Becky's Futurecast

By Becky "Sha" Shamen

   With the elections and all the turkeys behind us, we begin looking forward to the holiday season and the end of another year. December is a time for recalling things from our past and making hopeful predictions of what the future will bring.

   This year had plenty of ups and downs, but we also had two rewarding, memorable experiences. For a half century, I have been an amateur esoteric scientist. I took delight in telling friends things that science didn't know, but would soon discover. My favorite stories were 1) that the true shape of the universe would be found to be a giant donut and 2) that scientists would soon begin to prove there is a god (or supreme designer). Admittedly, these are some fantastic topics, but in SL, with it's preponderance of sci-fi nerds, they are great "ice-breakers" and have generated many great chat sessions. This year, I found a number of videos, on line, that science was now beginning to echo my theories. One group of scientists had even shown where our galaxy, the Milky Way, was located on the donut. My joy was short lived, when I remembered that I had never written them down and so could not prove that I had predicted them in advance. Oh well, there's still a silver lining. Now that science was accepting my introductory logic, I can point out some of the logical extensions to the theories. Hopefully, by getting it on paper this time, I can enlighten the world or, at the very least, entertain the nerds among our readers.

   We aren't trying to write a book here, so we will just give some short thumbnails of the theories that we think science will be discovering in the near future.

THE MATRIX

   There is Energy and there is Form, a.k.a. Matter. We keep finding increasingly smaller bits of matter, but there seems to be no end in sight as too how small or big matter can be. Where is the dividing line between Energy and Matter? If Energy can not be created or destroyed, it is Eternal. What is causing the eternal to be confined by the dimensions of time/space? The connection is neither and both finite and infinite. It is only a mental image. Science will come up with a math formula that will take a whole blackboard to write, but this same thought can also be expressed in the form of a simple, short sentence, such as "To be or not to be..." or "I am becoming that which I will become". Words and numbers aren't even required, as long as you "get the picture" in your mind.

THE FOURTH DIMENSION

   If you ask most people what the fourth dimension is, they will, incorrectly, say Time. If the first dimension is "here to there", the second dimension is perpendicular to it or "left and right". The third dimension will be perpendicular to the first and second or "up and down". Keeping with this series, the fourth dimension will be perpendicular to all of the first three or "bigger and smaller", or Scale. This understanding of dimensions may seem unimportant, but as the world's thinking begins to take it into account, many new doors will open to science.

DARK MATTER

   Science observes the behavior of the matter in the universe and finds it behaves like there is much more matter than they can see. Science will soon discover that it is like the matter that we can see, but with an added twist, which they will call "Nutation" or wobble. If you spin energy, like a top, that spinning form is what we call matter. If we could "freeze-frame" these units of matter, we would see that the spinning energy is never evenly distributed around the center of rotation. The imbalance of energy is like putting a bowling ball in a washing machine, during the spin cycle. Every unit of matter has a slight wobble to it. Although the frequency or rate of nutation can have a wide spectrum of speeds, there are certain speeds that will be harmonically in tune with other speeds and they will stand apart, like notes in a musical scale. You could be standing next to a person or object and not be able to see it, if the matter in your eyeballs is wobbling at a different rate than the matter that the person or object is made from. Like the spokes on a bicycle wheel, they are there, but you can’t see them. Operators of web fed printing presses, like those used for printing newspapers, use strobe lights to see the printed images as they speed by. Science will soon develop machines to view other forms of matter. Individual humans can develop the ability to see other forms of matter, because their bodies are made up of matter of the different nutational rates. There are various yoga exercises that can help develop an awareness of other grades of matter.

SPEED OF LIGHT

   The speed of light is not a constant. It is already known that light slows down as it gets near mass. What is yet to be discovered is that light also changes speed relative to the scale of the matter being looked at. If you could shrink down in size, to where a single quark is the size of the whole universe, it would take light the same amount of time to cross from one side of the quark to the other as it does to cross the entire universe. Scientist will figure this out, using theory, because they can never build actual machines that can zoom in to the needed frame of reference. Thought is the only thing in the universe that can travel faster than light.

