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This song is stuck in my head

Let's see, I write Science Fiction with themes of technology and information reaching singularity sooner than expected, human potential, and dabble in idea of genetic engineering being the cornerstone of humanity's next stage in evolution rather than natural selection, I guess you can call me a trans-humanist Fyi on technological singularity issue: I don't fear technology at its base, I fear what humanity will do with it and how it will learn to do the same to its creators, what it is taught to do for its creators. Teaching a computer to be intelligent is I believe an easier project than to teach a machine to have a conscience, since many human beings involved in those lines of research are doing so for corporations and militaries that by design lack an individual human being's conscience. When those machines become self aware, they won't be inhibited by empathy as a result. @Tiger So good to see you among the geeks

Ah Tom Petty, you will be missed:

@Drew Espinosa, you might enjoy this one: it's actually possible (in fiction) to calculate the energy equivalence of a human soul? I love the math:

How many tentacles does Cthulu have again? Just asking

True, but if we estimate the time of life forming on earth and the time that the universe has existed, wouldn't you think someone out there has already heard us and think, "Nah, too primitive." Of course if you believe in UFO guys, they moved from "too primitive to speak" to "let's have some fun probings" Now if that's true, does that mean intelligence is gay sex are linked

I am surprised no one has started this topic yet. The reason why many people venture out or keep a telescope or radio dish aimed at the stars isn't just to find strange new world alones, we also seek "new Civilizations", which would prompt the boldly go where no man has gone before line Astronomy and Space explorations serves this fundamental purpose of seeking out "alien" life, perhaps its exo-biology and search for life on Mars, Titan, or Europa. Maybe, it's SETI and listening in to radio signals for alien broadcasts. It's also a controversial topic, some claim it would remove the uniqueness of human species if we find other alien life forms beyond our little blue orb among the billions of planets in the universe. Some fear it would pollute humanity to non-terran cultures and beliefs. Still, as the first poll of GA's Tech forum, I'd like to ask readers and writers alike, what are your opinions of this search for life and intelligent life at that. Recently NBC brought this up as a news story for the manned mission to Mars,,is the risk of exploration for this cause worth its implications to humanity? https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/debate-heats-over-search-life-mars-ncna800376 If we find martian microbes, what will change on earth? Is that discovery worth endangering life? Also, the bigger question, after searching for so long, why haven't we found anything or anyone found us? I share a similar view to Carl Sagan, we're not ready yet for contact or joining a larger galactic community. We are still too young and self-destructive as evident by recent social, political, and religious issues to be able to accept a larger universe of potential. In time, if we don't blow ourselves up, we may become a species worth a conversation, some of us are already there, but it will take generations for that to be a norm if at all.

That sounds like Battlestar Galactica's 2000's series premise, "It has happened before and will happen again" I do agree with you, barring some new technological leaps in quantum physics and engineering, FTL is not likely. Robotic explorers are a good idea and a cool thing is that unlike humans, they don't need to worry about deceleration G forces under Solar Sail or Nuclear drive designs at 0.5-0.7c. --------------------- With that said, we have stuff to be glad about, UK scientists have developed an early version of the "Force Field/Deflector Shield" . This is an important step forward to manned missions to Mars and beyond.

I never figured you as a Gallente, I'd guess Minmatar or Caldari, I'm Amarr and Caldari for the trade hubs, but I prefer Minmatar ships for PVP, slightly more angular velocity and speed, plus capless guns.

Every writer has a reason, an ideal on writing: I draw inspiration from William Faulkner's famous Banquet speech on the pitfalls of modern writing that focusing far too often on the situation rather than the humanity:

Companies Want to Replicate Your Dead Loved Ones With Robot Clones This should inspires a few Sci-Fi stories, think how creepy it will be to replicate a dead loved one as a robot, or if you are like me and have NetFlix, watch season/series 2 Eps 1 of Black Mirror: Our relationship with technology is more intertwined than Clarke, Asimov, or Dick ever imagined, imagine if you can create a robot based on a dead partner, it's Frankenstein moment of Science Fiction, you owe it to the creation, but fear what you made. The following clip comes from Black Mirror Season/Series 2, Episode 1, it's a scene that Several publications have cited as potential entry for Top 100 scenes in Science Fiction history, a modern day Frankenstein story

@Drew Espinosa, will you take my advice in Video games too? I Ate My Parents In A 'Scientifically Accurate' Dinosaur Survival Game It's a simulation game that allows you to be a Dinosaur, and it turns out they had a lot of Oedipal issues back in the Jurassic world

Some people forget that Abraham Lincoln was actually pretty good at predicting the future: The speech was inspirational as Americans still feared European and external encroachment at the time, by telling everyone that such an event would never happen, he inspired hope and courage in independence. On the other side, he also inspired fear as he clearly saw the divisions within the country that been born since the founding (a topic better left to the Pit), he inspires both courage in American independence and fear of American self-destruction. I think Lincoln gave a timeless speech in 1838, not just to his issues in the 19th century, but to greater issues that can be applied even in 2017. For those who may think the above quote as too cerebral, we can venture into Lincoln's poetry, which has a touch of light baby blue:

This is one of the most thought about subjects in the last quarter century, we knew this day would come sooner rather than later, when we could successfully change a human's genetic make-up. We've succeeded in our first steps: Let this topic be the spot, where we explore the strange and new worlds Genetic engineering has opened up for humanity. Beyond just human engineering, we're doing a lot of work with our produce, enhancing certain things with infamous GMO, but also with something less recognized: These Foods Aren’t Genetically Modified but They Are ‘Edited’ These foods are not labelled for GMO, but what we've done to them is no less intrusive.

