The Books I Read in 2016

More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

This book is the sole reason I have the Kindle app on my phone. It was interesting but not terribly exciting in hindsight. I think I would need a better perspective on 1950s telepathy fiction to appreciate whether it's high or low quality. Nevertheless a fun story to watch unfold.

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Unambiguously great, despite what a lot of my classmates said. Neuromancer has aged better than a lot of scifi from that era, though occasionally mundane technologies reminded me of the normalcy field. Overall the story was immersive, well-planned, and engaging. I'm hoping to read the other Sprawl books soon.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

My first time rereading in several years, this time to focus on non-political themes. Primarily I was focusing on the AI aspect for an assignment. I still found it quite enjoyable to read, to the point that I really felt like writing for the first time in years. Another reminder that books have more layers than what I picked up in high school.

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

I finally picked this up because I wanted to go above-and-beyond with that paper on AI in literature. I may have been a bit resentful with how little serious analysis my professor gave. Clarke's writing is extremely poetic throughout, but the eventual plot wasn't that earth-shattering given that I've seen the movie. There's a lot more detail and cosmetic changes, no major differences in theme. Nevertheless and enjoyable read and convinced me to look at Clarke further.

The Foundations of Morality by Henry Hazlitt

All the books avove, and the three below, in some capacity, were read for my English class this spring. Nominally, I was reading Hazlitt's ethics text during this time. In practice, not so much. Despite owning a physical copy, most of it I read on my phone, a significant chunk during a car ride on Stop Day. Strongly recommended for libertarians, to get a better grasp on utilitarianism. Review here.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

So much of this book left my head since high school English. Another case where a story doesn't seem that great, but considering when it was written, the book is actually quite impressive. It's cliche but the book was better than the movie (pretty much any version).

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells

Had some good moments but just not that engaging for me. Maybe if my professor hadn't given away the mystery early on, it would have been more exciting. Worth skimming for historical perspective but not something I expect to reread soon.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Holy hell has this book not aged well. Post-internet but pre-Web 2.0 results in a very weird mix of idioms. As for the actual plot, meh. There was potential but overall felt badly executed. The antagonist would be relatable if his motives made any sense; the protagonist makes a lot of strange decisions and isn't nearly as engaging. Jumping back and forth in time made for interesting story-telling but couldn't make up for an underwhleming story.

Hive Mind by Garett Jones

Non-fiction about IQ research, specifically applications to social problems. As pointed out in my review, the Jones is asking questions, not giving answers. Definitely worth thinking about.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Another reread. Rand definitely does claim to have the answers. I have a few reservations, but her story, style, and themes are still uplifting after all these years. Review of Atlas Shrugged, and the following books, forthcoming.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Frame story on about seven different levels. Definitely a book for people who like puzzles and mysteries. And you definitely need a physical copy. I don't really want to spoil it for future readers by talking about the story here, but to say the least I found it interesting.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Didn't expect to like Jared Diamond, but after multiple commentators recommended it I finally caved and picked up a copy. It was well worth the money--Diamond has effectively written a book about the whole of human history and gives a pretty credible explanation for why geographic factors had a strong influence on how the world looks today.

Redesigning the Kansas City Flag

Roman Mars wants us to adopt better municipal flags. Many city flags go unflown because they're terribly designed in one way or another. Since my city's flag isn't seen very often, I decided to look it up. Here it is:

This flag frustrates me because it is so damn close to being really, really good. It's beautiful, it's simple, it's recognizable, and then some moron decided to write all over it because they didn't trust their own handiwork. That's just depressing. The flag was good, anonymous designer! Believe in yourself!

Unlike a lot of city flags, this one would be very easy to fix. Just remove the writing. That's it. A tricolor with the fountain symbol would be a gorgeous banner for then entire KC Metro.

Seriously, it took 15 seconds in MS Paint to clean it up:

As a country, we need symbols of non-exclusionary communities right now. Municipal flags are such symbols. It wouldn't be hard to change this. Consider writing the mayor or city council members. 

Kansas City can come together even better with clean, coherent images of who we are. An improved flag is the quickest and easiest way forward.

If Your Recreation Isn't Selfish Then What's the Point?

Not even two days into winter break and I'm already running into the classic problem that my parents have no idea what constitutes fun. Oh, I'm sure they enjoy their television session, but that's not what I'm looking for after a week of self-denial for finals. Somehow it still shocks them to learn that spending the limited hours a day that we have for entertainment on something I don't enjoy is not agreeable to me.

The problem is that the things I want to do (right now, mostly Kerbal Space Program) require a certain time commitment, which I can't make during finals, and more importantly cannot make during the large quantities of unstructured time between the orgies of work my parents voluntarily take upon themselves. Right now it's getting ready to move to a new house, which of course is a frustration all of its own category. But last Christmas I had the same problem with just cleaning and chores. Instead of doing the things I wanted to be doing, I was stuck with low-commitment entertainment because I knew that an interruption could come at any time. From literally the first day last year, which I had pre-announced I was going to spend relaxing and they should not expect my involvement, they nevertheless barged in with things to do.

So yes, I can see why you think looking at my phone is my idea of a good time, but it's not. It's just what I can afford when you won't tell me what time you're leaving because you don't fricking know.

Is it clear that I'm a little frustrated by this phenomena?

