3 posts tagged “nanotechnology”
This is a bit of old news, but old news is still better than not blogging at all at this point, eh?
A Swiss company Rinspeed has built the first car that can functionally operate on land, on water, and under water. It's amphibious and submarine. It's called the sQuba.
This car is amazing in other ways, too, however. It's a zero-emission electric car that can do as high as 77 mph on the highway, which is in itself unusual. It also utilizes nano-technology, being constructed from carbon nano-tubes making it much lighter than other cars its size without sacrificing strength in the materials.
And all this from a country which is generally known for its hole-filled cheese, morally flexible banks, and yodeling. Nah, we don't need to worry about American students' math and science scores, do we?
Originally posted on my old blog on November 18th, 2004:
I listened to the unabridged audiobook format of The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson over the course of about a month to and from work. It's about a twenty-five minute trip, so it was a frustratingly long way to listen to a twelve-tape story. It was also frustrating because for the longest portion of the book the only characters I cared anything about - Nell, a little girl from one of the "leased territories," and John Percival Hackworth, a nano-engineer - are tossed about by their circumstances and the machinations of the other characters quite helplessly. Other characters that I would start to like, such as Nell's brother Harv and Judge Fang, would either show themselves to be despicable people despite their initial likeability, like Judge Fang, or they would just drop out of the story entirely, with both Fang and Harv do.
Here's the story: John Percival Hackworth invents a new prototype book full of nanotechnology and a powerful computer. It is designed to be given to a little girl of about four years of age, to whom it will bond (psychologically, not physically - you have to specify these things when you're talking about nanotechnology) and start to teach. This book is the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer mentioned in the title. The book tells the girl a story, which changes and becomes more complex as the girl reads it to conform to her psychological situation, her educational needs, and the current surrounding environment. Hackworth makes the book for the granddaughter of a New Atlantan Lord at his request, but he also secretly makes a copy for his own daughter. While on the way back from the illegal nano-lab where he made the bootleg copy of the book, he is mugged by Harv's gang and he loses the book. Harv gives the book to Nell, who becomes the focal character of the story as the book bonds to her and starts to teach her. She is a poor girl, frequently abused by her mother's many boyfriends, so any help she can get is welcome.
The social environment in this story is hard to keep track of. Apparently, nations with borders still exist, but they don't mean much anymore. In addition to nations, then, many people belong to "files," and those files have taken the place of nationalism to a large extent. There were so many of these files, and they were so scattered and distributed, that it was difficult to keep track of what everyone's affiliation was.
The reader was Jennifer Wiltsie, and she did an outstanding job. Each character - and there were a lot of them - had a destinct voice, and where they had an accent she pulled it off with no problem. The listener is always able to tell who is talking by the change in the reader's voice, and in a book with this many characters that is very helpful.
I just got home after a very long day, and I'm too tired for a full blog entry. Instead, here's a picture of a fly wearing glasses. Enjoy.
