Video Games, World of Warcraft, & Stephenson's Reamde

Here's Wednesday's Forbes article, "Chasing Dragons: How A Misunderstanding Of Video Games Led To The 38 Studios Disaster:"

It seems like a simple tale. Almost an admirable one. A retired sports star loved video games so much, he wanted to make one of his own...

Unfortunately, Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios now stands as a cautionary tale on overreaching expectations in the video game industry...

Schilling...was shooting for the moon... The game was Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, meant to be a World of Warcraft style sword and sorcery MMO... After all, how hard could it be to make another World of Warcraft?

That’s a question that would make anyone with even a passing interesting in gaming burst out laughing... For as much as Schilling claimed to love gaming, he was entirely delusional about the ease of crafting smash hits in the genre. Companies far more established than his have been trying to make a dent in World of Warcraft’s armor for a decade now

For a novel about the creation of a World of Warcraft-like game, try Reamde by Neal Stephenson:

Four decades ago, Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of an Iowa family, fled to a wild and lonely mountainous corner of British Columbia to avoid the draft. Smuggling backpack loads of high-grade marijuana across the border into Northern Idaho, he quickly amassed an enormous and illegal fortune.

With plenty of time and money to burn, he became addicted to an online fantasy game in which opposing factions battle for power and treasure in a vast cyber realm. Like many serious gamers, he began routinely purchasing virtual gold pieces and other desirables from Chinese gold farmers—young professional players in Asia who accumulated virtual weapons and armor to sell to busy American and European buyers.

For Richard, the game was the perfect opportunity to launder his aging hundred dollar bills and begin his own high-tech start up—a venture that has morphed into a Fortune 500 computer gaming group, Corporation 9592, with its own super successful online role-playing game, T’Rain.

But the line between fantasy and reality becomes dangerously blurred when a young gold farmer accidently triggers a virtual war for dominance—and Richard is caught at the center.

Back in the News: Another Mars Voyage in the Works

Look out, Inspiration Mars Foundation: Dutch organization Mars One has thrown its hat in the ring for the race to send a manned voyage to the Red Planet.

Here's today's BBC article, "Applicants wanted for a one-way ticket to Mars:"

Want to go to Mars? Dutch organisation Mars One says it will open applications imminently. It would be a one-way trip, and the company hopes to build a community of settlers on the planet.

Uncharted waters, mountains or far away lands have always drawn explorers. History books show that desire for adventure, even in the face of extreme danger, did not deter the likes of Columbus or Magellan. So it is perhaps not surprising that Mars One has already received thousands of prospective applicants. But there is no return - unlike the mission which hopes to fly to Mars and back in 2018.

The novel I recommended when I posted about this space race last month was Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson:

For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny. John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death. The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Patenting Human Genes & Crichton's Next

From Thursday's Guardian article "US supreme court to decide if companies can patent human genes:"

The US supreme court will hear oral arguments next week to decide whether companies can patent human genes, in a landmark case which could alter the course of US medical research and the battle against diseases such as breast and ovarian cancer.

A coalition of scientists, cancer survivors, patients, breast cancer groups and professional medical associations, which has brought the case, will argue that genes are "products of nature", like organs of the body and should not be exploited for commercial gain. Such patents are illegal and violate the first amendment, they say.

They are challenging patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer owned by Myriad Genetics, a biotechnology company, because they say the patents have stymied research and the free exchange of ideas.

For a novel about gene patents, try Next by Michael Crichton:

Bestseller Crichton (Jurassic Park) once again focuses on genetic engineering in his cerebral new thriller, though the science involved is a lot less far-fetched than creating dinosaurs from DNA.

In an ambitious effort to show what's wrong with the U.S.'s current handling of gene patents and with the laws governing human tissues, the author interweaves many plot strands, one involving a California researcher, Henry Kendall, who has mixed human and chimp DNA while working at NIH. Kendall produces an intelligent hybrid whom he rescues from the government and tries to pass off as a fully human child.

Some readers may be disappointed by the relative lack of action, the lame attempts to lighten the mood with humor (especially centering on an unusually bright parrot named Gerard), and the contrived convergence of the main characters toward the end. Still, few can match Crichton in crafting page-turners with intellectual substance

Dino Embryos, Crichton's Jurassic Park, & Bakker's Raptor Red

From yesterday's Wired article "Chinese dinosaur embryo fossils are oldest found so far:"

The oldest fossilised dinosaur embryos found so far have been discovered by palaeontologists in China. With several of the embryos petrified at different stages of development, it offers a rare insight into exactly how dinosaurs developed inside eggs.

Also exciting is that the embryos appear to contain organic matter that hasn't been fossilised, which would be the oldest organic material ever found from a terrestrial vertebrate. The fossils -- which are thought to be either Massospondylus or Lufengosaurus -- have been dated as being between 190 and 197 million years old, the Lower Jurassic period.