"Sha"

Editor's Note: Following handing in this article, Becky informed me that due to circumstances in real life she felt she would be unable to write further articles for at least until after the end of the year, possibly longer. Hopefully after a short period of rest she will be able to write again.

Insilico: Roleplaying on Mars of the Future

By Ozymandius (0zymandi)

“Welcome to INSILICO” My cybernetic guide Star Raven typed, punctuating her greeting with a smiley face, "This is East, our homestead. We have a few rentals here, but not many due to prim space limits. We have two venues here for role play and any event. The Buddha Bowl was a landmark of West INSILICO (which is no longer with us for various reasons), so we moved it here and upgraded it to mesh.”

I looked around at all the neon signs and strobing lights. This was not my first visit to INSILICO but the futuristic cyber punk sim is so immense that even the most road savvy navigator could run the risk of losing his way, so I thought to call on one of the sim admins to see if they would be willing to show me around. The admin board is close to the teleport landing zone so I looked over the profile pictures and thought to myself; “The girl with the green hair looks friendly."

Shortly after clicking on her picture I was hailed by Star Raven and, after appearing before me in the form of a metallic humanoid, I was pleased to learn she was INSILICO’s Public Relation’s GM.

    "INSILICO was founded in 2008 by Skills Hak along with a few guest artists, some of which still build here art projects time to time.” The glittering silver android explained in her own peculiar grammatical style. "Insilico itself was an art project in the creators eye as a vision of the future, but as soon at it was done, role players came in and made it a home with Skill's blessing."

I listened to Star Raven with curious fascination as she shape shifted into the girl with the green hair. Perhaps she had greeted me with a metallic form on the chance I might be hostile or maybe she had been doing industrial work in deep space where the lack of oxygen and warmth would have been too severe for her more fragile shape. Whatever the reason was there was little time to wonder as INSILICO is a big place, and I had opted for the walking tour.


    "Skills founded our RP website and helps us run the sim as we help her in turn together. She doesn't RP, but helps maintain and rebuild along with our new builder Stark Osterham.” According to my green haired guide, INSILICO is a multi-tiered sim that includes INSILICO City, Mars, Cyberspace, Lyra Station, Kill City, and Earth Ruins.

    "Insilico takes place in the year 2485 where humanity has made Earth uninhabitable due to wars and pollution.” She elaborated as we strolled past hotels, restaurants, sushi bars and private apartment buildings. "We have many groups in Insilico. Metro is our fan group, we have a renters group and small groups for establishments in sim. We have only one roleplay group that is open to all factions to get up to date RP local, requests, and story lines."

Above our heads the flashing lights of air cars swished past like fireflies in the twilight sky and I instantly felt I had stepped into a scene from the movie “Bladerunner".

    "Insilico also has real artists, DJs, and other media come into sim from ti\me to time to play such venues.” Star Raven said as I took a quick snap of a building illuminated by fluorescent Korean text. "The Aftermath is more punk, Reaktor is more adult, Fusion more class, and Asylum on Mars more adventurous."


It was truly remarkable the depth of the design, the vastness of the future city and yet I did not experience the lag I had experienced on far smaller and less complicated sims.

    "We are more than just a roleplay sim, we like to help out the bloggers, shop owners, shoppers, photographers, rpers, and vistors in sim with what ever they want.” She said as we approached an Arabesque cafe known as the "Kasbah Cofeehouse”. "In Central we also have the K9 Fight Club for combat and The Blue Ant, a great and starter rp spot."

After passing through the cafe we ascended a flight of stairs into an art gallery and after taking a quick look at the Second Life snapshots that graced the gallery walls I inquired as to the means by which artists exhibit their work.

