Arthur C. Clarke’s four laws of prediction

Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three “laws” of prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The first of the three laws, previously termed Clarke’s Law, was proposed by Arthur C. Clarke in the essay “Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination”, in Profiles of the Future (1962).

The second law is offered as a simple observation in the same essay; its status as Clarke’s Second Law was conferred on it by others.

In a 1973 revision of his compendium of essays, Profiles of the Future, Clarke acknowledged the Second Law and proposed the Third in order to round out the number, adding “As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there.” Of the three, the Third Law is the best known and most widely cited.

Clarke’s Third Law codifies perhaps the most significant of Clarke’s unique contributions to speculative fiction. A model to other writers of hard science fiction, Clarke postulates advanced technologies without resorting to flawed engineering concepts (as Jules Verne sometimes did) or explanations grounded in incorrect science or engineering (a hallmark of “bad” science fiction), or taking clues from trends in research and engineering (which dates some of Larry Niven’s novels). Accordingly, the powers of any future superintelligence or hyperintelligence which Clarke often described would seem astonishing.

But in novels such as The City and the Stars and the story “The Sentinel” (upon which 2001: A Space Odyssey was based) Clarke goes further; he presents us with ultra-advanced technologies developed by hyperintelligences limited only by fundamental science. In Against the Fall of Night the human race has mysteriously regressed after a full billion years of civilization. Humanity is faced with the remnants of its past glories: for example, a network of roads and sidewalks that flow like rivers. Although physically possible, it is inexplicable from their perspective. Clarke’s Third Law explains the source of our amazement as our limitation, rather than the impossibility of the technology.

In his 1999 revision of Profiles of the Future, published in London by Indigo, Clarke added his Fourth Law: “For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.”

From Wikipedia.org

Brian Eno, Microseconds and Oceans of Time

In 1994 Brian Eno was approached by Mark Malamud and Erik Gavriluk, senior designers at Microsoft on the Chicago project. The result was the six-second start-up sound for the Windows 95 operating system, commonly called The Microsoft Sound. From an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle:

“

The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I’d been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, “Here’s a specific problem – solve it.” The thing from the agency said, “We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,” this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said “and it must be 3¼ seconds long.” I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It’s like making a tiny little jewel. In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I’d finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.

“

Eunoia

“Writing is inhibiting. Sighing, I sit, scribbling in ink this pidgin script. I sing with nihilistic witticism, disciplining signs with trifling gimmicks impish hijinks which highlight stick sigils. Isn’t it glib? Isn’t it chic?”

Glib and chic it may be, but Christian Bok’s book “Eunoia” is also a stunning example of discipline, creativity and beauty.  Eunoia is the shortest word in the English language to use all 5 vowels. Each chapter in ‘Eunoia’ uses only one vowel - chapter A using words that only have the letter ‘a’.

Each vowel takes on a distinct personality - the I is egotistical and romantic, the O jocular and obscene, the E elegaic and epic. U is guttural and lustful (Ubu and Lulu burp, hump and bump for five delirious pages). The online flash version of Chapter E is a wonderful rendering of the work into an interactive experience. The beginning of each chapter can be read on the Coach House Books website here.

Over 5 years in the making, Eunoia employs other rigid constraints on language, including: paragraph length (all are 12 lines long) and theme (each chapter must describe the act of writing, a nautical voyage, and a gastronomic feast.  In ‘Chapter E’, Bok retells the whole story of the Illiad, from the viewpoint of Helen, using only ‘e’s. Here is an excerpt:

“Greek schemers respect shrewdness; hence, the shrewd rebels enter the sled’s secret recess (the sled’s nested creche, where these few men keep themselves secreted); then the sled gets sent wherever the nemeses dwell; there, the Greek pretenders pretend: “the well-hewn steed represents the perfect present.”

Coming to us from the ancient greek word εύνοια (well mind), Bok defines eunoia as ‘beautiful thinking’. And this monument of 21st century poetry is indeed a tour de force of beautiful thinking, a work that Samual R. Delany has described as “a novel that will drive everybody sane.”

Bok lives and works in Toronto, Canada. He has invented languages for two Gene Roddenberry TV series, Earth: Final Conflict and Amazon.

Off The International Radar: Sonic explorations in space, time and mind…

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Zhongguo, Jia You! (Go China!)

The opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games were spectacular and, as expected, historic. With stunning pyrotechnics, incredible mass choreography and a spellbinding lighting and video show, the performances were rich in both cutting-edge multimedia displays and eloquent homages to ancient Chinese culture. The path of fireworks that created footsteps in the sky walking towards the birds nest stadium in the lead-up to the show was amongst the most innovative of mass creations/performances in recent memory - a testament to the vision and creativity of film director Zhang Yi Mou (of ‘Hero’ fame). Needless to say, the atmosphere at the event was electric…

The visual coverage of the event on Pearl, CNN and CCTV showcased not only the cultural renaissance of the Chinese nation (the architecture of the Watercube and Birds Nest alone attest to this), but was also tempered with the wonderful innocence and humanity of the Chinese people (the smiles on the faces of the drummers, the playfulness and boredom of the little girl beside playing alongside pianist Lang Lang). This innocence and humanity is all too often overlooked by global observers, perhaps too often limited by a focus on geopolitical ‘ realities’…

Why is this UltraFuture? The Olympic games is a forum for optimism - a symbol and hopefully a catalyst of hope and harmony for humanity.

