Rudy Rucker

Rudy Rucker is a writer, a mathematician and a computer scientist. Born in Kentucky in 1946, Rucker moved to Silicon Valley when he turned 40. Rucker has published twenty-five books, primarily science-fiction and popular science. He was an early cyberpunk and an editor at Mondo 2000. He often writes SF in a style is characterized as transreal. His most recent novels were Frek and the Elixir, a far-future epic about a boy's galactic quest to restore Earth's ecology and As Above So Below, a historical novel based on the life of the sixteenth century painter Peter Bruegel.  Rucker is a professor emeritus of computer science at San Jose State University, where he created a number of freeware programs relating to chaos, artificial life, cellular automata, higher dimensions, and computer games. He is presently working on The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul, a nonfiction book about computers and the nature of reality. Rucker's website can be found at www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/rucker or at www.rudyrucker.com.

R & D: SpaceShipOne Passes Another Test

Direct from our man in Mojave ... check out this excellent photo of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne coming in for a successful glide-test landing early this morning. The first space flight is rumored to be on the schedule for December. More photos of SpaceshipOne's runway approach can be found here. (Nice work, Alan!)

posted by Todd Lappin at 6:28:36 PM | permalink

SNEAK PREVIEW: The Future of Personal Transportation!

Brand new from 0sil8 Heavy Industries. It's clean, it's fast, it's efficient, it's.... the MEGWAY:

"No gasoline. No wood. No rocket fuel. No coal. Megway TH is the first human transportation device to run on water. Megway requires a small "recharging" meal in the morning (soy latte with an english muffin) and one in the evening (sushi), but runs on plain old water for the rest of the day."

What are you waiting for? Take tomorrow for a test drive. (Merci, Shana!)

posted by Todd Lappin at 5:32:16 PM | permalink

FIELD TEST: True Adventures in Digital Dentistry

It’s not often that you return from the dentist bearing good news for the future of humanity, but friends and colleagues, that’s exactly what I’m here to tell you.

I visited the dentist to replace a worn-out tooth filling earlier this week. My dentist, Dr. Jeffrey Katz, is a bit of a geek (in a dental sort of way), and he shows off his high-tech tools with the infectious enthusiasm of a true gadget-freak.

Until very recently, getting a porcelain filling was a two-visit procedure: One visit to take a goopy plaster casting of the tooth, and another to install the new filling a few weeks later.

This time, however, Dr. Katz used a new, $95,000 system called the Cerec 3 that makes it possible to remove a filling and fabricate a porcelain replacement in just one, 90-minute visit. I was a little nervous, about being an early-adopter of this technology, but I decided to take the plunge, and here’s how it works:

First, Dr. Katz doped up my mouth with Novocaine. Then he used a special digital camera to take a photo of my tooth (that's tooth 31, for all you armchair DDS-types following along at home) both before the old filling was removed, and after. Cerec converted the photos into detailed 3D models of the tooth, sort of like a dental CAD program. The computer then created a virtual filling on the computer screen, which my dentist digitally trimmed and customized to ensure proper clearance between teeth.

Now, here’s the really cool part: Once the CAD design was complete, Dr. Katz selected a color-matched block of porcelain to blend in with my teeth. Then he placed the porcelain block into a fabrication machine that was about the size of an old dot-matrix printer, shut the clear plastic door, and hit the "Start" button.

A pair of little robotic grinders instantly sprang to life, quickly carving the block of porcelain to fabricate the new filling based on the computer-based design. In about 11 minutes, the filling was complete. A bit more tweaking with a hand-grinder to make it all perfect, a little adhesive to glue it into place, and then … VOILA! … Happy Mouth!

My new filling is invisible to the naked eye, and I felt no pain, even after the Novocaine wore off. Just one day later, it was like the procedure had never happened at all.

So, you see, there is cause for hope…

posted by Todd Lappin at 8:01:49 AM | permalink

FLEET OPERATIONS: Welcome USS Boxer!

Walking through the office this afternoon, I caught a glimpse of a big Navy ship entering the Bay. A quick scan with the binoculars and a few keystrokes on Google identified it as the USS Boxer, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship.

These are very large boats. They look like aircraft carriers, but in fact they’re designed to carry 2,000 Marines, along with helicopters and Harrier jump jets. They also feature a big stern door that opens to reveal a welldeck used to launch and recover hovercraft.

