Longevity
My newest Futurismic column looks at longevity. This is feeding a bit off of a question I asked the twitterverse (and the land of Facebook) about whether or not people would want to live to be 150 (assuming no negative consequences to us or our progeny or the earth). Pretty much everybody said yes.
I’ve to change a few things to get to 150, or else the world around me has to give me more options. But I just played “The Longevity Game” and clocked in as likely to live to 89. So there’s 40 years for things to change in, at least according to the game and assuming I don’t die in accident
During my research, I came to the conclusion that the proven factors for longevity are all based on lifestyle choices rather than science. But there are some interesting science bits including growing and even printing organs (no, that’s not a typo).
I think it will be a nice ride.
Broadband: How We Thirst
As many of you know, I have other hats besides writer/speaker/futurist. I work for a city as the Chief Information Officer, or CIO. That means I’m responsible for all of the phones and computers and communications – people and budgets and decisions.
We are one of many cities competing to have Google choose our community to build a new high-speed internet connection. Cities have renamed themselves. Some city leaders have jumped in freezing water, and others have given streets new (temporary) monikers.
I am amazed at the energy going into this. There are probably thousands of cities competing for this slim chance. We’re doing it in a recession, and spending taxpayer time and effort that we really don’t have. We’re closing city hall some days. Staff has taken pay cuts. The same things are true for most local governments all across the country. But we, and many other recession-ravaged cities, are finding time to do this anyway.
If you assume low figures of two hundred hours per city times a thousand cities, that’s two hundred thousand taxpayer hours (about a hundred man-years of effort) being spent to sell our cities to a multinational for an experiment. And I think my numbers might be an order of magnitude low.
This doesn’t mean that all of us cities are crazy. It means we’re thirsty. We know how true broadband could be a powerful enabler, how it might mean more effective health care and better business and brand new ways to do things. This is true even for cities like mine where we do have multiple providers. That’s because none of the current players are running open networks with high speeds up and down the pipe, and designing to encourage innovation. Existing providers are building profits in trade for delivering entertainment that we’re happy to buy. But this technology could so so much more, and we know it.
Our citizens are almost all supporting us and many of them are writing in to Google to support the communities they live in. They are thirsty, too.
I wish us all luck in this competition. But given that it will be water to a tiny fraction of a the country at best, I hope this thirst is recognized by a broader audience than Google. I hope it is heard as the country debates the FCC’s new plan and eventually takes up network neutrality (which we must preserve, or even more people and businesses will die without access).
We should take this as a marching order from the people to the government as much as we should take it as a number of governments selling themselves to Google.
Rainforest Writer’s Retreat Day 4
We’ve now seen the last sunset we’ll see here. I’ll be happy to get home, but another three days of writing would finish the book. I’m over 11,000 words, but there are that many again to go, or maybe a few more.
The highlights of today were a great talk by Barb and JC Hendee (writer’s of the bestselling Noble Dead series), a walk in the woods, a semi-private concert by Ken Scholes, and a killer sunset. I have to admit if I were tasked to pick a favorite out of four great things today, it might be Ken’s singing. I will post some YouTube once I get home and have decent bandwidth (The only two tough things about this retreat are no dogs, and we are sipping bandwidth through a single wireless straw shared amongst many geekly types).
Rainforest Writers, Day 2
We had a great talk by Susan Mathews on character and then another by James Van Pelt on endings. It’s fun to listen to writer’s teach – we all approach it so differently!
And of course,being with sf writers, the afternoon walk was full of talk about the atmosphere and axial tilt and the Cambrian day and all sorts of other geeky stuff.
Not much else to report — I’m on target for words at near 5000 for the day and an hour two left before I fall over. That sounds like a lot of words, but I’m on the end of a novel, which is the part that tends to want to pour out of my fingers as fast as I can type just so it’s done and out of me. It’s kind of like being possessed by story. I want to find out what happens. You’d think I’d know since I’m the writer, but it’s not quite like that. I only know the end as a shadow right now.
This is a picture of part of the retreat grounds. I’m in the cabin on the left (#18) with a great view of the lake in two directions.
Rainforest Writers Workshop Day 1
I am on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, and right at this moment I am in a dark bar with about a dozen writers. There are a handful of community people as well, and much chattering and laughter from both groups. This is the Rainforest Writer’s Village workshop, sponsored by Patrick Swenson of Fairwood Press.
Today was extricating myself from my CIO hat, getting some much-needed household stuff done, and grabbing John Pitts for a three hour drive where we listened to Starship Sofa, Jordin Kare, and Queen.
It was so lovely sunny that a hike ensued. The rain forest is really quite different – this is temperate and drips with damp and moss and mud and fern an magical or surprising sights or beings. Unlike tropical rain forests, most things are not over-sized, although we are on the same site as the world’s biggest spruce tree, at least if you believe the signs. If you look closely, there is one bit of rainforest magic in the iphone photo snap here.
Jay Lake arrived looking quite good (Yeah – go Jay) and sporting a handsome new haircut. That is a particularly good treat since I haven’t seen him since his chemo started.
I outlined the rest of the book, so now I know what I’m writing at a more granular level. I’m no true outliner, so what I really mean is I have a paragraph for each main scene. I’m hoping to get 20-30K words done total this three full days – which is pretty serious stuff. Which means I’d best get to bed.
More pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/bjcooper1/RainForest2010Day1# for your viewing pleasure.
Reading (and Hugo) Recommendation(s)
Odd title, I know. I listened to Starship Sofa 121, which has Paolo Bacigalupi’s “the Gambler” in it.
Loved the story. I will include it on my Hugo ballot (which I’m still working on). Paolo is one of the best people we have writing sf right now – and are we lucky!
