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"Tiny Death Star" is my current favorite waste of time. It's an iPad app aimed at aging Star Wars geeks, and it's designed to resemble the 8 bit video games that we all played on our Atari 2600s.
In Tiny Death Star, the Death Star itself is a expanding shopping mall of retailers, restaurants, services, apartments...and silly little "Imperial" levels. The game has no conflict. There is no way to keep score. Its object is as simple as Sim City: build the biggest thing you possibly can, and make it look as pretty as possible. The graphics are intentionally poor, the sound effects cheesy, and the game itself seems designed to help its player fall asleep on the couch. And I love every warm, fuzzy minute of it.
In Tiny Death Star, the Death Star itself is a expanding shopping mall of retailers, restaurants, services, apartments...and silly little "Imperial" levels. The game has no conflict. There is no way to keep score. Its object is as simple as Sim City: build the biggest thing you possibly can, and make it look as pretty as possible. The graphics are intentionally poor, the sound effects cheesy, and the game itself seems designed to help its player fall asleep on the couch. And I love every warm, fuzzy minute of it.
My house is decorated "Retro Modern" style, and many of its themes incorporate antique electronics. I collect old radios, and my state-of-the-art flat screen sits atop an vintage Zenith with vacuum tubes. A 1958 Grundig Majestic console radio set takes up a nearby wall, and the Merlin and Simon games I keep on my coffee table are from the late 70s/early 80s. I used to think that the Bose Wave Radio in my bedroom was cutting edge, but when I tried to plug my iPod into it, I realized that it doesn't have a USB port. I got the Bose in 1999, which means the device is 15 years old - and back then we were still using Walkmen. My laptop isn't doing any better; the Mac guys call it "vintage." "But I just got the Macbook in 2009, and I've kept its software up to - " I managed to get out before the Genius shook his head and held up his hand. He repeated, more firmly this time:
"Vintage."
"Vintage."
The cover story of last week's TIME magazine discussed quantum computers, the next evolution of technology. The article attempted to explain quantum processing with a picture graph that started with a dead cat. Here's the gist:
The cat – a feline in a locked box that is both dead and alive until the box is opened – was a thought experiment devised by physicist Schrödinger to expose the counterintuitive weirdness of quantum theory. The theory posits that an entity can exist simultaneously in any number of states until the point at which it is observed, whereupon it will “collapse” into one state – either purring or deceased in the case of the trapped tabby, which is incarcerated with a poison that either has or has not been released through radioactive decay.
Apparently, this little dead kitty will not only help scientists create cars that drive themselves, but it will also trigger amazing advances in medicine - such as custom drugs, manufactured specifically for our personal DNA. We will literally be moving into the "next generation" of computing, in the same way that rockets moved us from air to space. Quantum computers will allow the kind of world depicted in Star Trek, Almost Human, and Arthur C Clarke's: 3001: The Final Odyssey. Technology will be integrated into every part of life, and I'll be able to play Tiny Death Star anywhere...except for my current iPad of course, which will be as obsolete as an 8 Track.
The cat – a feline in a locked box that is both dead and alive until the box is opened – was a thought experiment devised by physicist Schrödinger to expose the counterintuitive weirdness of quantum theory. The theory posits that an entity can exist simultaneously in any number of states until the point at which it is observed, whereupon it will “collapse” into one state – either purring or deceased in the case of the trapped tabby, which is incarcerated with a poison that either has or has not been released through radioactive decay.
Apparently, this little dead kitty will not only help scientists create cars that drive themselves, but it will also trigger amazing advances in medicine - such as custom drugs, manufactured specifically for our personal DNA. We will literally be moving into the "next generation" of computing, in the same way that rockets moved us from air to space. Quantum computers will allow the kind of world depicted in Star Trek, Almost Human, and Arthur C Clarke's: 3001: The Final Odyssey. Technology will be integrated into every part of life, and I'll be able to play Tiny Death Star anywhere...except for my current iPad of course, which will be as obsolete as an 8 Track.
Having grown up in the 80s - "...The problem's plain to see. Too much technology. Machines to save our lives. Machines dehumanize..." - I experienced quantum computers in TRON, Star Trek spin-offs, and books written by Asimov, Clarke, and James P. Hogan. I remember OMNI magazine, and reading that - sometime in the very near future - computers would be linked by the Internet. I also remember the first round of Apple computers long before the Macintosh (in high school/college computer labs in rural Illinois) and wondering how many floppy discs it would take to pave the information superhighway.
Back then, each new computer advancement seemed no less than absolutely amazing. There was time between each model. Electronics changed as slowly as the bodies of GM cars. But that's sure not the case today as computers design computers that will ultimately design quantum computers. NASA has a quantum computer now as does Google, Apple, and probably China. We're still a good 10 years before Apple launches a Quantum iPad, but I know that day is coming - and I'll see it in my lifetime. The advancements unfolding in the next 20 years will mirror the future that we've seen on Almost Human. We're about to cure disease, leave the planet, and drastically expand our consciousness...all while avoiding Terminators, and hopefully, Cylons too.
Back then, each new computer advancement seemed no less than absolutely amazing. There was time between each model. Electronics changed as slowly as the bodies of GM cars. But that's sure not the case today as computers design computers that will ultimately design quantum computers. NASA has a quantum computer now as does Google, Apple, and probably China. We're still a good 10 years before Apple launches a Quantum iPad, but I know that day is coming - and I'll see it in my lifetime. The advancements unfolding in the next 20 years will mirror the future that we've seen on Almost Human. We're about to cure disease, leave the planet, and drastically expand our consciousness...all while avoiding Terminators, and hopefully, Cylons too.
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Speaking of aliens, has anyone else noticed the similarities between quantum computer designs and crop circles? Chuckling...maybe I'm being a little schizotypal, but I can't help but notice similar patterns in the two: geometric shapes, emanating from a center point. Can you imagine? Quantum mechanics in soy beans? Like the movie Contact, what if aliens have been "nudging" us towards a way to communicate, above and beyond the Earth? Every sci-fi geek in the world envisions a future with the technology needed to explore the cosmos. Such science requires a new generation of computers, and as Art Bell described in his book The Quickening, our world is moving faster and faster towards some type of world-changing "event." What if first contact is that event? And what if quantum computing allows that event to happen?
Whatever the case, I'll be ready and waiting...killing time while the saucers land playing Tiny Death Star on my Quantum iPad.
Whatever the case, I'll be ready and waiting...killing time while the saucers land playing Tiny Death Star on my Quantum iPad.