But to add to the complexity, I'm not opposed to watching television in general. Give it a few days, once I've relaxed and enjoyed my high-density fun, spending a few hours on medium-density stuff for variety will be a perfectly rational thing to do. This doesn't seem that hard to figure out but apparently it is for them.

(Maybe I'll send you two this blog post, since you never actually check my blog. But that would start an entirely different rant about time allocation for social media use.)

But what I came here to say is that, well, if one isn't trying to maximize the joy derived from recreation then it's not clear they know what recreation is. Is it supposed to be about helping others? No! That's what work is for! In a rational economy, anyway, but the Cathedral has seen about that, haven't they?

As I've said, I'm not an altruist. So long as I'm stuck in this world, I want to get joy out of it. And simply put, television isn't the best way to get that joy. Sue me.

Forms and Structure

A problem which I've complained about mightily is the gap between my desired level of course material integration and what professors actually provide. Indeed, I still believe that this has been among my greatest hurdles in learning mathematics. It would seem, however, my preference for structure is at the rightmost end of the bell curve. Unfortunate.

As such, it would seem that divining the conceptual structure of a given subject is perhaps the utmost task for increasing my academic achievement. The problem with this, of course, is that I won't know where everything goes until the semester is almost over. By that time my grade will have suffered needlessly and I may even have lost all interest in trying to decipher the inchoate mess of equations and trivia that all too many classes top-out at.

The only strategy may, perhaps, be to stay ahead of the syllabus. This is hard. Very hard. When I don't understand the material, doubly so.

I maintain that engineering has not yet been hard. Badly presented, yes. Botched, even. But not hard.

What mystifies me is that no one else thinks this way. In other fields the value of good form for communication is patently obvious. Nothing about STEM screams any difference. So why the resistance to clarity I deal with day-in and day-out?

A mystery, but probably a stupid one.

An Observation

When studying Tuesday night for my aerodynamics exam yesterday, I found it extremely difficult to study precisely because my performance was extremely important. Pressure actually made the process of learning more stressful and therefore made me more likely to procrastinate. This is a disturbing behavior but not a new ones. I experienced it earlier this semester, and frequently during my time at Purdue.

Pressure depends heavily on the amount of time remaining before the deadline. I experienced significantly less pressure when reviewing on Sunday afternoon, despite the fact that I was, at that time, less prepared. The impact of this exam upon my grade has been fixed since under-performing of the first midterm and lab report.

As I see it, there are three way to attack this problem:

1. Do more of the focused work before pressure builds
2. Reduce the perceived pressure of individual assignments
3. Improve focus overall

Unfortunately, none of these are easy fixes. Doing work beforehand requires the cooperation of parents and professors--both notorious for doing everything in their power to prevent routine. Individual assignments would be less stressful if I were doing well overall, but that would require more work time. See #1. Attempts at improving focus have, so far, been met with limited success.

This feeds into the larger problem of...something I'm not sure I have a name for. The phenomena where I notice a mistake or failure mode but can't correct it until a term set by outside entities comes to an end. An example would be the housing complex I lived in last year: entirely unsuitable to my needs, but locked into the contract unless we forfeited a sum of money my parents were unable to pay. So I drove home each weekend of the spring semester and waited it out.

A similar dynamic arises with classes. For various reasons I find that the class is not working out for me, and am essentially unable to do anything about it without adding a year to my program. Dropping classes has never been a real possibility for financial reasons alone, which makes me all the more frustrated when professors a) fail to state their expectations clearly b) set their expectations way to high c) have expectations at all but no plans to teach.

My aerodynamics story has a happy ending: the exam went really well. After the first one it was clear that most questions are lifted directly from the textbook with only small changes, so finding the relevant example is half the work. (Aerodynamics exams are open book.) But on the whole this semester has been pushing against a brick wall. No amount of BRUTE STRENGTH will get around the two-sided job of conceptual communication. I'm willing to do my part. But a lot of educators don't seem willing to do theirs.

November Links

The acheivment gap isn't about teachers. If that piques your interest, Scott Alexander has more than you could possible want to know about the subject.

The ad campaign that made lesbians love Subaru.

Robin Hanson advises you to chase your reading.

From the Biodeterminist's Guide to Parenting:

One interesting observation is that with a few exceptions, places at more extreme latitude have higher IQs. Again, useful for the racists. But epidemiologists have a better explanation: parasite load. Tropical jungles are crawling with parasites. The North Pole generally isn't. Sure enough, when they run the studies, parasite-infestedness of an area correlates with national IQ at about r = -0.82. The same is true of US states, with a slightly reduced correlation coefficient of -0.67 (p<0.0001). The effect was found to do better than other things one might naively expect it to be a proxy for, like temperature, latitude, evolutionary novelty of environment, et cetera. It's pretty robust. And it holds up in quasi-experiments. When an area eliminates parasites (like the US did for malaria and hookworm in the early 1900s) the IQ for the area goes up at about the right time.

GiveWell's updated list of top charities is mostly anti-malaria work and deworming, which means that your marginal dollar also contributes to the global project of raising IQ.

A literal millionare next door. He didn't donate to AMF, but instead left his fortune to the local library and hospital.

The rest of this post is election analysis, so stop reading here if that doesn't interest you. I've put it under a cut for the defensively apolitical.