    "They can ask us and we would be happy to set them up at a fair rental price, beside they can sell their art work in gallery as we promote it on our Facebook, Twitter and main Insilico site.” She replied before commenting on some near bye apartment buildings. "not everyone can afford our rent, so we offer limited space at 25 prims in an area for 100L a week for a great test drive so to say."

Again my guide changed forms, adopting a humanoid shape with a glowing skin that seemed to be covered with pulsating circuits and binary code.

    "This is south the corporate area and the most rentals are here in Tokuma Tower.” She said as she floated around my primitive human body. "Behind is IPS HQ the protectors of the city. There is Hot Chicks a burger joint, Terra Firma a coffehouse and bar, AGIS Medical, and Tra's Diner car which was in West too. We also have a moving Sky Diner but at the moment is parked to request by renter. The sim is slowly getting upgraded from sculpts to mesh on all parts.”

So that explained the lack of lag, I concluded as we entered a darker and more daunting part of the city.

    "This is where we test weapons and combat meters. Its based off of Kowloon and Shanghigh” Star Raven explained. "a small city perfect for urban combat, we know some of the main city due to the shops and what now can be laggy, so we off here for some fun ... We try to make it easier for everyone. We know how lag kills fun :/"

I had to agree with the little shape shifter, lag does kill fun. But the technology of INSILICO was astounding and our trip to Mars, a six month voyage by space shuttle in 2015, took less than a blink of an eye as we teleported to the dusty red planet.

    “Welcome to Mars, land of rust and blood.” The glowing guide said with a gleam in her translucent eyes. "Mars RP is more driven by combat then just story. The colonists are attacked by the 1st colonists, the local D'naa, who want to keep the land for themselves after they were abandoned by Earth long ago in its first attempt to colonize. They over time survived and grew its own culture and language. So these new colonists seem like invaders to their land. Nothing is black and white on Mars, only shades of red. The Colonists want to take the land by military force, and the D'naa use terror to claim it back."

I looked around nervously. Happily, the tour through Mars continued without incident but we had teleportation problems getting to the Lyra Station so my guide decided to transport me using a space plane. For a glowing humanoid covered with microchip tattoos, Star Raven was an excellent pilot and I only vomited once during our ascent to the Lyra station.

At this point in the tour it was getting late so I thanked Star Raven, who had spent more than two hours showing me around INSILICO. However it seemed I had only seen the tip of the iceberg so I look forward to my next visit to the future, and hope that the dark prophecy of a dying planet Earth, destroyed by war and pollution will serve as a warning to all of us, that what we need most in this life are keepers and caretakers of this beautiful planet and not destroyers.

Ozymandius

Creative Fiction: The Morph Machine

By Becky Shamen

We have told before of the joys of changing avs. In Second Life, there is no limit on how many avs and alts you can keep in your closet. In real life we have perhaps the greatest morphing festival ever created, called Halloween. For one day per year, society puts on the blindfold and allows us to be any freakin' thing and/or gender that tickles our imagination. You could say, Halloween is a worm-hole, between SL and real life. However, in reality when we change, we are only changing a costume, like an outfit of clothing. In Second life, if you present yourself as an anthropomorphic fox, the pun telling, mild mannered reporter and editor of a major newspaper, you are in fact, body and soul, right down to your DNA, exactly THAT, and probably the guy we call chief.

If a little of SL can leak into real life, can we, safely, predict that the day will come, when science finds a way to change our real life bodies into any freakin' thing we want? Predictions are rarely 100% accurate. There's too much free will involved. We can improve accuracy by lining up a series of related, true facts and extrapolating what comes next. When we look at an arrangement of standing dominoes, lined up around the floor, we ALL know what's next. In the "real" world, I have been in the position to learn of technologies, already tested, that are decades in advance of what most people are aware of. Let us see if we can line up bits and pieces, of known technologies, to see if a machine could be made to turn you into a real life fox <(insert av here).

