More thoughts on the tech dream.

[kengr]

If I was to write it, I think I need to make the little booklet *obviously* home produced. I think I'll use spelling errors.

"But how can you be sure that they just haven't changed the spelling wherever these came from?"

"Because they spelled the *same* word two different ways on different pages."

"Point."

Thinking on the dream, I think the booklet didn't have the "right" number of pages (ie, not 4/8/12 pages) I also don't recall it having staples or glue, but it was "fastened" somehow. I can make that another tech mystery (ie the pages are "fused" seamlessly at the spine).

So we have "home" tech capable of video clips without audio using reflected light and that odd fastening. and cheap mass market throwaway tech that has *emitted* light video with audio.

That's not even *close* to "Clarke's law" tech levels. But it's definitely beyond anything we can pull off. It's not beyond what we could *hope* to pull off, but it's not on the "we can't do it, but we're pretty sure how we could do it if our gear was a bit better" or at least it'd be at the ragged edge of that.

Hmm. Just occurred to me that this is sort of equivalent to someone from the 60s running into one of those "record your own message" greeting cards. I don't think they'd believe that the required tech was less than 40 years in their future. At least not at the *cost* implied by being part of an obviously cheap, mass market item.

Comments

[seawasp]

I put that at 20 years from now tech, assuming no disasters and that it's something given any development push. 40 years otherwise.

[kengr]

Might be a lot sooner given possession of the items. :-)

Studying them would be "interesting". All the worries about wearing them out, or unintentionally damaging them.

When you have several of the same item, it's much safer because you can afford to expend one in testing. But with unique, irreplaceable ones the stakes shoot way up.

And these are rather obviously two different but likely related techs.

BTW, you couldn't *pay* me to cut into the upper part of that one that does the sound and light bit. Because it needs to have some sort of power *storage* to pull that off and while it'd be a *tiny* battery, the storage density would have to be pretty high.

[seawasp]

You'd do noninvasive scans first then up the ante as you went along, trimming little bits from what appeared non-essential components. You'd get useful info from all of it.

I wouldn't have any trouble cutting into it. As a consumer product there'd be a limit to how dangerous they'd allow it to be when a baby put it in their mouths and started chewing. I wouldn't HOLD it while cutting it, but safety goggles and put it in a vise while I do the snip, I'm not worried.

[kengr]

I'm less willing to trust that consumer product safety laws remain as good as they are now.

Also there's a big difference between a baby chewing or even "digesting" something and hitting it with tinsnips or the like.

Admittedly, It's unlikely that gross abuse of that sort would do anything worse than a firecracker, but still.

[seawasp]

You describe something like plastic or a piece of paper. Having had four children, I assure you tinsnips are the GENTLE alternative. A baby's new teeth are as sharp as tinsnips and enameled with stuff as hard as steel. Even when NOT being used to chew with they can cut, as a nursing mother will attest to loudly and profanely.

Laws MIGHT change in some areas, but I really don't see the laws shifting with regards to CHILD SAFETY much, unless all the lawyers die off or something. Or if some medical miracle occurs that makes death almost impossible.

[kengr]

Oh yes, just thought I'd mention that if this happened in reality, you'd be getting an email as soon as I got sufficiently unboggled.

I figure that if you couldn't help figure them out, you'd know where to point me. :-)

[seawasp]

Probably. I know a lot of people who know people.

[kengr]

About what I figured.

And it'd be terribly meta anyway. Especially with you writing Boundary and the rest where we are dealing with high tech from the past.

High tech from the future or alternate timelines (aliens are ruled out because things are in English) is yet another can of worms.

Fun. Just realized that it could be a strict global causality universe with "local" causality breaks allowed (pretty much what folks like Dr. Forward expect our universe to be like if time travel is possible at all.

In which case the gadgets may be invented *because* I found them. :-)

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

The bit about "high tech from an alternate timeline" made me think of this:

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Again, that's digital paper, as I mentioned in the other entry. Being made of nanites, digital paper could be instructed to fasten together like that. The little nanites are what holds it together anyway, so that's not a big leap.

You want a mystery technology, the same future world where digital paper exists (the Traipah storyverse) has something for ya: the people of Traipah introduced this technology called a Psionic Transceiver, which allows people to communicate with computers and even with one another through thought alone. The Traipahni people won't explain how it works, scanners can't penetrate its outer layer, and whenever anyone tries to reverse-engineer it, the things quietly and harmlessly self-destruct.

And even the psionic transceiver is nothing compared to the artifacts left behind by The Great Makers. Some of those artifacts verge on the appearance of magic.

[seawasp]

Fayanora: Yes, and I described a somewhat more massive version of that in _Boundary_ as what the Bemmies used for their iPad/Kindle equivalents.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

"I can make that another tech mystery (ie the pages are "fused" seamlessly at the spine)."

All things considered, they might not be visibly fused. To our technology, it might look like it either "grew that way," or like somebody took a high-tech knife to material five pieces of paper thick and sliced it 95% of the way across four times, to produce five paper-thin pages.

As far as power source goes, it's possible that the "paper" incorporates an advanced solar cell, or (pardon the improbability) a very advanced Stirling engine. I don't know how safe either of those would be for a child - in the first case, it's unknown chemicals, in the second it's small parts suitable for choking - but you haven't established how durable this stuff is, either. Maybe a child can't chew through it.

[kengr]

My "fused" and your "cut" are (for the vision in my head) pretty much a "distinction without a difference".

As for the battery, yet another possibility is a Casimir effect "battery". No nasty chemicals, and while it has "small parts" they are *too* small* to be a problem. (Then again, so are the parts to your stirling engine)

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

From my view, there is a difference, assuming a slip in quality control; five fused pages could be misaligned, where the cut pages wouldn't be. For the purposes of what your dream showed you, it seems there isn't one.