Post Thanksgiving Review

I'm back at school after a rather unproductive Thanksgiving break. I studied a little bit this afternoon, but that's pretty much it. Five whole days down the sink of history.

This was far from unpredictable--as usually my optimism about a visit home was unwarranted. If left to our own devices, I'll just be getting into gear for academics when Mom or Dad will interrupt with some task or distraction. On a good day, they'll leave me be at eight or nine pm, but by then my motivation is mostly exhausted.

I'm thinking the optimal solution would be moving back my sleep schedule so that I wake up earlier, go to bed when I'm released in the evening, and study before either of them can concoct tasks to use up my time. I'll try this out fully over winter break in preparation for my eight am electrical engineering lecture. For various, interrelated reasons this shift seems less drastic than it would have a few months ago. Slowly becoming a boring, lonely adult has a few advantages.

This coming week will mostly focus on the upcoming aerodynamics exam and structures group project. Wednesday will also be the first Jayhawk Rocket Design meeting in about a month, since we finally have funding and thus can resume work on our hybrid engine. Or so I assume. There's not much time before the semester ends, but I assume we're sticking with the plan I was told.

Personally, I'm open to contributing a bit over winter break. My travel plans are no more and finding an excuse to spend less time with my parents is probably a good thing. And I do worry about losing my edge during such a long break. Hell, I'm worried about my ability to focus tomorrow. A month is probably too long, but when you haven't had a term off since 2013, you'll take it.

Weekly Review

I didn't write anything last night because I was tired. After the flight dynamics even doing pretty straightforward homework was beyond my motivation. But today I feel a little better so let's at least make an attempt at this.

The most obvious thing is continued academic struggles. That might be abating--I understood everything on the structures exam, or know that I could understand it--but homework and projects are still a challenge. A good deal of that is organization. My mind processes and arranges information in what appears to be an unusual fashion, judging by the fact that I'm so frequently frustrated or outright baffled by the way other people put things. On a bad day it feels like I'm speaking an entirely different language. Perhaps it's possible to translate, but informational biliguality is still a good way out.

Going back to the subject of information I could understand, I need to teach myself differential equations again. They're showing up in both structures and aerodynamics quite suddenly, and though I might be able to get by anyway, it would be nice to review them. After the last aerodynamics test, where I lost unnecessary points because I couldn't remember how to perform basic derivatives and integration, I finally logged in to Khan Academy again and have been using it daily since then. My plan was to review calculus all the way through, but because I'm usually watching only a few videos per day I'm still in limits. Over break I may jump ahead to diff eq, or perhaps flip through my text books again.

On a more prosaic note, winter weather has arrived. I'm naturally less that thrilled, but have amassed a reasonable quantity of warm clothes so hopefully hypothermia can be avoided. The gas bill is gonna be nasty when it comes.

Weekly Review

Time for another weekly review post.

First of all, election. I'll write up my thoughts properly at some point, possibly this weekend, but for now let it suffice to say that I'm surprised with the result and very much disappointed with my fellow Americans' reactions to it. That's what you get for having expectations.

The most immediate consequence is that I messed up my sleep schedule by staying up too late waiting for a final call. I'm still paying for that. Academically the situation is mixed. I did much better on the last flight dynamics exam than I'd expected, but structures is still challenging me. Over the weekend I spent a lot of time in the library working on that and aerodynamics, but clearly more time is needed. My laptop's battery life was a serious limiting factor in how long I stayed each day, so next time the charger goes with.

For similar reasons, I didn't write as much as desired, but that will probably change in the coming days. Of course, there's two exams next week, so my schedule isn't exactly wide open.

On a bright note, the rocket design club secured funding yesterday, so we'll be getting back to work on the hybrid engine after Thanksgiving break.

First Impressions

I've finished the prologue of Guns, Germs, and Steel, and want to write down a few brief thoughts.

Firstly, Diamond makes a considerable effort to assure his readers that he's not a eurocentrist. I can understand why he feels the need to do this, but from my perspective it just made him come across as a smug progressive.

It's perhaps worth noting that my general affect for Professor Diamond has been mostly negative, due to his reputation as, shall we say, a skeptic of civilization. For someone like me, with allergies, asthma, nearsightedness and an ideological affinity for modern world, that sort of mindset rubs me the wrong way.

I'm reading this book, not out of a genuine desire to fairly evaluate the works of people I disagree with, but because it was recommended. Not to me personally, but in general, by educational YouTuber C.G.P. Grey. In a pair of videos, Grey presented Diamond's hypothesis from the book, which sufficiently piqued my interest for me to suspend my suspicions and pick up a copy from the local used book store.

Getting back to the book itself--I think the prologue dismisses several alternative hypotheses out of hand. Now I'm not a professional geographer, so maybe there's a strong body of evidence that those hypotheses are indeed wrong, and Diamond's explanations are intended for convincing a lay audience, rather than a contrarian such as myself. Since in all likelihood the truth is an amalgamation of these possible causes, I'm willing to overlook these seemingly weak arguments.

Certainly I haven't been dissuaded from reading onward. The first chapter is clearly written and informative. My advice would be rather for a certain sort of reader to skip most of the prologue and its disclaimers, heading directly for the meat of the book.

