Where is My God-d*** Ray-gun?
Well, it's 2006 and I am not living in and Orbital Colony and the only space station up is a glorified tin can. What the hell?!
It seems like there's alot of nostalgia in the air these days, what with retro this and retro that, not to mention a dash of dissolutionment with the way the future (now) has turned out. I don't know who first penned the words 'where's my jetpack?' (if you do, let me know), but I think They Might Be Giants sing it pretty well in their song "Trapped in a World Before Later On".
I'm trapped in a world before later on,
I'm trapped in a world before later on,
Where's my hovercraft?
Where's my jet pack?
Where's the font of acquired wisdom that eludes me now?
We're trapped in a world before later on,
We're trapped in a world before later on,
Where's our telray?
Where's our space face?
Where are all the complications we won't see around?
-They Might Be Giants
For those of you who thought you'd be living in an Orbital Colony by now, or in a city beneath the sea, check out these awesome sites.
Tales of Future Past has literally thousands of images from pulp sci-fi magazines, architecture magazines and so on. A great fly through of wacky visions of the future and some funny comments as well. The site architecture can occasionally be confusing. Each sub-section, such as Future House, is broken up into other categories but sometimes the navigation gets wierd, and its easy to miss stuff, so take your time and go back a few times! Kudos to David Zondy.
http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm
Another good site is
www.retrofuture.com
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Astrofuturism
That's a great word isn't it? Conjures up all kinds of images. Spinning space wheels and Lunar Fun Parks, not to mention rings around the rings around the 7th Planet (hint- the one that begins with a 'U').
For anyone growing up like I did with visions of orbiting space colonies, terraforming Mars and Bussard ram-jets, De Witt Kilgore's Astrofuturism: Science, Race and Visions of Utopia in Space (2003, Pennsylvania UP) is a must read.
It explores the popular conceptions of Space as a final fronteir and a projection of Euro-American colonial experience and utopian visions. He examines the scientists and the science fiction writers creating the visions of a glorious future in space: from Gerard O'Neil and the NASA AMES/Stanford summer workshop and its visions of orbital suburbua to Robert Heinlein, Ben Bova and Arthur C. Clarke and more recent writers like Jerry Pournell.
That's a great word isn't it? Conjures up all kinds of images. Spinning space wheels and Lunar Fun Parks, not to mention rings around the rings around the 7th Planet (hint- the one that begins with a 'U').
For anyone growing up like I did with visions of orbiting space colonies, terraforming Mars and Bussard ram-jets, De Witt Kilgore's Astrofuturism: Science, Race and Visions of Utopia in Space (2003, Pennsylvania UP) is a must read.
It explores the popular conceptions of Space as a final fronteir and a projection of Euro-American colonial experience and utopian visions. He examines the scientists and the science fiction writers creating the visions of a glorious future in space: from Gerard O'Neil and the NASA AMES/Stanford summer workshop and its visions of orbital suburbua to Robert Heinlein, Ben Bova and Arthur C. Clarke and more recent writers like Jerry Pournell.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Using Stars and Waves to Navigate: Traditional Navigation in the Pacific Islands
While randomly browsing throught the library at Melbourne Uni I came across a book I'd last seen some ten years ago. The book had originally captured my imagination when I had randomly come across it in San Francisco while researching ancient and traditional knowledge of astronomy.
The book is about the traditional navigations systems of various Pacific Island peoples: Micronesians, Polynesians and so on. Remember that these people colonized almost the entirel Pacific with no compasses, and no maps!
One of the most fascinating ways these people had of navigating is the use of swell patterns both to determine general direction (with regard to the overall swell direction) and to the finding of land via the pattern of waves refracting around and reflecting off islands. In the Marshall islands, this knowledge is codified in "stick charts", which are palm leaf spines bound together to represent swell patterns and sea-shells to represent islands.
In addition to complex star navigation there were also a number of ways of identifying in which way land lay, even if one was lost. These involved subtle knowledge of cloud patterns, the way light reflects off sand and lagoons on clouds, the directions certain birds fly in the morning and at night, and so on.
I've put together a list of books on the subject. The ones by David Lewis read almost like ethnographic novels. He travelled extensively across the Pacific with a number of traditional navigators.
The Voyaging Stars: Secrets of the Pacific Island Navigators. David Lewis. 1978
We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific. Edited by David Lewis and Derek Oulton. 1972
Pacific Navigation and Voyaging. Edited by Ben R. Finney, 1976.
There are several online articles on the subject on the Ethnomathematics Digital Library Site at www.ethnomath.org
I've linked some here:
Marshall Island Navigational Charts
by William Davenport (1960)
[http://www.ethnomath.org/resources/davenport1960.pdf]
Astronomy and navigation in Polynesia and Micronesia
by Kjell Akerblom (1968)
[http://www.ethnomath.org/resources/akerblom1968.pdf
While randomly browsing throught the library at Melbourne Uni I came across a book I'd last seen some ten years ago. The book had originally captured my imagination when I had randomly come across it in San Francisco while researching ancient and traditional knowledge of astronomy.
The book is about the traditional navigations systems of various Pacific Island peoples: Micronesians, Polynesians and so on. Remember that these people colonized almost the entirel Pacific with no compasses, and no maps!
One of the most fascinating ways these people had of navigating is the use of swell patterns both to determine general direction (with regard to the overall swell direction) and to the finding of land via the pattern of waves refracting around and reflecting off islands. In the Marshall islands, this knowledge is codified in "stick charts", which are palm leaf spines bound together to represent swell patterns and sea-shells to represent islands.
In addition to complex star navigation there were also a number of ways of identifying in which way land lay, even if one was lost. These involved subtle knowledge of cloud patterns, the way light reflects off sand and lagoons on clouds, the directions certain birds fly in the morning and at night, and so on.
I've put together a list of books on the subject. The ones by David Lewis read almost like ethnographic novels. He travelled extensively across the Pacific with a number of traditional navigators.
The Voyaging Stars: Secrets of the Pacific Island Navigators. David Lewis. 1978
We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific. Edited by David Lewis and Derek Oulton. 1972
Pacific Navigation and Voyaging. Edited by Ben R. Finney, 1976.
There are several online articles on the subject on the Ethnomathematics Digital Library Site at www.ethnomath.org
I've linked some here:
Marshall Island Navigational Charts
by William Davenport (1960)
[http://www.ethnomath.org/resources/davenport1960.pdf]
Astronomy and navigation in Polynesia and Micronesia
by Kjell Akerblom (1968)
[http://www.ethnomath.org/resources/akerblom1968.pdf
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