I have two recommendations for novels about dinosaurs. First, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton:

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Creatures once extinct now roam Jurassic Park, soon-to-be opened as a theme park. Until something goes wrong...and science proves a dangerous toy.

A lesser-known novel that I would also recommend is Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker:

Revolutionary paleontologist Bakker...has written a novel that might be subtitled "A Year in the Life of a Dinosaur," as he tells the story of Raptor Red, a giant carnivore of the Early Cretaceous period.

Having lost her mate in a botched hunting attack, Red (so-named because of the red stripe on her snout distinguishing her from other raptor species) joins forces with her sister and her sister's three chicks to survive in a world of hostile natural forces.

Bakker manages to mix scientific theories -- some of which are definitely on the cutting edge -- with a rip-roaring narrative. Perhaps even more miraculously, he has created a sympathetic nonhuman heroine without anthropomorphizing her into a Disney character.

Google Glass & Gibson's Virtual Light

From today's BBC article “Privacy 'impossible' with Google Glass warn campaigners:”

Google Glass and other augmented reality gadgets risk creating a world in which privacy is impossible, warn campaigners. The warning comes from a group called "Stop the Cyborgs" that wants limits put on when headsets can be used. It has produced posters so premises can warn wearers that the glasses are banned or recording is not permitted.

If you’d like to read a book which features augmented reality glasses, try William Gibson’s science fiction novel Virtual Light:

Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be California. Here the millennium has come and gone, leaving in its wake only stunned survivors. In Los Angeles, Berry Rydell is a former armed-response rentacop now working for a bounty hunter. Chevette Washington is a bicycle messenger turned pick-pocket who impulsively snatches a pair of innocent-looking sunglasses. But these are no ordinary shades. What you can see through these high-tech specs can make you rich--or get you killed. Now Berry and Chevette are on the run…

For speculation on what the future of Google Glass might hold, I recommend PC World’s 2012 editorial “Google Glass Horror Stories From Your Privacy-Free Future:”

Google has amassed immense power by cataloging and analyzing the Internet, as well as selling ads there. They are masters of that universe. Like many other tech companies, however, Google isn’t satisfied with such a confined sphere of influence. Google has been searching for ways to treat things in the real world the way it treats things in the digital domain, by numbering, locating, mapping, cataloging, and analyzing them... 

What’s to prevent Google from tracking the movements of our eyeballs to discover the things that catch our attention? When I walk out of my apartment building, for example, a car might pass by that turns my head; I might glance at it in spite of myself. Could the Google Glass technology form a heat map showing the things my eyes rested on? Perhaps someday the technology will be able to measure how fast and how far I turned my head to look at something, and then develop a likelihood-to-buy score based on that. Call it the Whiplash Index. Capturing that kind of data is the stuff of fantasy for marketers, a simple and direct indication of which types of ads to push at the viewer, and when to deliver them… 

Then there’s facial recognition. That technology is unsettling enough when it identifies faces in still pictures or recorded video. But if Google Glass were connected to a server that could recognize faces, facial recognition could happen in real time. Potentially, the wearer could scan a crowd of people and see labels above those who happened to be friends of friends of friends in Google+… This might not be a big deal if just a few people in every city were to end up wearing Google Glass. But what if the device were to catch on, becoming as big as the iPhone is today? All those glasses would be collecting monstrous amounts of audio and video information every minute of every day, possibly piping the data through the network for storage in some vast server farm… Judging from the wording of Google’s overarching privacy policy and terms of use, the sounds and images that Google Glass records would not be the property of the person wearing the glasses. Google could use those sounds and images for whatever it wants.

Manned Trips to Mars & Robinson's Red Mars

Talk about colonizing the moon is so 20th century.   On to Mars!

From this week's Guardian editorial "Mars or bust: a private mission to the red planet can take risks Nasa can't:"

When I first heard of the proposal, from the Inspiration Mars Foundation, that a human crew might fly to Mars in 2018 it sounded simply ridiculous. But I've begun to think differently. The team – led by millionaire and former space tourist Dennis Tito – has pedigree in the field of human space flight... How could it be done? First you have to thin out the crew – literally. Canonical mission designs propose crews of four to six astronauts. Tito et al would send only two. And the life support and nutrition requirements are based on the base metabolic demands of this pair of intrepid but slender 70kg astronauts. Next, pare back the mission objectives. This is about flags and footprints rather than science. In fact, forget the footprints – no astronaut boots will touch the surface of Mars. Instead the capsule will coast by the red planet, getting to within a few thousand kilometres of its surface before being flung back to Earth, driven by the force of gravity. This so-called "free return" to Mars means the mission can be achieved with maximum efficiency and minimum energy expenditure.

