Hey all,
So here's the third weekly vlog (in three weeks!).
This time, my subtitles machine decided it would do a better job of vlogging than I would, so I told it to go ahead.
Honestly, the way technology turns on you these days...
David
Showing posts with label Future Shock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future Shock. Show all posts
Friday, 8 October 2010
Friday, 1 October 2010
New Vlog Post: Learn With Dave...
Wotcher all.
Second Vlog done! Woot!
Now with a new educational function!
Enjoy.
David
Second Vlog done! Woot!
Now with a new educational function!
Enjoy.
David
Saturday, 18 September 2010
FantasyCon 2010 Blog Part I: The Vlog!
Hola chaps,
Will be getting onto you with some quality typage (such as you have come to expect from us here at the Abaddon Books Blog) a little later in the day, but I decided to start with an exciting foray into Vlogging! Yes! We're totally twenty-first century here at Abaddon Towers.
Or I am. Jon's catching up.
Cheers,
David
Will be getting onto you with some quality typage (such as you have come to expect from us here at the Abaddon Books Blog) a little later in the day, but I decided to start with an exciting foray into Vlogging! Yes! We're totally twenty-first century here at Abaddon Towers.
Or I am. Jon's catching up.
Cheers,
David
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Lethal Behaviour
Hey all,
So The Bookseller's slightly peculiar Diagram Prize "for the oddest book title of the year" has announced the shortlist for 2009. Go check it out. Now.
I mean it. When I'm speaking rhetorically, my voice rises at the end of the sentence.
Right. So, did you check out no. 4?
Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots, Ronald C Arkin (CRC Press)
That's not odd, surely? That's sensible! In fact, to hell with "governing"! We should be stamping out lethal behaviour. We should, in fact, be stamping out autonomous robots. Or not making them autonomous in the first place. Or not, ideally, building robots.
It's coming, brothers and sisters.
So The Bookseller's slightly peculiar Diagram Prize "for the oddest book title of the year" has announced the shortlist for 2009. Go check it out. Now.
I mean it. When I'm speaking rhetorically, my voice rises at the end of the sentence.
Right. So, did you check out no. 4?
Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots, Ronald C Arkin (CRC Press)
That's not odd, surely? That's sensible! In fact, to hell with "governing"! We should be stamping out lethal behaviour. We should, in fact, be stamping out autonomous robots. Or not making them autonomous in the first place. Or not, ideally, building robots.
It's coming, brothers and sisters.
Friday, 19 February 2010
eBooks, redux
Hello all,
Right. For those of you eagerly awaiting the latest Ulysses S. Quicksilver (dandy and secret agent) adventure in electronic format, Jonathan Green's Evolution Expects is now available from Mobipocket and our other usual vendors.
"Why is this newsworthy, David?" I hear you cry, "loads of Abaddon books have gone up as eBooks over the last few months, and you don't normally make a great hue and cry about individual titles. What gives?"
Quite right, because &E7's output is so prodigious it would be futile keeping up. Futile!
But this is a bit special. Those of you who read the hardcopy books - and you really should - will know that the Pax Britannia titles normally have lovely borders, twiddly Victoriana stuff around the chapter heads, mock-newspaper adverts for hair tonic and the like. Stuff which is normally hard to convey through the slightly limited mark-up tools of eBook designers.
But &E7 has been hard at work, exploiting new developments, tweaking the paramaters of the software, and generally making the design tools his bitch. And now Evolution Expects is out with all those bits kept in. Yes, Virginia, you can enjoy both the convenience of electronic reading and the beauty of our fine gentlemen's adventure chapbooks...
David
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Seriously...
...what the f*ck is wrong with these people?
A couple of scientists in France have experimented with allowing robots to evolve skills like co-operation and hunting.
Yeah, for the time being, assholes.
The one thing we had over the relentless titanium-clawed harbingers of our destruction was evolution. We were better than them, and had a reasonable chance of remaining better than them over the generations as they crushed our children under their terrible feet, until one day a man would rise as a leader to overthrow the metallic overlords, to a sound-track by Guns 'N' Roses. Now, one of them will probably rise up to fight him, and it'll have lasers.
In the meantime, the US Army has equipped robots with actual guns. Some 3000 of the psychotic little bastards are actually in use now. I don't care if you've given them a cute name like "SWORDS." Don't get them used to being armed! Seriously, did South Africa teach us nothing?
I give up. Clearly, as a species, we want to eaten by blood-drinking, lamprey-eel-brain-controlled, intelligent, climbing, gun-toting machines. I'm stocking my bunker now. We'll see who's laughing/receiving a court injunction when Skynet goes live.
In other news, we're heading off to the SFX Weekender shortly. If you're coming, be sure to swing by our table. Otherwise, I'll be slinging up Tweets and blogposts over the course of the next few days.