I got a great close-up view as the Boxer sailed past the Embarcadero and passed under the Bay Bridge. I also noticed one of the new security measures adopted in the Post-Sept 11 Age -- a team of heavily-armed sailors in a rigid-inflatable boat, patrolling ahead of the ship. The Navy used to offer tours of visiting ships to the general public, but that’s much less common now. *sigh*

posted by Todd Lappin at 6:44:54 PM | permalink

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: The Future of Aerial Firefighting?

Following-up on the recent California wildfires, the November 3 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine contained an interesting package of articles about the aerial tankers used to fight big fires. Most of the magazine’s website is subscription-only, so I can’t link to the articles themselves. So here’s a summary…

After two well-publicized tanker crashes, in 2002 (WARNING: unsettling 2 MB TV news video) , the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management are trying to modernize the nation’s fleet of water-bombers -- much of which consists of tired old military aircraft like 1950s-era P2 Neptunes (shown here as they look now) or C-130As (then and at work today).

A blue-ribbon panel convened after the 2002 crashes concluded that it’s time to abandon the "unsustainable strategy" of converting vintage military aircraft for use as tankers. What’s the alternative? Check out this amazing photo of one option currently undergoing testing: the DC-10 "supertanker."

posted by Todd Lappin at 8:20:11 PM | permalink

FLEET OPERATIONS: Vehicle Specifications

Telstar Logistics is committed to meeting customer demand for critical resources with 99.9 percent uptime reliability. Our fleet is a cornerstone of this strategy, facilitating turnkey deployments in a wide variety of hostile environments. The following components are used in every Telstar Logistics fleet vehicle to facilitate the successful completion of mission objectives.

BASE VEHICLE:

The core vehicle platform is a white 1999 Jeep Cherokee (XJ). Compact in size, with factory-upgraded four-wheel drive capability, it offers fast-deployed cargo-carrying functionality for urban, high alpine, and long-range survey operations.

EXTERIOR MODIFICATIONS:

-- Fleet livery camouflage, including Telstar Logistics logotype and randomly-generated vehicle numbering, supplied by Sign-A-Rama. Also includes rear safety-stripes, applied in automotive-grade paint. The livery effectively minimizes vehicle profile in inner-city or commercial/industrial contexts, while enhancing safety and conspicuity in dense traffic or stationary roadside settings.

-- Amber flashing rear lights, by Federal Signal. Useful for traffic diversion and tailgater retaliation.

-- A police-style spotlight, made by Unity. Delivers a retina-burning, 160,000 candlepower. Can be aimed and rotated from driver’s seat. Invaluable for roadside motorist assistance, street address identification, campsite setup, and scaring the bejeesus out of teenagers parked on Lover’s Lane. Legal in most states, but caution is advised… impersonating law enforcement is a serious offense.

-- A rubberized push-bumper manufactured by Setina, for forward parallel-parking protection and emergency repositioning of disabled vehicles.

-- A hitch-mounted rear shackle. For aft parallel-parking defense and vehicle recovery or extraction.

INTERIOR MODIFICATIONS:

-- A flexible-stalk halogen cockpit light, mounted to the dashboard. For nighttime map-navigation, CD selection, and passenger reading.

-- Red-tinted dome lights, for ambient lighting that does not compromise driver night-vision. Ideal for maintaining acuity at periscope-depth.

-- A fire extinguisher. In the movies, cars explode instantly. In reality, car fires often start small. It is critical to extinguish such fires promptly, but -- trust me when I say this -- pouring Coca-Cola on a vehicle fire is NOT EFFECTIVE. Only a fire extinguisher will do the job.

-- Tool kits. Includes jumper cables; a nylon-web recovery strap; flashlight; assorted wrenches, screwdrivers, and sockets; a hand-held CB radio; cable-ties; and electrical tape.

-- A first-aid kit, including basic medical supplies, pocketknife, Cyalume lightsticks, emergency blanket, whistle, matches, and duct tape.

-- A padded moving blanket is carried for beach recreation or blizzard survival.

Happy motoring!

posted by Todd Lappin at 9:49:44 PM | permalink

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Halloween Costumes 2003

While looking over some digital pix I took during Halloween, I came across a few photos of my favorite costume of 2003, spotted at the annual Mystery Ball benefit for the Headlands Center for the Arts.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present for you, Mr. and Mrs. Golden Gate Bridge. (Note the very eerie resemblance??)

The costume was split down the middle, so each half of the bridge could travel independently (avec cocktails, of course). The detail was superb… with little Matchbox cars glued to the road surface and red LEDs blinking atop each tower to warn off passing aircraft. My favorite feature? The foamy-ocean boots.

posted by Todd Lappin at 4:10:02 PM | permalink

Guestbar Archives