Paul Hansel

Author: paul

  • Technology in the 22nd century

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    paul
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    Everything learns 24/7 Is your refrigerator simulating how long a package of cheese can sit on its top shelf before molding, burning power and inflating your power bill? Only if you ask it to. Your new office printer learns. As it ages, its injection-molded parts creep a few microns per millimeter; that’s cancelled out in…

  • The wild Thimble-rose

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    I There was once a province with a secret treasure. In the bedrock beneath the land on which humans lived, a substance far too powerful to mention in public was concentrated. The locals knew little of this material. When they traipsed through the forests and slogged through the marshes, looking for mushrooms and flowers to…

  • We found hyperspace.

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    Hyperspace. The energy grid. The substructure that contains spacetime. Irreality. The place the Doctor’s blue box goes when everything gets swirly. We found it. It’s richer than our t – x – y – z metric space. Easier to traverse. In fact, we can plug in whatever coordinates we want, and we’re already there. The…

  • Reflective satellites, meet dimensional analysis

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    ‘Say hello to my little friend.” – Scarface Let’s do some math on metallic reflective solar radiation modification. Solar radiation modification (SRM) is defined on Wikipedia. Many schemes for modifying Earth’s atmospheric and surface temperatures have been proposed under the umbrella of SRM, some of which involve mirrors or shades, some of which involve aerosols.…

  • Indestructible Robot Ghostwriter #1

    Indestructible Robot Ghostwriter #1

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    It’s not X, it’s Y, is a particular English construct that has drawn more than the usual amount of discussion in recent months. Language used to be for storytelling. You might begin your work with one theme, one event; as it progressed, you could explore some aspect of that world, painting a picture as you…

  • Predictable

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    paul
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    Are you exploring enough? Be honest. You’ve been exploiting again, haven’t you. You’ve been working the same reliable vein of coal that’s kept the boiler fed for years. Have you really resigned yourself to never step outside the mine again? You know it isn’t going to last forever. At some point the roof will cave…