Unabashed

What happens when you nuke a cell phone? You might be surprised:

via Dark Roasted Blend.

written by Matt Mitchell

Instructables has a new how-to guide to building your own Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in real life. As you know, the HHGTTG is one of my favorite SciFi gadgets of all time, so I’m definitely down with this idea. In their guide, they use an old handheld PC (a Psion 5mx) running on Linux and dump a static copy of Wikipedia into it. Now, I happen to have an old HP Jornada 680 (in a box in the attic) and I’m thinking about giving this a try. I’ve been ruminating on uses for this obsolete gadget for a couple of years now. But then I remembered I have a Palm T|X and a 2GB SD card, so I copied Wikipedia (168MB) and put it there. Now I have my own H2G2 in my pocket, to tell me anything (mostly accurate) that I need to know. All I need is a “Don’t Panic” sticker and I’m set.

Via io9.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: H2G2, HHGTTG, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Wikipedia

What makes science fiction great? Yes, the story, and yes, the characters, but don’t forget all those nifty gadgets! Equipped with this list of goodies, you could go anywhere, create anything, know everything, have a faithful, useful friend, and look really cool the whole time. These are the items that represent SciFi’s greatest imaginings: 

Lightsaber
Star Wars, by George Lucas

It’s a weapon at heart, but so versatile that it is infused with gadgety cool–use it as a flashlight, to melt through metal doors, to slice open large meat carcasses, and it’ll probably slice fresh bread into instant toast (as seen in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, using a much smaller version of the tool). With an extremely rare Adegan crystal in its core, and being crafted in a month-long rite by a Jedi Knight, the lightsaber is the ultimate tool of the ultimate philosopher/warrior society. Nostalgia is one reason this futuristic gadget is so cool: the idea was obviously borrowed from feudal Japan’s Shogun warriors and their attachment to their carefully crafted artisan swords.

See also: Crysknife from Dune; Ultimate Nullifier from Marvel Comics

Stillsuit
Dune, by Frank Herbert

Quoting the book from Wikipedia:

It’s basically a micro-sandwich — a high-efficiency filter and heat-exchange system. The skin-contact layer’s porous. Perspiration passes through it, having cooled the body … near-normal evaporation process. The next two layers . . . include heat exchange filaments and salt precipitators. Salt’s reclaimed. Motions of the body, especially breathing and some osmotic action provide the pumping force. Reclaimed water circulates to catchpockets from which you draw it through this tube in the clip at your neck… Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads. In the open desert, you wear this filter across your face, this tube in the nostrils with these plugs to ensure a tight fit. Breathe in through the mouth filter, out through the nose tube. With a Fremen suit in good working order, you won’t lose more than a thimbleful of moisture a day…

R2-D2
Star Wars, by George Lucas

You can have Threepio, you can even take HAL; I’ll take Artoo. This little robot can do almost anything from underway spaceship repair to serving drinks. He takes the AI concept to a whole new level, with built-in courage, humor, fear and devotion.

See also: HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Holtzman Shield
Dune, by Frank Herbert

The Holtzman Shield is a potent literary device: it makes directed-energy weaponry impossible against any worthwhile opponent, and also proves traditional projectile-based firearms and missiles ineffective, adding to the feudal atmosphere, and enforces the usage of mêlée weaponry despite other more advanced technology.

Cornucopia Machine
Singularity Sky/Iron Sunrise, by Charlie Stross

The Cornucopia can be programmed with the atomic structure of virtually any item (including another Cornucopia Machine) and, so long as it has fuel, material and time, fabricate it. (I would ask it to make everything on this list.) This is the only item on the list that hasn’t been adapted (yet) into a movie or television program; if you haven’t read these two books yet, I highly recommend them.

See also: Nutrimatic Dispenser from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Food Replicator from Star Trek

Transporter
Star Trek, by Gene Roddenberry

The Transporter was so powerful you could almost call it the deus ex machina of Star Trek, but you can’t, because it wasn’t spontaneous; it was there from the beginning. Still, though; how many times have Trek characters escaped imminent doom by uttering the phrase: “Beam us up”? There are many incarnations of teleportation devices, but none done so well as Star Trek’s Transporter. It was in almost constant use in every movie and throughout every television series, making it one of the most useful gadgets on this list.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

Complete with it’s Don’t Panic! mantra, this wholly remarkable “book” can tell you anything you want to know about anything in the universe. The Guide was an electronic guidebook which was connected to the galaxy-wide Sub-Etha network for updates. The book was published in 1978, making the Sub-Etha one of the first imaginings of what the Internet could be. 

Iron Man’s Armor
Marvel Comics, by Stan Lee

Super strength, supersonic flight, repulsors, missiles, and pimped out with a red and gold titanium alloy…Nothing is cooler.

See also: KITT, from the 80s TV show Knight Rider

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: , cool, coolest, Fiction, gadgetry, greatest, sci-fi, Science, scifi, sf, tool, Tools

Batman’s utility belt, Quasar’s quantum bands…there are tons of superheroes (and villains) out there who’ve accessorized to better enable them to perform their duties. Reed Richards has made a living out of building gadgets and machinery for his team and for the world at large. He designed unstable molecules so he and the rest of the Fantastic Four could remain clothed while using their powers. Unstable molecules might sound fanciful, but they fit right into the vein of scifi tech made real if you look over at the nanoscience industry. Unstable molecules actually sound like a precursor for nanobots if you think of it that way.