It was also a great reminder of how much I like Starship Sofa. I get through about one episode a month, and I’m really never disappointed. Today, it was my entertainment for a three mile dog walk, and since I wasn’t done yet – and wanted to hear the rest of the story – for a half hour of weights at the gym when I usually would have been listening to music.
I get a lot of pleasure from listening to Tony C. Smith and the huge pile of people who pitch in to help out with the Sofa. And the Sofanauts for that matter. It’s like getting a chance to listen to friends. So I intend to nominate the Sofa for best fanzine. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, drop by and have a listen….
In which an author is given a lovely gift
I was lucky enough to be invited to talk at the Cavalcade of Authors a few weeks ago in Pasco, Washington. They just emailed me a survey and went, “Oh, by the way – we did some book trailers for you. Do you want to see them?”
Well, yeah.
Look! A book trailer for Silver Ship and the Sea.
How did I ever get this lucky?
And by the way – this came out of our education system. 
Nebula Noms and Hugo Podcasts?
The Nebula short list is out. I’m really quite pleased with what is on the list (although – as always – slightly disappointed that some works which I nominated didn’t make it). In addition to some short stories like Kij Johnson’s “Spar” that I loved, two of my novel reading recommendations made the final ballot: Cherie Priest’s “Boneshaker” on the novel list, and Lisa Mantchev’s “Eyes Like Stars” for the Andre Norton Award.
I’m planning my Hugo recommendations now (they must be in by the end of March). And I’ve been consuming almost half of my short fiction via podcasts (and there is a great post about podcasts and the Hugo’s over at Amy Sturgis’s site. Primarily I listen to Clarkesworld’s podcast, Escape Pod, and Starship Sofa. There is some talk about Starship Sofa being a candidate in the best fanzine category.
Clarkesworld and Escape Pod’s podcasts are simply the fiction – which is often great when that’s all I want, and Starship Sofa is usually a long podcast with a piece of short fiction, a piece of long fiction, a poem, and editorial, and a science article. This makes it a magazine rather than just an audio version of a short story. I take them along for long walks with the dog or to keep me interested in weeding long enough to make a difference. I get through more whole issues of Starship Sofa than of Analog or Asimov’s (all are good – the podcast format is great for “reading” while I’m doing other things, too).
So is “best fanzine” the right category to give Tony C. Smith and crew a chance at a Hugo? Or best semi-prozine?
Nixie meets many famous authors and a bad agent
I spent the Thursday – > Sunday morning is Pasco, Washington. Thursday and Friday were all about talking to students at an event called the Cavalcade of Authors, and the rest of the convention was a lovely time with friends, and my dog.
On Thursday, I talked to Stevens middle school in Pasco. The school librarian was very welcoming, the school bought my lunch, and the kids had a lot of great questions. Friday was the Cavalcade of Authors – a dizzying day that must have been like half a teachers’ day — after talking to essentially four classes or great kids, I was left wondering how real teachers do this all day every day. I found it fun and satisfying, and hard work as well.
Nixie basically stayed hidden for all of that, except for one lovely walk along the Columbia River. Since there is a very pretty playground at the park I took Nixie in to get some interesting photos – here she is checking out the toy boat.
Radcon itself is a wacky fun and frenetic science fiction convention. It’s roots are as a gaming con, so there are a ton of younger people there. They pretty much adored the dog. Nix sat at my feet in most of the panels I did, and snored appropriately when we wandered off topic.
I’m sure that the highlight of the con for Nix was meeting “Bad Agent Sydney.” If you are a new or aspiring writer, you too should meet bad agent Sydney, and follow along on Bad Agent Sydney’s blog. Sponsored by my friends Steven and Chris York, this is a great way to learn about the dangers a bad agent can cause a writer (and yes, there are good agents). Nixie, who is lovable and earnest but not the brightest dog in the pack let the cat walk her, but that’s because she didn’t have the common sense to read the link on Bad Agent Sydney’s site — things like Writer Beware from SFWA.
But enough about dogs and cats. I got to have dinner with artist GOH Tim Kirk and his wife. I could have talked to them for hours, although I never caught back up to them (it’s a big convention). I helped John Pitts celebrate his birthday and heard him read from his first novel Black Blade Blues, an urban fantasy set in Seattle. If you want to help out a new writer, pre-order the book. I got to read it in manuscript, and it’s quite good, and surprising.
Planning a Seattle Futures Meeting
I used to attend monthly futurist meetings in Santa Monica California, run by John Smart. They were great get togethers – a pile of people interested in talking about the future. Eclectic. It was scientists and techs from JPL and the local universities, people off the street, students, business people, consultants, etc. Often up to fifty of sixty at a time. We’d talk about books and the accelerating pace of change (which is, of course, even faster now). I actually designed other trips so the timing would coincide with these meetings.
Well, now we’re testing the waters in Seattle to see if there are people interested here. We did a few meetings a few years ago, but then life intervened and the meetings stopped. So we’re trying to re-start them again. There’s a Yahoo group, the SeaFuture Group, which you can sign up for if you’re interested in attending. We’re planning to set up a meetup group.
We have a date and a time and a topic. That’s February 19th (a Friday) at Park Place Books in Kirkland from 6:30 to 8:00. It’s a great location. The people at Park Place are nice, and there are a ton of great restaurants right there in the shopping center, including Luccia, Purple, and Rikki Rikki. We want to talk about the new design revolution. We science fiction writers have been interested in fabricators, or machines that can make stuff out of raw materials and a computer program, for some time. Well, with 3D printing, this is starting to become possible. For background reading, we’re suggesting this month’s issue of Wired Magazine.
I’ll blog more about this, but in the meantime, mark your calendar!
Jan Vandenbos is the other moderator and group leader.