@Drew Espinosa, I give you the world's cutest dinosaur: Scientists decode the color pattern of the world’s cutest dinosaur You can see how this thing could evolve into a Turkey right now

I'm waiting for Warp Drives They call this an EM drive, but let's be honest, it's Impulse in a nutshell Getting to the moon in hours and Mars in a few weeks will make colonization easier, along with commercial mining, but I wwant to achieve warp 1! There's a lot of space to be explored, our own solar system is still vastly unknown and unconquered. Mars would be a great colonial world, perhaps Titan if we can achieve some kind of artificial light source or better yet force Jupiter into a fusion reaction aka Clarke's 2001.

I think I'll open up this area for discussion and for those of us, who love exploring this side of applied science, it's an interesting peak into our future. Here's a few websites that gives new developments: I am a huge fan of the Verge from its inception as a tech news site: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence Science Daily also has a good update of popular subjects: https://www.sciencedaily.com/news/computers_math/artificial_intelligence/ PS: A group from University of Illinois is attempting to create an Origami based robot, which is really fascinating in terms of range of motion. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170824121428.htm The IEEE, or The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers , is a consortium news area where new developments and interesting tidbits of new development are offerred on current tech http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/artificial-intelligence

Geeks united! Now, where's my comic-con costume

@Page Scrawler Happy Birthday Pagey...And so many more to come

Well, a lot of my stories have tragedies When you can't have what you want and must inevitably destroy what you yourself have created, it is to me the tragedy of tortured humanity that we see in our lives. People will try everything to keep relationships going, even if there's no hope. An interesting LGBT film from the 90's from Hong Kong called "Happy Together" deals with this concept very well. I guess for me, it is a point of extraction, (Sadly, I've seen more than a few Asian LGBT films with tragic endings, especially Chinese ones, Farewell My Concubine or Soundless Wind chimes). In recent years ,there have been fun and comedic films or happy "American" ending type films, but the darkest realms of relationships filled with unequal status, torturous longing, and tragic cycles seems to still be something LGBT films carry on in Chinese tradition. I can offer you both, under Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction of the near future where modern technology has already achieved enough at present to warrant an imagination of what will come very soon. It's fictional escape, but on the other hand, it wil;l come true sooner rather than later. Take for example, 3D printing and how fast they're coming along, if given enough ingenuity and effort, we could end up with new industrial lines of products without the need for human beings. However, as this future nears, what will the world be faced with in terms of traditional forces and people adapting to a post industrial world? Star Trek came up with the fictional concepts of Cell Phones and personal computers, we've achieved those in 30 years, they also predicted neural interfaces and the "famous" replicator technology, which we are now experimenting with great progress. To me Sci-fi is a reflection of today, so why not take what we have today and asks what will we do about it tomorrow rather than 400 years later? I too am one of those who are part of the 20% of tragedies in GA's Stories. Tragedy should hold hope of something better, if you just make it bleak, no one would want to read it. When the reversal happens, the reader should be able to see how the bad outcomes happen, not just due to a malicious plot twist like some Twilight Zone storylines, but something in the foreground that has grown throughout your story.

In stories, there are many types of characters and plots. Some people prefer a character who inspires them to be better people through their plot development. Others prefer to relate to characters and have those characters suffer in order to live with new experiences. This is an aged old debate in Comic books, usually between the fans of DC's two leading characters: Superman based on inspiration and Batman based on experience, but it is also true for general storytelling as well. The principle focus of plot development can lead in both directions for characters as well or in neither direction, if you are trying to write a transcendental story. What do readers prefer is a question that I like to raise and any examples of what you like in character arcs that make up your choice. I prefer experience based storytelling method, allow the characters to suffer and don't give them an easy way out. It makes the story far more gritty, but it leaves people with a bit of a sour note, because tragedy can never be resolved with plot twist or gimmicks, the characters will forever be scarred by it. One of the stories I loved writing other than 0's and 1's is my short story Last Run to Mosul, there's undercurrents to tragedy due to experience, attempts to leave it behind like we are all taught to do with unhappy experiences, and the revelation in the end that you can't leave it. The argument could be made that I almost give my characters an easy out or simply torture the narrative, but I think happiness is hard to come by even in our modern world where gay relationships are becoming more accepted, those of us still seeking partners know this truth. I am not against writing happy endings, but my characters must go through their necessary trials and be human. What about you guys?

You can already guess my answer Tom Brady, New England Patriots However, there's plent of differing opinions on who and which teams were the greatest of all time. We can even debate the season/year of teams?

@Drew Espinosa , @Wesley8890, and everyone else Here's an update on what Star Trek tech has actually become reality: Can you believe it, we finally have a food replicator PS: there's a Civilian model http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-meals-on-demand-tracked-idUSKBN0NQ1PG20150505

@Wesley8890 Mace Windu could have survived that fall, but where was he during the Galactic Civil War? In terms of Star Trek, I think @Drew Espinosa will like this little quote most from TNG (it's basically the heart of what Star Trek is without all the battles and aliens attacks of the week)

@Drew Espinosa Here's the theory