thoughts and opinions by author s. andrew swann
S Andrew Swann | December 9, 2010
At least no one I’ve seen. But the U.S. Government should be damn thankful this happened the way that it did. We dodged a major bullet that could have been way, way, more damaging than this debacle has been. How could this have possibly been worse, you ask? Simple. What if Private Bradley Manning had [...]
S Andrew Swann | October 18, 2010
So I’ve been reading a lot of stories like this one that has me a little worried. We have 25% of the world’s population under an authoritarian regime that’s just on the edge of holding things together. When you’re spending just as much on internal security as you are on defense, in a world economy [...]
S Andrew Swann | September 18, 2010
Two unrelated things that I came across recently that should have some serious implications to anyone writing near-future SF. The first post is actually kind of obvious, in fact it touches on one of the central themes of the singularity. However, it hits a point that I don’t think is explored often enough: Quantum computing [...]
S Andrew Swann | May 19, 2010
A little bit of a reality check for those of us who write about SF futures, or just think about the future in general. This snazzy 21st Century lifestyle we’ve become accustomed to is based on an extremely long supply-chain. Think of the support required for an iPhone to exist. (h/t Futurismic) You have mines, [...]
S Andrew Swann | February 10, 2010
Remember Rollerball? The original 1975 version with James Caan? One of the interesting premises of the movie was the collapse of the nation-state in favor of the corporation. That premise was somewhat prescient, anticipating one of the main tropes of cyberpunk by almost a decade. The idea is commonplace now, a shorthand for some deep [...]
S Andrew Swann | July 9, 2009
Two completely unrelated stories that should not worry us at all: Apparently a few years ago Japanese researchers developed a fuel cell that runs on blood. . . [via Steve] Then we have the UK researchers who’ve created a robot that eats “vermin” and powers itself by “digesting” the meat. [via Weird Universe] No way [...]
S Andrew Swann | April 28, 2009
Alas, one I have no time to write. However, combine the cheap availability of computing power, the rise of stateless actors (terrorists, pirates, drug lords) mix in a little dissaffected youth in the EU, salt liberally with anarchic nationalist Chinese hackers, and you have the makings of a new world cyber-war where nation-states might not [...]
S Andrew Swann | April 22, 2009
We are in interesting times at the moment. We are about to have the first trial for piracy in a century (if you discount RIAA lawsuits) and it brought home to me what may be the greatest challenge the modern nation-state faces in the 21st Century, and that is the breakdown of the state itself. [...]
S Andrew Swann | April 9, 2009
Futurismic has posted about the latest in the ongoing death spiral of old media journalism (by which everyone really means American journalism) which is, the idea of Arianna Huffington starting a foundation to fund proper investigative journalism. While the motive seams laudable in the abstract, I kind of fail to see the difference between this [...]
S Andrew Swann | March 16, 2009
I love conspiracy theories. My favorite book is the Illuminatus! Trilogy. UFOs, the Grassy Knoll, I’m there. Of course, as a connoisseur of the form, I am most fond of those conspiracies that are actually plausible. (The ones that actually happened are best of all.) I’ve just run across a fantastic theory. A lot of [...]
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