out of their Third World War without completely obliterating themselves. They were caught even more off-guard when the humans managed to unite under one world government. They watched with keen interest as mankind rebuilt their civilization at a record setting pace. It all seemed, once again, impossible; but if there was one thing that the planet Earth and its inhabitants seemed to do right, it was the impossible.

Technology Time: Mobile Computing vs. Desktop Computing

15 years
by in Technology Time

Today, whilst checking up on my favorite nerd news websites, I had a thought: it would be kind of cool to share some of these stories on my own site as well, but with a Strange Future twist… Thus, “Technology Time” was born! Occasionally, I’ll post a link to an interesting bit of technology and science news, share my viewpoints, and how it relates to the world of technology described in the book. This week, we have one of my favorite kinds of stories: X is dead, long live Y! This week, the role of X will be played by the desktop computer, and the role of Y will be played by mobile computing devices, such as smart phones. I happen to be very fond of these kinds of stories because more often than not, they’re utterly and completely wrong. Today’s article can be found at MediaPost. Here’s a quote from the article in question:

…Then consider this statement from Google Europe boss John Herlihy: “In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant.”

Google’s VP of Global Ad Operations says that cloud-computing will soon guarantee that every mobile device will be capable of handling the most advanced applications, thus demoting desktops to doorstop status.

Well, “If your data moves to the cloud, and most of your daily online activities are done on devices such as the Nexus One and the iPad … then yes, desktop PCs as we know them now will become a lot less important,” writes Mashable. “On the other hand, not many users are ready to ditch the desktop just yet.”

“Big bulky desktops are disappearing, of course, but that’s hardly a new development,” writes PC World, adding, “It’s likely the conventional PC will have a longer, healthier life than Google anticipates.”

Article Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123701

So the death of the desktop has been predicted again, this time by Google. This isn’t entirely surprising, especially since Google has been pushing to enter into the mobile computing market with its Android phone operating system. I myself happen to own an Android powered phone, and from my point of view, it’s a very well made platform. (Though I’ve not had much experience with other mobile phone operating systems as my current phone is the first smart phone I’ve ever had.) And while it’s true that more people than ever are accessing the web and their data on the go via smart phones, netbooks, and other smaller computing solutions, I think it’s way too early to say that the desktop has a foot in the grave, let alone to call for its complete and total demise. The reasons for this are varied and many, but there are two primary reasons that I don’t believe this to be the case.

Corporate and Business Users: There are some situations where a mobile device simply will not suffice. Can you imagine trying to fulfill duties as a secretary, accountant, or, worse yet, a 3D modeler on a mobile device? It just doesn’t make any sense in those situations. So most companies are going to continue on, business as usual, on desktop computers.

Limits of Mobile Computers: I don’t necessarily mean limitations on processing power or bandwidth here, though that is a factor to consider as well. As time goes on, those limitations will be lessened. I’m talking about physical limitations, mostly connected with dimensions. The technology for touch screens is obviously much better than before, and it could just be me, but I find typing on a touch screen extremely difficult. The phone I have happens to have a full, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, which works much better. Still, I have difficulty, at times, typing on the thing because the keys are so small. Until we start implanting keyboards into our arms (which would have its own very interesting complications), I just can’t foresee people using mobile computing devices for much larger research, composition, and other projects simply because of this.

How this impacts the technology of the future: In the story, much emphasis is placed on the implants (basically smart phones implanted into people’s heads) that the characters use to communicate with each other and access the portal system (futuristic version of the internet). This reflects how I see mobile computing technology being used as time goes on. Instead of humans becoming cyborg-like creatures with powerful computing hardware built into every bit of their bodies, all fully interfaced with their brains, I think things will continue to remain much as they are now, for the most part, with voice to text technologies improving to the point where dictation for typing on mobile devices will be common. Obviously, based on the popularity of bluetooth headsets, people don’t have a problem talking into thin air (and appearing crazy). For those not comfortable with that, there are also keyboards (sold separately, of course) available for use with the implants.