Well done Beijing. Jia You!

Exit SecondLife… Enter Nurien

Tuesday, 29 July 2008
BMW are leaving Second Life. Munich Express (the Second Life avatar of Achim Muellers, Head of Brand Relations for BMW) made an inworld announcement yesterday.

To anyone who has visited the SecondLife virtual world, this is probably not much of a surprise. The number of users and the usability of the interface have not lived up to much of the hype or hopes for a revolution in ‘virtual’ commerce and social interaction.

On the other hand, look out for the September launch of Nurien, a new South Korean developed virtual networking platform that takes SecondLife to a whole new level. With near zero lag time and incredible physics algorithms, Nurien renders fabrics, surfaces and avatars with ’superreality’.

I have been fortunate enough to demo the platform twice: once at a venture capital conference in Shanghai and once at a press announcement and networking event hosted by UltraFuture. The experience is incredible - with the ’superreality’ of the space and avatars creating a deep sense of affinity between the user and online characters.

In William Gibson’s novel ‘Idoru’, set in a futuristic Tokyo, there is a rock and roll band called Lo/Rez. The lead singer for the band (named ‘Rez’), is rumored to be engaged to an “idoru” or “idol singer” - an artificial celebrity creation of information software agents. We are indeed approaching the time when it will not be uncommon for people to be literally falling in love with avatars. Nurien looks that good.

With current advances in online musical collaboration, I also imagine a virtual rock-band being created inside of a platform like Nurien. Auditions could be made (perhaps via a ‘Supernova’ like show) whenever a band member is unable or unwilling to continue their duties. The same band, then, could theoretically keep pumping out singles and albums ‘forever’ - possibly even outliving the Rolling Stones. Gibson drew many of his ideas for the novel while traveling with U2 during the Zoo TV tour. Maybe Bono and the boys would be up for a new medium? (Paul, if you’re reading this give me a ring.)

Nurien is launching in South Korea this September, and in China in October and set for its US launch early in 2009. Taehoon Kim, founder of Nurien, will be presenting their virtual platform at UltraFuture Expo in Hong Kong this December. Don’t miss it.

Neil Young says “High-Resolution Music is ‘The Future’”

Audiophiles have an ally in their quest for more easily stored and distributed high-quality sound. In a recent video posted on CNN, Neil Young, the legendary rock musician and sound-recording engineering master, argues that PC and other consumer electronics manufacturers should differentiate themselves from the current ‘sad state of sonic integrity’. They need to move away from MP3 format, which is based on lossy audio encoding.

“I think there’s a huge opening for PCs here to establish themselves as the quality instrument over the convenience instrument,” explains Young in the video. “I think hi-res music should come right into the earphones.”

“In the 21st century,” he adds, “with these beautiful computers and incredible capabilities, hi-res music is one of the missing elements. [But] I think that’s the future of music.”

Lossy audio encoding by definition involves a trade-off between quantity of memory (file size) and quality or ‘fidelity’ of sound. Typically, the creator of an MP3 recording is able to set a bit rate, which specifies how much information the file plays back per second. A bit rate that delivers less information per second saves space (allowing us to store thousands of songs on our iPods.) It also means less resolution, detail or integrity of the sound recording. The recording lacks the full characteristics of the original performance or master recording – thus, low-fidelity.

Encoding algorithms are designed to try and ‘cut-out’ those portions of a recording that are ‘not audible’ to the ‘average’ listener. This results in most widely available recordings having the lowest common denominator of sound quality. This is a situation which caters to mediocrity and arguably reduces the sensitivity of the average listener by severely limiting their potential for exposure to high-fidelity audio.

On the other hand, many audiophiles I know would suggest that most MP3 recordings are well-suited to sizable portion of consumers. The indiscriminant many listening to the soulless crap that gets played on the vast majority of commercial radio stations today.

Travels in the Next Millennium

By Hans Christian Andersen (Translated by Greta Wolfe)Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) is Denmark’s most celebrated writer. His more popular tales include The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and The Little Mermaid. This short story seems to be very prophetic, written in January, 1852, long before Jules Verne wrote ‘Around the World in 80 Days.’

This vision of the year 2850 seems to have already arrived.

A fanciful view of future airship travel, engraved by Britain’s Ordnance Survey Office in 1864.

Yes, in a thousand years they will be coming through the air, over the world’s seas! The young Americans visiting the old Europe. They will be coming to see the monuments and memorials here, the fading past, just as in our time we wander to south Asia’s crumbling splendors.

