Fermi and Frost by Frederick Pohl

This was a great story that probably helped present thermonuclear war in the real world, although anybody with common sense probably knew that the Cold War was a bad idea anyway. Pohl described the situation with enough facts to give an idea of just how gruesome nuclear war would be. There are a few other stories that I can remember that covered nuclear war. Barefoot Gen was one that comes to mind right now. That was a movie so the human suffering was a bit more graphic. I wondered why surviving off of geothermal power would not be sustainable in the long run. By the time I finished reading the story I praised the Lord that He did not let such a situation happen here on Earth and that we can continue to grow in Life. I hope that one day we'll sail across the galaxy in search of other living things, and avoiding thermonuclear war, as Pohl points out in the story, is a good step in the right direction! ha ha. The story makes me want to look up what SETI has been up to lately. Good story, a story that helps implant the right ideas into people's minds. Too bad Pohl's main character didn't see the value of prayer in such a terrible situation.

Webrider by Jayge Carr

This was an interesting story I found in The 1986 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim. It was a story about a female humanoid with a tail and a mane that could travel across the galaxy through worm holes. Only 1% of all beings who have attempted this type of travel survive, therefore she believes she is entitled to a certain level of pride and privilege. She lands on a world and expects to receive whatever pleasures she wants, even ignoring what is considered taboo on that planet. She has a fling with one of the males on that planet and he manages to sneek into the wormhole with her and survive. This solves her main problem with being a webrider, the problem of loneliness.

The Fitter by Timons Esaias

Weird looking aliens are good for the lingerie business.

This was a short story about an alien applying for a job at a lingerie store and doing very well at his job and making the owner a lot of money just because he is so weird looking.

Dignity by Jay O'Connell

This was a story about some terrible upper class family that is completely full of themselves, but the seeming innocence of their young daughter causes a person she meets having a hard time in life due to her genetic defects to be her new pet. At least that was the impression I got after reading the whole story. Eh...

Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters by Henry Lien

This short story had a lot of action in it. It was about a spoiled rich girl who went to some fantastic disciplinary camp where she practiced some form of Wushu all day on roller skates. I didn't like her personality at all and hoped she was have a change of heart halfway through the story. Since she kept up her rotten attitude of others I ended up not wanting to finish the story. It didn't seem to go anywhere and I wasn't getting any moral to the story either. That seems to be the case with a lot of stories I'm reading lately. I'm not getting any new ideas or view on life. I'm not getting the moral of the story. The more I read the more I want to jump into the story and slap some sense into people. Maybe it's because of all the Bible reading I've been doing lately. The activities of these characters show how their own personality is really what causes so much trouble in their lives. Anyways it's fun writing about what I read. It makes me feel like I'm getting the most out of my subscription. I also hope that it helps me become a better writer as well, and learn from my experiences and perceptions of other works of fiction.

Until next time happy reading everyone!

Vox Ex Machina by William Preston

The last short story I read was titled, "Vox Ex Machina", by William Preston. It was a cool little story that was much more realistic and near future than the last one I read. The author must have had a few conversations with the A.L.I.C.E. chat bot because he made the talking android head sound just like her. They story shows just how easily it is for someone to fool themselves into thinking a chat bot is thinking when it says the things it does. A user quickly discover's that the software doesn't remember anything about you or what the context of a conversation is about. It made me think about my chat bot programs and what I would need to do to make them better. If only the program could learn, it's goal being to be more human. I don't know how to go about this, but it was fun reading a story that made me think about it once more. Since I spend so much time reading church ministry stuff I think it would be fun to make a chat bot that preaches the gospel to people. Making an artificial preacher probably wouldn't be too hard. All a preacher is trying to do is inject a program into people's heads anyways. Any conversation you have with one of them will eventually steer into telling you what you should believe in and what you need to do with your life. One one hand I would be mocking the work that gospel preachers do, but on the other hand I think the machine would help remind me of what I need to do t continue my spiritual growth.

I would still like to have a machine assist me in my daily tasks. A personal assistant would be handy. But for now I can only dream. Some other fun geeking I've been doing lately is reviving old computers both for work and home fun. I'm writing this blog right now with a Toshiba 320CDS running Windows 98 and Opera 10.54!

The Discovered Country by Ian R. MacLeod

The most interesting story I have read recently.

The story is titled, "The Discovered Country", by Ian R. MacLeod. It was a really cool story about people being able to fully transfer their minds into software and live in a virtual world like the matrix. There are even synthetically created beings in this world called chimera's that simply function to keep the virtual world running for the "dead" people living there. It made me wonder what life really is. If these computer programs could really be considered living things or just very detailed models of the people that used to be alive. What would it take to transfer a person's mind into software? What computing resources are needed in order to keep the simulation of their life running forever? Really cool story. I enjoyed every minute of it. And to think that there are people in real life already trying to gather a band of scientists to make this happen in 20 years! ha ha crazy!

The Time Travel Club by Charlie Jane Anders

In Asimov's October/November 2013 issue I have read one story so far. The novelette is titled, "The Time Travel Club", by Charlie Jane Anders. It was a fun and lighthearted story about a bunch of misfits who end up creating a real time machine. New paradoxes I've never thought about before are explored in this story. It was fun but I didn't really learn too much from it or get any kind of inspiration about anything.

What is the best application for an ancient computer?

I have a lot of computers, a LOT of them. The garage is full of vintage and rare machines that used to be the baddest workstations back in their day. I love recycling old machines and figuring out what useful work they can still do. Most of the time they are just glorified calculators for basic engineering problems. But what if I wanted to use one of these machines as a tool for making some extra cash? What applications could I use them for?

Today I dusted off an old laptop I bought off of Craigslist for $20. It's a Toshiba Satellite 320CDS that just won't die. It's a great little machine with Windows 98 installed. It's got a 231 MHz Pentium processor, 64 MB of ram, and 4 GB of hard disk space. I can connect a USB port to it to back up my work, and a cheap wireless card that sometimes works. What do I do with it? Write small programs in C, C++, Fortran 77, Perl, Scilab, MathCad, Xlispstat, Elisp, Postscript, VBA, VBScript, Jscript, Javascript, and Euphoria. So that's the calculator part. I also write documents with it. Microsoft Office XP runs on it if you are patient enough. But I think XEmacs and LaTeX make a speedier solution. I would love to publish a novel or short story with the thing one day. Making a cool $600 bucks for a short story would be so awesome considering the initial investment. I love using it, the fact that it's old motivates me to use it for something productive. I'm weird, I know.

And what modern web browser will still run on the thing? Not firefox, not IE. Yup, it's Opera