Things I am interested in…

Peter F. Hamilton’s homepage.

Where Lois McMaster Bujold fans hang out.

Cory Doctorow’s homepage. Most of his stuff can be downloaded in a variety of formats from here.

A perennial favourite - John Varley.

A webpage where Accelerando by Charles Stross is available for download.

Terry Pratchett’s home site (not strictly SF, but still very good).

Three Brits, two Yanks, and a Canadian. Guess who is who…

P.S. Favourite children’s fantasy author - Diana Wynne Jones.

What is the semantic web I hear you ask?

 Well here are two articles that can help you, from the creator of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee:

• Scientific American article
• a slightly more technical article regarding how it could acutally work

Here’s hoping that this all happens sooner rather than later…

(will take over the world)

 Not really going to happen any time soon.

 However, to see an intersting video of a modular robot that can convert from a snake to a hoop to a spider and back again, go here.

(excuse the pun!)

 Just heard on a podcast I was listening to while walking to work (Scientific American Science Talk) that the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has finished this week.

 Here are some interesting factoids from this:

• Internationally, scientists are 90% certain that the increase in mean global temperature of 0.75 degrees centigrade since recording began during the Industrial Revolution (1850) is due to human activities, as is the ongoing rise in temperature
• Eleven out of twelve of the most recent summers have been the warmest on record (again, since 1850)
• The global atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased from a pre-industrial average of 280 parts per million (ppm) to the most recent measurement of 379 ppm in 2005
• The rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 has been larger in 1995-2005 (1.9 ppm per year) than it has been in the 145 years preceding (1.4 ppm per year on average)
• If all human CO2 production were to freeze at current levels tomorrow, the mean global temperature would rise about another 0.5 degrees by the end of the century
• If things continue in the worst possible way, with unabated greenhouse gas production, then scientists are predicting a further rise in mean global temperature of about 4 degrees by the end of this century
• If that is the case (i.e., worst case scenario) then two to four billion people will face water shortages by the end of the century, and a further 170 million person’s homes will be under water due to the 0.4m seea level rise

According to the podcast, this is a very conservative report - it had to be so that all of the governments involved would agree to its publication.

 I personally think this is food for thought…