Contrarianism and Systematization

Recommended Reading: The Glory of Systems, Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism

An idea I've been kicking around awhile is that contrarianism arises, in part, because of differences in systematization between individuals or groups. What I mean by this is that certain people are much more concerned with explicitly laying out the reasons behind their actions, beliefs, and behaviors than others. When this happens (particularly if the less systematizing people happen to be older or in a position of greater authority), contrarianism is a common response.

Perhaps contrarian isn't the right term. What I'm trying to describe might be contradictorian. Basically, an individual who goes out of their way to question your intentions and poke holes in your argument.

This was precisely me before my parents accidentally introduced me to Objectivism. I didn't have satisfactory answers to any of life's questions, but so far as I could tell, neither did anyone else. And because middle school me was a total nerd, that was a problem. I wanted explanations, desperately. I got into plenty of losing arguments trying to show other people that theirs were insufficient.

Part of the reason nerdy people get into weird belief systems, from the occult to Ayn Rand, is because those systems provide at least superficially complete worldviews. Many of them paper over important questions or internal contradictions, but they're a level or two higher than the soup of contradictions doled out by the schools and what's left of Christianity.

I'm not sure this is actually a bad thing, but then again my contrarianism eventually sent me back to the center after realizing how little certain anarcho-capitalist types care about consequentialist concerns. Based on my limited observation, the usual failure mode is to keep going up a notch until your peer group is all equally satisfied and nobody questions anything further. I was lucky insofar as someone sufficiently sideways of me to not pattern-match as "enemy" showed me new alleys of inquiry. If that hadn't happened...who knows.

At the very least, keep this problem in mind if you have children.

Weekly Review

It's Thursday, so let's try this weekly review thing again.

My major observation is that I don't tend to be very productive on Tuesday nights, after I get back from the SEDS meeting. There's usually assignments due the next morning, but nevertheless I'm very unmotivated to complete them at that late date. My proposed solution is designating that as mid-week relaxation time (barring any exams on Wednesday) and finish that homework over the weekend.

Next Tuesday is election night, so I don't expect to get anything done that night, anyway.

Speaking of the election, I've given up on my plan to write an extended post about the case for third-party votes. My outline keeps spiraling out of control, and there's no way I'm writing a 15,000 word treatise on the failings of the American political system before Tuesday. It's also been really boring. Perhaps once the dust settles I'll rework it as a post-mortem.

I've finished House of Leaves and will be posting my review of it....eventually.

Blogvember

As mentioned on Twitter earlier, I'm deferring NaNoWriMo for another year.* However, I will be attempting a month-long project of writing each day. This won't optimize for quantity in the same way as my Daily Journal last December. Instead I'll be writing every day with the goal of publishing several posts I've been putting off.

Off the top of my head, I already have three posts I definitely want to push out, and ideas for several more which may or may no go anywhere. Some will go out on my main blog, some here, and perhaps I'll even make use of my public Tumblr. As usual there will be links post at some point in the month.

Additionally, the way my schedule works this semester means that Thursdays are really my effective Fridays. Consequently, they make a more natural time for weekly review, so I will try once again do reflection writings.

*More likely two, considering I'll be in the midst of senior design next fall.

Links for October

Shot, chaser.

The latest news on modular nuclear reactors.

The Nazi war machine ran on meth.

Weird Sun Blog: Judgement as Fake Explanation

David Chapman gives us a first lesson in meta-rationality.

Good though not great interview with a sociologist who spend 5 years studying Red Tribe up close.

How Paul Krugman made Donald Trump possible. Speaking of Trump, Megan McArdle argues that he's no Goldwater.

Natural language processing of the first Presidential debate.

FiveThirtyEight: Religion and education explain the white vote.

Grognor on Umeshism.

Tyler Cowen discusses the Chinese economy.

Links for September

Scott Alexander with a new argument for the simulation hypothesis.

Non-horrifying clothes for small children.

Apple updates an operating system from the 1980s for the first time since I was born.

The Future Primeval argues politics is upstream of science and why.

Simon Penner at Status 451 discusses social gentrification as it pertains to nerd culture. Keep in mind the difference between nerddom-as-community and nerd-as-identity while reading.

Related: Scott Alexander again, this time with a fascinating neurological hypothesis integrating hallucinogenic drugs, schizophrenia, and autism. It would explain a lot and definitely needs more research.

The Economist reports that the corporate approach to introverts is getting worse.

Kerbal Space Program nears version 1.2

David Chapman on the glory of systems.

My review of Hive Mind by Garret Jones is finally up.

Fifteen Years

You know what this post is about. I don't have to tell you. Just look at the date on it.

Fifteen years is a long time. I was seven then; I'm twenty-two now. The world has changed in ways that none of us could have imagined then. I certainly couldn't. I'm a weird case, too young to live in the old world but too old to live in the new one. "Normal" has changed forever and there's no real going back.

The aftermath was what my brain was first trained on, when trying to comprehend the outside world. Before the 2000 election I had only the vaguest notion of politics or current events. During the following year my progress leaving that cocoon was still very slow. The Twin Towers falling forced the process into overdrive.

For me, it's not a great tragedy. It was, but all those people dying wasn't an exception for me. In many ways that was the norm, the first major event I became aware of, something almost...prototypical. The rhetoric around terrorism certainly was. It's what I grew up on and I wonder what that's going to mean when my generation takes political power.

Fifteen years. It's my own life and still I can barely conceive of a timespan that long. Some long range thinker I am. Let's hope the next fifteen are better.

