My pleasure.

I slipped and didn’t add it:

A Whack on the Side of the Head, by Roger von Oech, is another excellent book on creative thinking.

In the vein of the above “How to Learn About Everything”/creativity-fuel: browse through patents and patent applications online (Google Patents makes this easy, and you can save to PDFs). Some of them are…[Read more]

Expanding on my previous comment about teaching creativity, a list of books on creative thinking that I have and heartily recommend to others:

The Universal Traveler, by Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall

Cracking Creativity, Thinkertoys, and Creative Thinkering, by Michael Michalko

The Art of Innovation, by Thomas Kelley and Jonathan Littman

Zig Zag,…[Read more]

Teaching creativity should definitely be a part of it. Creativity isn’t some nigh magical ability that some people are just born with and others aren’t. It can be taught. Sure, some people will be more creative than others, like some people are better at math or spotting errors in reasoning.

Inculcate positive thinking and optimism, without going…[Read more]

Probably features that result in better health. More effective immune systems, faster healing after injuries, that sort of thing.

Everything else (augmented senses, increased strength . . .) would be much better if they were based on non-living hardware–flesh is pathetically weak compared to the materials that engineers work with. Cryogenically…[Read more]

The Ghost in the Shell, by Shirow Masamune

I love it for various reasons. It presents a flawed, but overall positive, richly-detailed future world. It’s packed with interesting ideas that not only feel fresh a quarter of a century after it was authored, but they are becoming more relevant as time goes on.

I think there should be property rights in space.

Worlds could be zoned up, like we do on Earth (itself a celestial object). There could be locations open to mining or building, and some choice locations reserved as Natural Parks. There probably wouldn’t be the latter on most asteroids and comets, the prime targets for mining and development,…[Read more]

But the reverse is true. We’ve been remade by our technology since at least Homo erectus.

Imagination is abstract, and doesn’t necessarily lead to anything tangible. Creativity is concrete, it’s applied imagination to make something.

Tanel, I think you’d like Masamune Shirow’s The Ghost in the Shell.

He was thinking about issues including cyberbrain hacking a quarter of a century ago.

Gimbaled platforms open up interesting possibilities. Have a look at Mark Rosheim’s robotic gimbal wrist mechanisms: https://www.anthrobot.com/

Imagine being strapped into a standing position on a platform that has a hemispherical pointing envelope.

Education of children to become rounded, successful adults that lead interesting lives is a big theme in The Diamond Age.

The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer of the novel contains a vast interactive and evolving story that is designed to encourage curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking while it passes on knowledge ranging from learning how…[Read more]

Revision to the above:

Instead of six motorized spools, I think a better design would employ eight. There would be a cluster of three spools on the exoskeleton at each of the elbows. One of the cords on the wearer’s left side would attach to the wall off to their left, and the other two cords would attach to the walls in front of and behind the…[Read more]

 . . . but I also think we need something that gives you the ability to sit on chairs, lean on walls, and trip over a rock, right?

I think the next level is no longer really portable, but that’s totally cool.  I’m thinking that’s where we have something we get into that has mechanical.  It wouldn’t have to be a full suit but it would have to ha…

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There’s no need for the exenteration of your spleen. Why don’t you write a short story featuring these . . . universal interface suits, or whatever you want to call them?

Maybe they’ll include it in Hieroglyph Vol. 2.

Scrap the spherical wheels idea, someone else has come up with a better solution that could maybe be adapted for your idea.

It’s an omni-directional treadmill: https://www.infinadeck.com/

Instead of a large treadmill that the user walks on, the “soles” of their boots have powered bidirectional tread-belts.

Now you may be thinking, “We don’t…[Read more]

Well conservation of mass, yes, but not conservation of bulk (density). Couldn’t the little guys ‘digest’ rock into neutronium or something?

By what physical mechanism would they do this? Degenerate matter is only possible under very high gravity.

John Edds and Alan, thanks for pointing out the relative uninterestingness of the von-Neumann machine problem. I guess to salvage it as a story element, I’d have to make the excavators actual living organisms designed for the purpose, chemolithotrophs that derive chemical energy from the rock itself. Which could work well with other story e…

[Read more]

The original Star Wars movies don’t have any technology, save the lightsabers*, that wasn’t in SF from the 1920s through the New Wave SF in the ’60s.

George Lucas grew up reading pulp sci-fi and action adventure stories. That’s where Star Wars and Indiana Jones came from. He wanted to give that fun to a new generation, up on the big…[Read more]