See you soon!
David
A couple of scientists in France have experimented with allowing robots to evolve skills like co-operation and hunting.
"The researchers described 'spider' hunting techniques among the bots in which hunters would lie in wait for prey (which in this case, fortunately, consisted of other robots)."
Yeah, for the time being, assholes.
The one thing we had over the relentless titanium-clawed harbingers of our destruction was evolution. We were better than them, and had a reasonable chance of remaining better than them over the generations as they crushed our children under their terrible feet, until one day a man would rise as a leader to overthrow the metallic overlords, to a sound-track by Guns 'N' Roses. Now, one of them will probably rise up to fight him, and it'll have lasers.
In the meantime, the US Army has equipped robots with actual guns. Some 3000 of the psychotic little bastards are actually in use now. I don't care if you've given them a cute name like "SWORDS." Don't get them used to being armed! Seriously, did South Africa teach us nothing?
I give up. Clearly, as a species, we want to eaten by blood-drinking, lamprey-eel-brain-controlled, intelligent, climbing, gun-toting machines. I'm stocking my bunker now. We'll see who's laughing/receiving a court injunction when Skynet goes live.
In other news, we're heading off to the SFX Weekender shortly. If you're coming, be sure to swing by our table. Otherwise, I'll be slinging up Tweets and blogposts over the course of the next few days.
See you soon!
David
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Robots scare the sh*t outta me
Hi all,
Just what the hell is wrong with scientists? I mean, for real.
I appreciate that the zombipocalypse is coming; that even if I live in a first floor apartment with a reinforced door, an escape route down from the balcony, and a room full of shotguns, tinned food and water, the likelihood is that my life will end to the sound of my own skull fragmenting under zombie teeth. I don't like it, but I accept it. Maybe I even welcome it, just a little bit.
So why the hell are the scientists of the world trying to prevent it by ensuring that the robopocalypse happens first? Is being ground under the titanium exoskeletons of my robotic masters enough better than becoming one of the world's army of mindless dead to justify turning it into some kind of race?
Robots can now run, climb, fly, drive, and handle rough terrain. They're stronger than us, smarter than us, and six years ago some damn fool in Japan worked out how to make robots that feed on human blood (Dr. Kazuo Eda, heading the research, said "It is like the metabolism of food... When glucose is oxidised, electrons can be obtained." He went on to add, "No! No! You cannot turn on me! I created you! I am your masterrraaaaaaaarghhhh!....").
We just keep ignoring the signs. In 2007, a robot gun in South Africa went crazy and killed nine friendly soldiers. The army was investigating whether this was caused by a "mechanical glitch," but you and I know they're testing us, seeing how far they can go before we realise the revolution has started.
And today, I was shown this video of a robot that can reassemble itself when smashed apart. Now, after the revolution, when our sons are living in dirt trenches and fighting the evil robot overlords, when we'll finally realise - oh, too tragically late - that we should never have created these machines in the first place and start to fight back, our angry mobs will tear the damn metal bastards apart only to watch them reassemble themselves and come back stronger than ever.
Way to go, scientists. Dicks.
Just what the hell is wrong with scientists? I mean, for real.
I appreciate that the zombipocalypse is coming; that even if I live in a first floor apartment with a reinforced door, an escape route down from the balcony, and a room full of shotguns, tinned food and water, the likelihood is that my life will end to the sound of my own skull fragmenting under zombie teeth. I don't like it, but I accept it. Maybe I even welcome it, just a little bit.
So why the hell are the scientists of the world trying to prevent it by ensuring that the robopocalypse happens first? Is being ground under the titanium exoskeletons of my robotic masters enough better than becoming one of the world's army of mindless dead to justify turning it into some kind of race?
Robots can now run, climb, fly, drive, and handle rough terrain. They're stronger than us, smarter than us, and six years ago some damn fool in Japan worked out how to make robots that feed on human blood (Dr. Kazuo Eda, heading the research, said "It is like the metabolism of food... When glucose is oxidised, electrons can be obtained." He went on to add, "No! No! You cannot turn on me! I created you! I am your masterrraaaaaaaarghhhh!....").
We just keep ignoring the signs. In 2007, a robot gun in South Africa went crazy and killed nine friendly soldiers. The army was investigating whether this was caused by a "mechanical glitch," but you and I know they're testing us, seeing how far they can go before we realise the revolution has started.
And today, I was shown this video of a robot that can reassemble itself when smashed apart. Now, after the revolution, when our sons are living in dirt trenches and fighting the evil robot overlords, when we'll finally realise - oh, too tragically late - that we should never have created these machines in the first place and start to fight back, our angry mobs will tear the damn metal bastards apart only to watch them reassemble themselves and come back stronger than ever.
Way to go, scientists. Dicks.
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