Diary

I finished writing my diary last night. By which I mean it's filled, one end to the other.

I've been writing in it since Pi Day, 2002. I was seven at the time; now I'm 22. That's a full 65% of my life with this as my diary. During most of that time I wrote inconstantly and erratically, but it was always a thing I had around. Finishing it feels...weird.

Another journal was purchased long ago, so I won't be stopping entirely. In recent years I've also used various social media platforms and blogging sites to record my life, including this one. Nevertheless, I've found that private writing is more conducive to introspection than anything else, so for the time being that's not going anywhere.

MidAmeriCon Notes, Day 5

Please understand that my memory is not perfect, and that my summaries may misstate or misconstrue the views of the speakers. These should also not be taken as complete synopses of the talks given. I take notes mainly for my own use, and what is included reflects this fact. You can find a full listing of programming here.

Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four.

My final day of the World Science Fiction Convention started out with a panel on worlds with Two Suns in the Sky. This was a discussion of a few hypothetical concepts and largely-unvalidated models that are nonetheless the best we can do. These include Niven's notion of a planet with an off-center core, and planets which orbit in a Figure-8.

Trying to determine the properties of a planet about another star is difficult. We can obtain the mass and approximate density from orbital characteristics, but finding chemical composition requires huge telescopes to do spectroscope. A related instrument limitation is that the Kepler Space Telescope can only find about 3% of possible exoplanets around target stars, as the ecliptic must pass between their star and our own.

For a close binary pair, it's estimated that two stars about 80% of Sol are the most likely to produce a habitable planet. Binary systems are much more likely to eject planets than single star systems. (About 30% of star systems are binary.) The minimum stable orbit radius is about 2-4 times that of the stars. It's not necessary for the planet to have formed there.

Is Asteroid Mining Feasible? The next panel set out to answer that question. The first question is which asteroids you're trying to mine. Near-Earth Objects are much easier to reach than the Asteroid Belt. The next question is what you want to mine. Are you searching for water or rare minerals. For the latter, it may just be cheaper to mine them on Earth until an adequate industrial base is built up in space. Note, too, that asteroids are not subject to many of the geophysical and geochemical processes which produce terrestrial ore deposits.

Water and other volatiles would be valuable as chemical propellants. Refueling satellites would be an obvious near-future application, but there's a sort of chicken and egg problem. Until the technology is developed, no one will build satellites with refueling capability. But the technology won't likely be developed until there's a market. Many companies don't appear to be grappling with this economic problem. A business plan emphasizing spin-off applications is desirable as it aids profitability and reduces the capital investment.

There's also legal implications. The Outer Space Treaty is quite vague about the use of off-world resources. It probably won't get resolved until prosecutions begin. Another interesting fact is that, according to one panelists, Americans and Australians are the primary supporters of space mining. Those from other nationalities are often opposed (though Luxembourg is investing in such technologies). Canada may tag along, but this seems to be mostly an Anglospheric obsession.

A higher-level concern is that asteroidial resources contribute to our current linear, one-pass economy, reducing pressure to develop more sustainable infrastructure. However, in space the perspective is different. Dragging materiel up from the gravity well is both expensive and requires considerably more structural strength than machines manufactured on orbit would.

More futuristic questions were considered by Jordin Kare's talk on SailBeam and the Bussard Buzz Bomb, two hypothetical technologies for reaching the stars within a human lifespan. His goal is a 50-year time horizon, which requires reaching speeds of at least 0.1c. Nuclear fission propulsion doesn't get us a tenth of the way there, even with staging. Fusion would be slightly better, but we still don't have that technology and only marginally improves the situation.

Using external energy gets us around the rocket equation, but most approaches to this don't allow us to slow down at the other side. Flying through an alien star-system at cruising velocity isn't really worth it, and this is the key limitation of the standard laser-driven sailship. Additionally, Robert Forward's original design had to be over a kilometer across, with a laser a thousand times that size. Dividing it into many smaller sails reduces the laser requirements but also the payload, down to a few milligrams. Considering any data sent back would need to be transmitted by laser, there's really not a whole lot there.

SailBeam is a way around this, by using multiple one-meter sails launched in succession, transferring momentum to one-another. One major aspect of this is that it requires a different material. The enormous heat flux of the laser blast, combined with tremendous accelerations, rules out metals. Dr. Kare proposes using a dielectric material, which will either reflect or retransmit most of the energy without absorbing. By his calculations this design would allow a sufficiently large laser to accelerate the sailship from zero to lightspeed in a few seconds (ignoring relativity).

There's still a lot of engineering problems to work out, of course. Guidance is one--trying to rendezvous one-meter objects across light-weeks of space would be a real challenge. Control is another--spin stabilization would require about 600,000 rotations per minute. Laser guidance, exploiting high-velocity dust impacts, and shedding small amounts of mass are possibilities to pursue.

Finally, the sail-probe would use a magnetic sail to slow down, dragging against the interstellar medium. This uses a similar technology to another proposed starship design, the Bussard Ramjet. Unfortunately, we now know that the interstellar medium is too thin for the Bussard Ramjet to produce adequate thrust. The magnetic fuel scoop would end up producing more drag than the engine thrust, just like the SailBeam. However, it's possible to seed the route leading out of the solar system with pellets of fusion fuel. Guiding these into the combustion chamber would need a much smaller scoop, which could be repurposed as a small shield once reaching cruising velocity. A "runway" a few light-days long would be adequate, which the ship would cover in a few weeks time. By the end, it would be experiencing about 30 fusion explosions per second.

