I finished reading Accelerando last Friday. The author — Charles Stross — took the concept of the Singularity in directions I didn’t anticipate and fully employedhis background of computer science and system administration. Advanced civilizations running timing attacks against the space-time continuum out beyond the Bootes void? Sign me up. That’s the kind of thing I want to read about.
via rachetcat on catagraph.us – Playing with Gears
I finished Accelerando two nights ago. That shit was crAZY. I liked the end where children ran around playing real life like a video game, since their physical bodies were just an expression of ego at that point.
Strangely enough, the Bootes void came up on the History channel in the background an hour or so ago (before it bored my girl to tears and she changed the channel).
Stories like this make me wonder if we’re seeing advanced civilizations who have conquered their star to a point where it lookslike a neutron star but is actually a superdense dyson sphere, invisible in visible but kicking out high intensity data streams – maybe it’s hitting our atmosphere because something like a star wisp in headed our way….
The only thing I can know for certain is that the truth will probably end up more strange and wonderful than mere fiction could ever imagine.
Maybe those neutron stars that are “feeding” off their binary sisters (srry no link handy) aren’t really neutron stars either… maybe a civilization just needs the matter to increase their computational density…. the magnetic waves from these magnetars (described above) could be from the shifting of nanotech processes on an unimaginable scale, like waves shift through our brains to make them work… what would that look like in a Matroishka brain the scale and density of a neutron star?
If you’re thoroughly confused at this point, the Accelerando novel, free at the link above, will clarify things in a decidedly fun, science-backed sci-fi way – I was up until 2 am every night until I finished it, and while I usually am a night owl this kept me from noticing the time at all.
Tags: sci-fi, space.com, wild speculation