Category Archives: Faster Than Light

Finished The Latest Ian M. Banks Culture Novel

Posted on February 24, 2008 by James McParlane

Matter by Ian M. Banks May contain spoilers. Thank goodness because its been 8 years since the last novel featuring The Culture and I was beginning to give up. Mind you I consider “The Dwellers” from The Algebraist to be the “The Affronters” from Excession … Continue reading →

Posted in Downtime, Faster Than Light | Leave a comment

As I And Everyone Else Predicted – Games Consoles Now Used For Super Computing

Posted on December 2, 2007 by James McParlane

I remember 15 years ago talking about the logical progression of gaming hardware and predicting that consumer demand would end up putting superior performance in the games consoles, and then they would then be used for “evil”. The future is weirder than we … Continue reading →

Posted in Coolhunting, Faster Than Light, Hardware, Rants | Leave a comment

Why Transcendental Compression Is Impossible

Posted on July 7, 2006 by James McParlane

By “Transcendental Compression”, I mean the concept of taking p or e or, root 2, any of the Transcendental Numbers or functions and using some part of the sequence of its digits as a dictionary for tokens in a compression algorithm. … Continue reading →

Posted in Coolhunting, Faster Than Light, Rants | 7 Comments

The Powder Of Sympathy

Posted on September 22, 2004 by James McParlane

Around 1700 – A Royal Committee was formed to gather ideas and a prize of £20,000 was offered to the person who could determine longitude at sea. One suggested method was that a mysterious substance called “powder of sympathy” if … Continue reading →

Posted in Faster Than Light, Quantum Mechanics | Leave a comment