The next panel I went to was about Human Culture in Remote Space Settlements, which by and large didn't really address the question. For me, it raised another: what makes a panel work? Does it depend on the moderator? A coherent question? Relationships between the panelists? We don't know.

I did take away a few good points, however. One is that many of the worlds around nearby stars are likely to be tidally locked, which poses a challenge to colonization. It's quite possible that fixating on planets is the wrong approach, when we could much more easily build nice, comfortable space colonies from the resources of the system. This solves the problem addressed in the generation ship panel on Friday, asking why colonists would bother getting off the ship.

Another thing discussed was the notion of athletics in space colonies. There would be the normal sports we know, combined with low-gravity and zero-gravity activities that are yet to be invented. Depending on the size of the habitat, some of them may need to be adapted to account for Coriolis forces. Physics class will be very different in an O'Neill Cylinder or Stanford Torus.

The afternoon's main attraction was a chat between George R. R. Martin, Pat Cadigan, and Michael Swanwick reminiscing about the first MidAmeriCon in 1976. I jotted down a few things, but won't try to condense them into something coherent.

MidAmeriCon I memories dialog #MAC2 pic.twitter.com/t8QK7yV556

— Nathaniel M. Routh (@NathanielMRouth) August 21, 2016

The final event I went to was dialog on asking Can Hard Science Fiction be too Hard? The answer is: it depends on your readers. Different people have different preferences and levels of scientific literacy--whose your target audience?

Appreciate the limits of infodumps, and ask if you should explain your work in the text. There's a sort of taboo against putting equations in your books, but some readers really like that sort of thing. Part of the problem is dislodging popular misconceptions before inserting the truth of the matter.

Science fiction shouldn't really be hard for hardness' sake. Real-world difficulties should cause difficulties for your characters. A common example is the lightspeed delay. Just because a story is set in space and deals with that doesn't mean it has to be a Mohs 11.

Many readers will forgive small errors if you get the big stuff right. Asimov said that there's a relativity of wrong, and he was right. Our modern models are true in broad strokes, but many of the details may change as the scientific method continues its process of refining and revising. If you reach the limits and veer into speculation, be honest about it. Speculative physics, biology, or psychology can still make for a great story.

That's the final report. WorldCon was a great experience, but it was also a lot of work. I'm almost relieved to be back at engineering school.

MidAmeriCon Notes, Day 4

Please understand that my memory is not perfect, and that my summaries may misstate or misconstrue the views of the speakers. These should also not be taken as complete synopses of the talks given. I take notes mainly for my own use, and what is included reflects this fact. You can find a full listing of programming here.

Day One, Day Two, Day Three.

I arrived a bit late this morning so only heard part of the talk on Alienation in Science Fiction. A big part of this panel dealt with the question of whether science fiction is still an "outside" genre, and what either answer would mean. Many expressed a concern about the difference between Geek Culture and Nerd Culture (geeks go to Comic-Con, nerds go to WorldCon). Many 'pop' sf shows are more cosplaying science fiction than engaging with the underlying questions that made the genre interesting. Consider The Big Bang Theory.

Others argue that geekdom and nerddom are overlapping categories, and that one can move between them. Even if many new sf fans aren't interested in the serious stuff now, it doesn't mean they won't later.

Part of what science fiction unique was it's willingness to ask questions. In a culture where everyone asks questions, that's not very special. Is that evidence that scifi has done it's job? One panelists argues that science fiction as a genre is over, and we need to look to the future for real now.

For those of us still deadset on writing there was The Art of Worldbuilding. Edgar Rice Burroughs invented much of the modern art--flushing out all the details of a fictional world. Barsoom is the obvious example. It's not perfect, but he covered a great swath of space in loving detail.

There's different places to start. You can ask why your world is interesting. What are the implications of any given premise? Do you have characters with professions? Images in your mind? A tone you wish to establish? Values systems to explore--what do this world's inhabitants love and fear? How does that impact their economy and political system? What are the story's thematic drivers?

Readers don't need to know all the details the author knows about the world. Sometimes you'll have blindspots. Getting a beta reader to ask questions about it. You might not know something important. All information needs to have a purpose.

Overresearching is a problem which strikes many writers. "Prepcrastination" is real, and can be combated with time limits. Many authors just note what needs to be filled in, and wait until the plot is rolling to add the details. Some iterate on the world between drafts. 

Don't frontload the exposition. Readers will accept more once they're invested in the story and plot.

The lighting wasn't that great for photography in there.

The next talk I attended was on SF Pulp Art, which was interesting but not conducive to paragraph summary. I'd recommend getting a good history of science fiction book and reading that instead.

Jesper Stage of Luleå University of Technology gave a presentation on Interstellar Trade for Fun and Profit, looking at both technological and economic perspectives.

Shoddy worldbuilding is often given away by economically infeasible situations. Resources need to come from somewhere, and trade routes require multiple hubs. A spaceport is useless if you can't go anywhere.

Consumer price is equivalent to production plus transport costs. The latter are huge for interstellar exchanges. The value of a physical product either needs to be huge, or you need really cheap starships. If the former, there needs to be a reason why you can't produce the product at home.