The original Guardian article came out last month, "Mars mission plan launched by US millionaire space tourist Dennis Tito:"

A US millionaire who became the first private space tourist has unveiled ambitious plans to send a man and woman – probably a married couple – on a round trip to Mars when planetary alignment allows in 2018. Dennis Tito, 72, a former rocket scientist who made his fortune through investments, said his Mission for America aims to spur a new era of space exploration. Tito, who became the first private space tourist when he paid the Russians $20m (£13m) for a ticket to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2001, outlined his plans in Washington DC on Wednesday. He is not intending to fly himself. Speculation over the details of the risky voyage has spread through the space community in recent weeks after the Inspiration Mars Foundation, a non-profit organisation formed by Tito, hinted at a Mars mission. The trip will take advantage of the alignment of heavenly bodies in January 2018 to fly around Mars and return to Earth in the relatively short time of 501 days.

Want a novel about human flight to (and colonization of) Mars? Try Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson:

For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny. John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death. The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Drones & Suarez's Kill Decision

Drones have frequently been in the news over the last year, and their increasing use by the U.S. military is a contentious issue in American politics.  Last week, Senator Paul's filibuster brought the drone issue to a head.  Here are the highlights from the relevant BBC article, "Senator Rand Paul's drone filibuster delays CIA nomination:"

A Republican US senator has delayed the nomination of a new CIA chief over questions about the possible use of drones against Americans. Senator Rand Paul spoke without a pause for nearly 13 hours, in a tactic known as a filibuster, before yielding the floor... Sen Paul - a critic of the use of drones - demanded a pledge from either President Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder that drones would not be used in the US to kill terror suspects who are US citizens... The Kentucky senator said he was "alarmed" by how difficult it had been to get President Barack Obama's administration to clearly define what qualifies as a legitimate target of a drone strike. "No president has the right to say he is judge, jury and executioner,'' Sen Paul said, adding he would end the filibuster if the White House clarified no such attack would happen on US soil.

For a novel on drones, try Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez:

Unmanned weaponized drones already exist—they’re widely used by America in our war efforts in the Middle East. In Kill Decision, bestselling author Daniel Suarez takes that fact and the real science behind it one step further, with frightening results. Linda McKinney is a myrmecologist, a scientist who studies the social structure of ants. Her academic career has left her entirely unprepared for the day her sophisticated research is conscripted by unknown forces to help run an unmanned—and thanks to her research, automated—drone army. Odin is the secretive Special Ops soldier with a unique insight into the faceless enemy who has begun to attack the American homeland with drones programmed to seek, identify, and execute targets without human intervention. Together, McKinney and Odin must slow this advance long enough for the world to recognize its destructive power, because for thousands of years the “kill decision” during battle has remained in the hands of humans—and off-loading that responsibility to machines will bring unintended, possibly irreversible, consequences.

UPDATE:  there are some longer reviews of Kill Decision over at the Daqri and ZenPundit blogs.

Moon Mining & Hickam's Crater

Last week the BBC featured the article "What if you could mine the Moon?:"

Space exploration has long been about reaching far off destinations but now there's a race to exploit new frontiers by mining their minerals. When Neil Armstrong first stepped on the Moon in 1969, it was part of a "flags and footprints" strategy to beat the Soviets, a triumph of imagination and innovation, not an attempt to extract precious metals. No-one knew there was water on that dusty, celestial body. What a difference a generation makes. Mysterious and beautiful, the Moon has been a source of awe and inspiration to mankind for millennia. Now it is the centre of a space race to mine rare minerals to fuel our future - smart phones, space-age solar panels and possibly even a future colony of Earthlings. What might be on the Moon?

• So-called rare-earth minerals, which are used in a range of technologies. Currently, they are refined almost exclusively in China 
• Water frozen in the dark recesses of polar craters, which according to Nasa can be split into hydrogen for rocket fuel and oxygen for breathing 
• Helium-3 (He-3), which apparently exists in abundance on the Moon. Some believe He-3 could be a future energy source 
• Valuable titanium deposits 

  What could moon mining be like? To find out, try Homer Hickam's Crater:

It's the 22nd Century and a tough, pioneering people are mining the moon to produce energy... Crater Trueblood, an orphan, loves his life in Moontown, a frontier mining settlement. Just turned sixteen, Crater is already a seasoned Helium 3 miner, hoping someday to be a foreman on the scrapes. But "the Colonel," the man who owns the mine, has a different plan for Crater...[for him to] shepherd a convoy of Helium 3 trucks across a forbidding river of dust...

UPDATE: Now that I've gotten a little further into the book, I feel it's only fair to warn readers that the dialogue can be a bit cliched. But I think Hickam more than makes up for it with his creative descriptions of what a moon mining boom-town would be like.

UPDATE II:  there's a longer review of Crater over at the Moon and Back blog.