Tesla board meeting August 2021 Present: Our Glorious and Most Brilliant Divine Master, Elon Musk (EM), Tom Tinker, Engineering (TT), Seamus O’Blather, Advertising (SOB) SOB: People are starting to notice the top speed in the hype-o-loop is under 30 mph EM: What can you do about that Tom? TT: We can make the lights flash […]
Author Archives: Gerald St Clare
Set in the years when the world was in (completely justified) fear of nuclear Armageddon, Saucers holds a mirror to our current universal fear of destruction through global warming. In both cases, self interest from the most powerful continue to make the risk higher and the potential damage more devastating for all. We may look […]
BBC Article 16 Aug 2021: Would you let a robot lawyer defend you? In my short story “Apeman” (from the Arkships series), I introduced the idea of robot lawyers: “Two identical GV34 AI units had been uploaded with Lawyer programming, each with full access to the central database of Case Law. One was designated Prosecution […]
Steven Weinberg 3 May 1933 – 23 July 2021. One of the giants of physics. A Few selected steven weinberg quotes [On the Fakebook effect] – “All logical arguments can be defeated by the simple refusal to reason logically” [On magic] – “Sometimes nature seems more beautiful than strictly necessary” [On knowledge] – “This is […]
Laura un Vineta is my absolute favourite style of science fiction, and executed perfectly. We are drawn into the human story sympathetically and with a gentle humour. Although Aldis will be totally alien to most viewers, his quirkiness is portrayed with such empathy that we can’t help but join him in his emotional journey. The […]
I read an interesting article today about how a few other writers choose the names for their characters: ABC Arts: Tony Birch, Garth Nix and other acclaimed novelists share how they choose the names of their characters Personally, I don’t like my important characters to be named after real people as the reader is […]
“Doctor Ross” Boyd (RB): I’d like to welcome Philip Sims, the UFO researcher from “Prudent Doubt” magazine… Philip Sims (PS): Can I stop you right there, Ross? I’m not a UFO researcher. I prefer to be called a “crop circle investigator”. RB: Isn’t that the same thing? PS: Not at all. UFO fans depend in […]
I don’t spend any time on Fakebook these days, but still occasionally get drawn into conversations that one would normally only have to endure on such platforms. A couple of weeks ago, a reader contacted me; giving all the signs of someone with strong enough opinions to go straight onto anyone’s “ignore” list. Needless to […]
I always cringe the way fictional AIs talk about their “subroutines” or even when people who should know better talk about “The Algorithm”. Such chatter demonstrates that the speaker knows little about what is required for true AI, a difference raised by Alan Turing himself. He asked: “Instead of trying to produce a programme to […]