But who has the best accessory in comicdom? Captain America’s shield would get a lot of votes, as a symbol as well as a useful instrument. Some might vote for Wonder Woman’s various accoutrement: her silver bracelets, her golden lasso or her ridiculous invisible jet, but I wouldn’t. If I was voting for hottest chick in comics she’d be right in the top ten, but in my humble opinion, her gadgetry is unimaginative and lame. Ditto for Green Lantern’s ring, which is an awesomely powerful item, with the tremendous drawback that it is powerless against anything colored yellow (Damn! Beaten by a banana). Some would vote for Wolverine’s claws, but again, not me. Primarily because I don’t consider them an accessory. They are a part of his body; he can’t take them off and leave them on the bedstand when he’s sleeping. They just snict right back into his arm. So the verdict on Wolvie’s claws is: immensely cool, but not qualifying.

The list goes on and on:

These items have no power augmentation or special attributes: 

• Captain America’s shield–unbreakable, yes, but does it fire lasers? Sadly, no. 
• Elektra’s Sais
• Batman’s utility belt
• Deadpool’s swords
• Green Arrow bow and arrow
• Moon Knight’s utility belt
• Hawkeye’s bow and arrow
• Hawkman’s mace

These items are imbued with some attribute which increases their power, or the power of their wielder:

• The Infinity Gauntlet – infinitely powerful, but in the end it’s just a glove with little gemstones on the end of it; not very cool. And besides, picking this as the coolest accoutrement is kind of like picking Superman as the coolest superhero. Sure, he’s cool, but who can beat him? They defaulted his character as the most invincible being there is (at least in the DC universe). (I’d put my money on Galactus against Supes, especially if G’s just eaten a nice, fat, juicy planet).
• Thor’s hammer (Mjolnir)
• Quasar’s quantum bands
• Annihilus’s Cosmic Rod – cool and classic, but then so is…
• Silver Surfer’s board (From here on out I’m omitting anything imbued with the power cosmic on the basis that they are defaulted to be infinitely powerful and yet are too hard to define)
• Iron Man’s suit
• Wonder Woman’s lasso, bracelets, and invisible jet
• Green Lantern’s ring

I’m probably still missing some, But which is best? When it comes right down to it there are only two that really deserve to be in the conversation at all (for me, anyway):

Thor’s hammer and Iron Man’s armor, both from Marvel Comics and both awesomely powerful (but not too powerful, not infinitely powerful). Let’s break it down:

Mjolnir

• Imbues wielder with super strength and invulnerability 
• Forged by dwarven blacksmith of the mystical Asgardian metal Uru 
• Can summon the four elements: rain, wind, thunder and lightning
• Can open interdimensional portals
• When thrown, if you hold on to the strap very tightly, enables flight (basically it yanks you through the air at tremendous speed. This is probably the coolest flight adaptation in comicdom outside of Hulk’s bounding ability)
• When thrown, returns automatically to the spot from which it was hurled after it strikes the target
• Can be recalled to the hand of the wielder

Iron Man’s Armor

• Imbues wielder with super strength and near-invulnerability
• Jet boots enable supersonic flight
• Is equipped with numerous defense systems: repulsor rays, pulse beams, missile launchers, lasers, tasers, and flamethrowers
• Has a unibeam in the chest that can emit various types of light energy
• Helmet contains comm and recording devices and scanning equipment

In the end you have the ultimate gadget–Iron Man’s armor–and the ultimate mystical relic–Thor’s hammer. I think I’d be okay with either one.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: accessories, accessorize, armor, book, Books, claws, comic, hammer, Iron Man, marvel, Mjolnir, snict, Thor, wolverine

This is brilliant, really. Freightliners on transoceanic voyages guzzle gas like nobody’s business. A company called Skysails, based in Hamburg, Germany, has unveiled a product that can reduce fuel consumption of those vessels by up to 35%.

The best apparatuses and advancements in the world, to me, are those which utilize traditional concepts and methods while at the same time capitalize on modern technology. They’re nostalgic–in a good way–but at the same time they’re modern and technological. This may seem like an oxymoron–past/future; historical technology?–but they combine the quaint with the futuristic in a way that’s very appealing. To me at least. I love reading about the Age of Sail, the era of tall ships, and I’ve pined for the romanticism of sailing ships exploring the world. (My love of old things-made-new manifests itself, obliquely, in my reading: I love equally to read Charlie Stross and Patrick O’Brian, Joe Haldeman and Shelby Foote.) The Skysail concept doesn’t go so far as to suggest a regression, but augments modern apparatuses with forward-thinking modifications to historical concepts, improving historical technologies.

I like new stuff, too. Like microwaves. Love microwaves :-)

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: , age of sail, freightliner, futuristic, historical, nostalgia, sail, sailing, ship, ships, skysails, tall ship, transoceanic

I’ll have mine with telescopic and xray, plz. Oh, and a HUD. Yes, a HUD, with a Terminator-style readout. So far the speculation for these contacts, which are being engineered by the University of Washington, is that they’ll be capable of zoom, possibly wired to monitor the body’s sugar levels for diabetics along with a few other medical possibilities. But something like this opens my eyes to many, many other possibilities, and who knows how much capability something like this could have? They’ve speculated as to the gaming potential, which doesn’t interest me that much right away, but I would be very interested in having this thing wired into the web, giving me immediate access to a HUD-like display of weather radar, GPS, traffic conditions, email, danger warnings (like brake lights ahead), and even restaurant and movie listings, updateable by whatever street you’re walking down. That’s a lot of usability to pack into a dime-sized piece of silicone, but hey, if I’m gonna dream, I’m gonna dream big.

The model is still in testing, and they’re still trying to figure a way to power it wirelessly, but once they do that…. :-)

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: , bionic, contacts, eyes, vision