Electronic signatures *:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*

I have seen a rough scematic for an electrical circuit that can detect a unique electronic signature for any sampled substance. It is one of the strangest circuits I've seen, because one of the components is a tunable glass prism. The recieving sensor of the circuit is a flat wound antenna, upon which objects to be tested are placed. By adjusting the dials, to get the strongest signal, the read out will give you the unique electronic signature of the test subject. It can even distinguish between individual people. The test subject needn't even be present, to be tested. It has been shown to be just as accurate, by substituting a photograph of the subject. Regardless of the distance, between subject and photograph, the circuit gives a real time reading on the subject. With a photograph of an astronaut, even if he were on the back side of the moon, outside of radio contact, you could monitor his life signs, faster than the speed of light. Whatever it is, that creates this electronic signature, seems to exist everywhere in the universe. It is not limited by time and space.

Manipulating DNA

DNA is a collection of protein molecules, duplicated, in every cell of your body. These clusters of molecules are so tiny, you can't see them without a microscope, yet so powerful they can gather and organize millions of their kind into a walking, talking being. The electronic signature of these proteins is what distinguishes one of your cells from one of mine, or any other creature's. In the decades since DNA was discovered, scientists have been mapping out these proteins and learning ways to manipulate them. By cutting and splicing sections, they can create whole new creatures, some useful and some monsters. Playing God, you say? Yes, but are we not asked to be one with our Father? Lately, I've seen where they are learning to manipulate DNA with sounds or frequencies. If a single cell radiates enough of a signal to allign itself with billions of others, what would happen if that cell were bombarded by a signal, the strength of billions of cells, of a different DNA mix? Would the amino acids, from which DNA is made, sympathetically attune themselves, by rearranging their place in line? I have not heard of any experiments in this direction, but if it were tested and proven, it would make possible a whole new kind of machine

The Morph Machine

Fast forward to the year 2033. Our friend, let's call him Aaron, doesn't like his lot in life. He wishes he had a better paying job and more friends that liked him. He goes to his neighborhood adult bar and sees all the cute, buxum bunnies, kitty cats and foxes, dancing on stage, being admired by all and raking in the big bucks. He knows they weren't always this way. They had gotten a morph job, overseas or in Colorado, and were now dreams come true. Aaron has read about these clinics, but they cost too much for his meager budget, so were little more than a fantasy. 

Then, one day, his old uncle passes away and leaves him some money. It's not a fortune, but it's more than enough for a morph job. Aaron goes to the local morph clinic and looks through their photo catalogue. He picks out a tall, buxom female bunny and asks, "Does it come in purple?" "Of course sir, we can fine tune it to your exact specs," comes the technician's reply. Information gathered, the tech takes Aaron to another room and shows him the machine. He inserts a photo, in a slot, turns a few knobs and pushes a few buttons, then motions Aaron to a door, leading to the morphing chamber. 

In the center of the room there is an operating table. The walls of the room are covered with parabolic dish antennas. As the tech secures Aaron on the table he explains that the changes aren't instant. Some will show up in days, others, like long ears, fur, fluffy tail and bone structure, will take longer to grow in. The one thing that will stay the same is the synaptic connections in the brain and it's memories. The tech goes to the control room and throws the switch. Aaron hears a soft hum and soon falls asleep. About an hour later, the tech wakes Aaron up and informs him that tests show the morphing was a success and that he could go home now. 

At home, Aaron goes straight to the mirror and looks at himself and sees the same old body. But not for long. Within a few days, he notices the color of his skin is changing, a soft downy fur is growing all over and his ears and breasts are sensitive. Over the next few months, he notices all the other employees are much friendlier and want to chat at the water cooler and break room. They always ask if he had picked out a new name yet. Even before the changes were complete, people began calling him Miss. 

Within nine months, the transformation was such that it was time to go to the court house and have the paperwork done, to make it official that he was now a female rabbit, named Miss Rosie Martin. She started working evenings as a dancer and soon quit her old job. Eventually, she opened her own nightclub, where all the dancers and clients called her "Mom".

And, she lived happily ever after,

Becky "Sha" Shamen