Alien ideas and media are an obvious IP trade good. This applies with humans as well.

Cheap FTL changes things, in ways you might not expect. In that case, we're competing with aliens adding political incentives, such as controlling trade routes and losing economic autonomy. A multi-star civilization might experiences "cosmization".

Far future fiction is much more optimistic about trade compared to near future fiction. Economists and enlightenment philosophers agree that trade is a net-benefit and makes people better through incentivizing upright behavior. Many fiction writers echo this notion, either because it's a fun plot device, or because it's easier to see the big picture in a galactic scenario.

Alienbuilding dealt with the question of interstellar interactions for a biological and psychological perspective. Some writers start top-down (star, planet, biome, evolution, aliens), while others start with an alien they like and work the other way. Larry Niven advises us to ask "what's the weirdest thing about them?" This can guide your design. Note that easy description is good for booksales.

Don't overdo the alienness, because eventually it becomes impossible to write a story about them. On the other hand, don't make them humans that look funny. This is especially true if you base their culture on another human society. It's tacky and limits your international market prospects.

An important question in the field is the relevance of toolmaking to intelligence. Humans suit our environment to ourselves. Aliens may suit themselves to their environment. It's a good idea to research the incredible morphological diversity of terrestrial life to get an idea how big the space of possibilities actually are.

Strange starting points limit your ability to extrapolate. Many biologically interesting premises don't lend themselves to fun stories. A few things that do warrant more speculation include non-animal intelligence and the variations within species.

I was afraid the panel on Political Worldbuilding would be ideologically triggering. In fact, it was boring as hell. The scientists are spoiling me. A few things to consider are the notion of political systems as technology and the symbolism fictional systems will have. To gain perspective, consider reading about how other cultures conceived of past societies. Modern political shapes probably aren't the default. Again, work out more detail than the story demands.

>>Self Referential Caption<<

By this point I was feeling a bit worn out, so went to see something funny. Fizz and Fuse, the Reactor Brothers is an audience participation skit done in the style of car talk. Listeners "call in" with various sci-fi inspired spaceship problems, and they try to come up with plausible sounding advice. I didn't write much down, but there were a lot of puns and nerdy jokes. For example:

"X-Wings are metric, but TIE fighters use Imperial units." #MAC2

— Nathaniel M. Routh (@NathanielMRouth) August 20, 2016

Finally, I sat in on a panel discussing the latest progress in Exploring the Solar System, and what's coming next. Nominally this was about planetary science, but the audience seemed more interested in launch technology once Q&A rolled around. I elected to leave a few minutes early.

One big take away is that space is hard. We're still getting the hang of chemical propellants. Advanced propulsion holds promise, but a lot of work is yet to be done. What a spacecraft is designed to do is not necessarily what it was built to do. Sometimes mission controllers can do things outside the specifications with ease. Sometimes it falls apart.

More and more we're worried about contaminating life-carrying environments. Personally I'm skeptical about widespread abiogenesis and panspermia, but it's still a matter to be cautious about. There's a lot of interesting places to go in the outer solar system. The trans-Saturnian parts are still very neglected. We don't understand Pluto's energy budget, and JPL is try to set up a solar sail fleet to explore heliopause.

For that matter, there's a lot about Earth we still don't understand, geology particularly. How is our magnetic field generated? Fast rotation seems to be a requirement, but we just don't know. Investigating the other planets' magnetospheres can help us in this quest.

That's about it for Day Four. We didn't stay for the Hugo Awards for the same reason we didn't vote: you really should be informed, and I haven't read any new fiction.

MidAmeriCon Notes, Day 3

Please understand that my memory is not perfect, and that my summaries may misstate or misconstrue the views of the speakers. These should also not be taken as complete synopses of the talks given. I take notes mainly for my own use, and what is included reflects this fact. You can find a full listing of programming here.

Day One, Day Two.

The day started out with a presentation on Solar Sails, given by an engineer who researches them for NASA. The basic theory is that space is largely not empty--there are in fact radiations and electromagnetic fields which sufficiently light spacecraft can exploit for propulsion. His talk was largely technical, discussing the history of solar sail experiments and upcoming missions, including NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Scout, which expects to launch with the SLS on Exploration Mission 1.

Les Johnson during his presentation on Solar Sails

Next I enjoy a panel on Defining Acceptable Risks in Space Exploration. In then end, the was not defining answer beyond that that must be decided by those planning to go and those footing the bill. The risks include radiation, where long-term low dosage exposure is still understudied. Patients undergoing cancer treatment are one of the few groups being studied. Putting mice in linear accelerators is about the only way to simulate the cosmic background. Jerry Pournelle reiterated several times that he believes a moonbase to study the effects of long-term stays in deep space is essential. Microgravity is another concern. It's unclear is Martian gravity is sufficient--Luna's certainly is not. Again, there's no way to know but find out.

Technical problems abound. A little shielding is worse than none because of secondary radiations. Building a rotating habitat to simulate gravity has its own issues--being large enough to avoid head-foot differentials and dizzying Coriolis Effects requires a tremendous size. To build it with adequate shielding stretches our propulsion and material sciences capabilities.

Drugs to treat altitude sickness may prove good at combating inter-cranial swelling. Similarly, drugs may be the best solution to other issues such as bone and muscle deterioration. In the end, more research is needed.