In a thousand years they’ll come! The Thames, Danube and Rhine still flow. Mont Blanc has its snowcap, the Northern lights still dance over the Nordic lands, but generation after generation has passed to dust, forgotten, like those who now slumber in Paradise.

“To Europe!” Cry the young Americans. “To our forefathers’ lands! Memories and fantasy’s lovely land” Europe!”

Airships coming. They are crowded with travelers, the pace is faster than by sea. The electromagnetic ropes under the seas have already telegraphed how big the air caravan is.

All must see Europe. It is Ireland’s coast that first appears, but the passengers are still asleep. They wish to be awakened first when they reach England. There they tread Europe’s sod in Shakespeare’s land” land of politics, industry’s birthplace, others call it.

A whole day is spent here. This is how much time the busy generation can spend in big England and Scotland.

The rush goes on - under the Channel tunnel to France, Charlemagne, Napoleon’s land. Moliere is mentioned, “the erudite talk about classic and romantic schools in the fourth renaissance” and celebrations are held for heroes, soldiers, and scientists of which our time knows not yet. They are born here in the heart of Europe - Paris.

The airship flies out over the land Columbus left, where Cortez was born, where Calderon sang drama in verse; lovely dark-eyed women still live and build in the flowering valleys. And in ancient songs you hear about El Cid and Alhambra.

Through the air, over the sea to Italy, where the old eternal Rome lay. It is obliterated, the countryside is barren, a desert. Of old Saint Peter’s Basilica they show a lonely standing wall, but one doubts its authenticity.

To Greece, to sleep one night in the luxury hotel high atop Mt. Olympus. Then one can say, “We have been there.” The chase goes on toward the Bosporus to rest a few hours and see the place where Byzantium was. Poor fishermen spread their nets here, where legend told of the Harem’s garden in Turkish times.

More great cities on the mighty Danube. Cities our age never knew. But here and there, places rich in memories, the future generations must see. There the air caravan dips and takes off again.

Down there lies Germany, once covered with the tightest nets of rails and canals. Country where Luther spoke, Goethe wrote, and where Mozart in his time wore music’s crown. Big names light up science and art, names we can’t recognize.

One day stay for Germany, and one day for the North, for Orsted’s and Linnaeus’ land, and Norway. The old heroes and the young Northmen’s land. Iceland is seen on the return trip. Geysers no longer spout, Hekla is closed. But the strong cliff-island still lies in the turbulent sea - a perpetual monument to the sagas.

“There is so much to see in Europe!” say the young Americans, “and we have seen it in eight days. And it is possible, as the famous traveler (a name is mentioned, that belongs to their age) has shown in his famous book “Europe, Seen in Eight Days.”

Related Articles:
Pioneering thinker, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90 years old

Damn the Recession: Order a $1,000 Sushi Roll

 

 

More expensive than a meal at Masa.
Photo: Courtesy of Koi. Article via nymag

I just got news of a $1,000 foie gras sushi roll called, of course, the High Roller. It’ll be served at Koi, and here’s how it works, according to the flack:

1. Using Hudson Valley Foie Gras we will marinade the foie and poach the foie in the sauterne. It is then formed into a torchon (Shape) to the roll.
2. After the roll is made… Langoustine (A sweet succulent Lobster) is cut into sashimi and placed on the outside of the roll.
3. Saffron/Vanilla bean butter will be drawn and brushed over the lobster.
4. The roll is then encrusted with the caviar
5. White Alba truffles are shaved table side (By the Chef)
6. 100 year balsamic is then drizzled over the top

The lofty price tag clearly reflects the uniqueness of this luxury experience, as well as quality the supreme quality of the ingredients and level of service. An UltraFuture dish indeed… Can we all try one?

 

Pioneering thinker, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90 years old

UltraFuture remembers hero and legend Arthur C. Clarke.

 

Arthur C. Clarke was perhaps the ultimate ambassador of the UltraFuture. Generations of scientists, writers, philosophers and engineers - and everyone of us here at UltraFuture - have been inspired by his incredible imagination and unparalleled ability to capture the imagination of others. His contributions to the fields of science and science fiction have become an indispensable part of 20th century history and will be remembered, marveled at, and enjoyed for many years to come.

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From the New York Times:Arthur C. Clarke, a writer whose seamless blend of scientific expertise and poetic imagination helped usher in the space age, died early Wednesday in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since 1956. He was 90.Rohan de Silva, an aide, confirmed the death and said Mr. Clarke had been experiencing breathing problems, The Associated Press reported. He had suffered from post-polio syndrome for the last two decades.

The author of almost 100 books, Mr. Clarke was an ardent promoter of the idea that humanity’s destiny lay beyond the confines of Earth. It was a vision served most vividly by ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ the classic 1968 science-fiction film he created with the director Stanley Kubrick and the novel of the same title that he wrote as part of the project.

His work was also prophetic: his detailed forecast of telecommunications satellites in 1945 came more than a decade before the first orbital rocket flight.

Other early advocates of a space program Read more

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