Still, despite all the uses of the implant, desktop computers are still around in the future. At several occasions (the airport, hotel, bank, and others) the characters interacted with individuals who were using desktop computers. Darin himself has a computer that he uses on at least one occasion, though it is never actually described (it is kept in his room, and we never get the chance to “see” the inside of his room in the story).

I will admit that from a technological standpoint, at the current rate of progress and advancements anyhow, to have only gotten that far in two-hundred years seems laughable in a way. However, recall that Lyla explains the third world war set back a lot of the advancements previously made:

“Oh, no, the Internet was destroyed during World War Three,” Lyla explained. “The governments decided that it was a threat to global instability and dismantled it.”

“Don't you mean global stability?” Vera asked.

“No?”

“Never mind...” Vera sighed.

“Anyhow, the Internet as you guys know it was destroyed but they began the Portal System in the 2050s after the personal computer made a comeback. There are quite a few different portals available, and most of them are fine tuned to work well on the implants since that's where nearly all of the traffic on the Portals comes from.”

Thus, in the 2050s, computing technology was basically reset to where it was a few years ago. Thereafter, the government would keep a much closer eye on technology and guide it the way they wanted it to go. So, that’s pretty much the state of mobile and desktop computing technologies in the world of Strange Future. Look for another one of these (probably much shorter next time! 😛 ) posts sometime soon!

First Blog Post! Plus, Teaser Tuesday

15 years
by in The Sequel

Well this is officially the first blog post I’ve made on the new site! (Well, first post with NEW content that is.) I think I’ve finally settled on the design, so things should stay pretty static from this point on from that standpoint at least. Let me know what you think of the setup!

For my first post, I’ve decided to do a Teaser Tuesday post featuring an excerpt from the sequel that I’m currently working on. (Teaser Tuesday is when someone posts an unedited portion of something they’re currently working on to get feedback and, let’s face it, to show off. :P) There’s only one bit in this portion resembling a spoiler, and it’s so excessively minor that you needn’t worry about it. Without further yapping from me, here it is:

The rather unfortunate thing about important, newsworthy happenings is that they have an uncanny ability of occurring when one isn’t at home. A person will blissfully go about the day’s business, completely unaware about the major event unfolding that’s making everyone’s head spin. Once they finally do get home to hear the news, they’re as shocked as everyone else was initially, and proceed to call everyone they know to find out if they’ve heard yet. Inevitably, everyone they call will have already seen it and mostly recovered. Recovered, that is, until the caller reminds them of what happened, stirring up the feelings of anxiety all over again.

With the advent of faster and faster means of communication, this rather awkward and irritating cycle was supposed to be eliminated. Telegraphs rose and were replaced by the telephone, which was supplemented by the television, which was then further supplemented by the internet, which was replaced by the portal system, which was supplemented by the implants… and so on. Of course, the endless loop of bad news being freely accessible didn’t reduce the anxiety cycle as people originally suspected, but instead intensified it, making things worse than they originally were.

This led to one scientist rediscovering a long forgotten, crude little device called earplugs. Upon realizing the seemingly magical power they had to reduce anxiety brought on by bad news, he began to market and sell them to the masses. He lived the next year of his life in a blissful, peaceful tranquility. Indeed, he would’ve lived a full, happy life, but he made the mistake of taking his earplugs off one day and died of an anxiety attack when a random passerby filled him in on everything that had happened in the past year. Thus, the government banned the earplug, and earplug addiction centers opened all over the world, gradually weaning people of their dependence on them.

Still, the problem remained, and steps were taken to try and reduce anxiety for the masses in small doses. One such step was to ban televisions and require the installation of portal service blockers in certain public places, such as fancy restaurants and nightclubs. Thus, Thomas, Lyla, Darin, and Doug were completely oblivious to what had just been revealed by Lydia Shults at the press conference in London. Vera could, of course, call them and tell them, but the laws of etiquette—which Vera was rather fond of following—would prevent that from happening.

That’s it for this week! I’ll be sure to do another Teaser Tuesday post later on. I can’t ensure that it’ll happen every week, but I’ll try to do one at least once a month. Let me know what you think in the comments!

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