The Future is a Different Country

"I can give you disinformation from lots of perspectives" --Edward M. Lerner

What sort of technologies will have the biggest impact for scifi writers to consider in the coming decades? Lerner believes malware is going to be a lot peskier as the Internet of Things continues, and that carbon-based computing will drastically lower the cost of putting computers in things. Patrick Nielsen Hayden notes that ebooks haven't decimated print books, but that mass-market paperbacks were in fact the product of development in printing technologies.

It's easy to predict first order effects. Second and third order effects are very difficult. The example is predicting automobiles versus predicting traffic jams. It's not impossible, but it's hard to get it right. Many possible futures exists.

What effects will automation have on industries? Will basic income solve the unemployment crisis? Many expect a post-scarcity society will become an enormous status-competition, though subcultures may mitigate this. Virtual communities allow a lot more outlets for obtaining status.

AI and fusion are both largely overhyped, and it's hard to say when if ever they'll mature. Extrapolating from past trends is challenging. How virtual reality fits into the picture is interesting. Panelists agreed that it won't become universal until it's truly immerse for the same reason the Wii has a limited market: you'll step on the cat or break the TV screen.

Back to things more objective: Explore Mars, given by an engineer who worked on Sojourner and the Mars Exploration Rovers. This talk focused largely on the geological discoveries and ground covered by the rovers as they far exceeded the mission designers wildest dreams. We've gotten really lucky with where the last few probes have landed. We'll see if the next several missions have the same good fortune.

Next was writing advice, specifically Raising the Stakes in Middle Grade Fiction. Historically, MG fiction has been episodic, essentially short stories with the same characters. Overarching plot is a newer feature.

One way is to simply make things more serious and let the editors reign you in. Frequently it's just changes in wording that are necessary, while the implications remain clear for the author actually writing the story. Note that writing as if your characters aren't safe (even if they will be) can make it seem much more serious without exceeding the MG boundaries.

Keep the protagonists appropriate for their age level. Kids make mistakes adults wouldn't. Keep in mind what will make the story exciting in the next scene. The story is over once the problem is solved (which raises challenges for series authors). Don't be afraid of experiments. Characters often end up diverging from the outlines because human behaviors are more realistic when the story is unfolding than when it's unfolding in an outline.

The emotional response should work on you. If it doesn't, it probably won't work on readers, either. Many YA authors over-parent their characters. They're not X year olds, they're real people with X years of experience. Kids need to participate if you're going to market it towards kids. That also means no sex scenes, and avoiding permanent injuries and traumas.

Public spaces are a goldmine for good dialog.

Next was a less exciting panel on Space and Human Speciation. The first question we need to ask is what defines a species. Is it interbreeding capability? Morphology? Human populations have been separated for millennia can still interbreed. It would take a very small sample to have sufficient genetic drift less selection pressures to speciate away from homo sapiens.

Adaptation for microgravity and radiation are obvious things which we might genetically engineer for. There's also microbiome effects, and the tribal aspects of interbreeding. Generally, we expect "attractiveness" to matter far more in larger groups than smaller. Epigenetics may also play a role.

Dwarf Planets and Beyond the Kuiper Belt was quite interesting. The IAU definition is not necessarily clear, but that doesn't really matter. The Outer Solar System is far more interesting than we expected because ices are far more malleable than rock, meaning less energy is needed for geological activity. Pluto has water icebergs in oceans of solid nitrogen. It's fascinating.

Ceres is also active, still in the process of mantle differentiation. Lots of water should be available near the surface, which combined with the low escape velocity (about 500 m/s) means it could be a valuable waystation in the asteroid belt.

Lots of dwarf planets have large moons, which suggests frequent gentle collisions. Consider the example of comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which appears to be the combination of two nodules.

Currently about $30 billion is spent on space globally each year. That number will go up as developing nations grow wealthier. There's lots of exciting missions and the technology to attempt them. Graphene solar collectors could work as far out as the Kuiper Belt, opening much larger swaths of easy territory. The next few decades are about exploration and tech development. Accessibility is still governed by delta V. Humans will go, but even more robots will go with them.

Also, it's possible the evidence supporting Planet 9 could also have been caused by a solar encounter.

Finally, I went to a talk on Generation Starships. These are a staple in science fiction, but present a lot of serious issues. Firstly is the question of generation ships versus cold sleep. It may be possible to use both, which would be useful, as the cultural elements necessary to keep the ship running for centuries would not be well-suited to colonizing an alien world. Many are worried about such ships suffering their own version of the Easter Island problem.

Autonomous space colonies would face many of the same problems. I think this is a good thing--it lets us test the problem before sending people way beyond help's reach. We've already experienced certain aspects on Earth, but ultimately a generation ship is unprecedented in human history. What we have seen isn't inspiring. Many are affected by large environment changes. Pioneers have often discovered their social values just don't stick in a new world. Ensuring a sense of responsibility and ensuring there's enough recreational options to stay sane is a definite challenge.

One possibility is engineering non-fatal catastrophes to occur each generation, to keep people on their toes. Pournelle gives the example of military bureaucratization: nearly half a century since the last serious, life-threatening war has made things inefficient. It may be necessary to make the exploration of new worlds a religious ideology. Ensuring everyone gets off at the end isn't necessary--the people who remain can refuel and head off for the next star.

That's it for day three. Check back again tomorrow for the next update.