K. Van Kramer

During a battle at sea in 264 BCE, a Carthaginian ship was captured by Roman forces. The Romans examined the ship carefully and used it as a model for their own new vessels. By stealing the Carthaginian design, the Romans were able to improve their own technology.  Ah, but do you see? The origin of stealing technology and design is a long-standing theme, and I think history repeats itself in ways you may not have thought about. Take for example -  Element 115, or Moscovium. Is this technology one of those 'things' we've borrowed, from crashed UFO's? Anyway in case you've never heard of  Moscovium, it is an unstable element we've created in a lab. It is also informally called Ununpentium or Element 115.  The UFO connection to Moscovium actually began thirty-four years ago in 1989, when Bob Lazar, a famous Area 51 conspiracy theorist informed IN PUBLIC that UFO ships - recovered secretly by the government were powered by  ‘Element 115.’ At the conference, he state

I tested out ChatGPT a couple weeks ago and gave it a shot, but the story that it churned out was boring and a little weird. Later on, I combed through Google and read a report about someone who had used AI to self-publish a children's story, but it hasn't gone very far. It's not that surprising if you know about publishing. The publishing industry is complicated, but t hey definitely don't want someone running up to them with an unsolicited AI manuscript. Hey look Ma, I'm a writer too! Publish me, I spent five minutes asking AI to write this crappy story — uh nope.  I know I'm putting a damper on things, when so many people are excited about ChatGPT but I'm just not impressed so far. It's good enough at some things but the hype is misleading, and it's a mistake to be relying on it for anything important. For example, the other day at work, when things were slow, one of my colleagues tested out Adobe Firefly (a new AI imaging program) and said how mu

Recently I was contacted by a site called The Book Shepherd to help promote my fourth story Modified . If you're not familiar with the site, it's a lot like Goodreads except better, because it allows the authors to introduce themselves and comment on the books they've read which have inspired them.  During the time, I wrote Modified,  I became increasingly fixated on a robot character whom I named Jarvis Delta 6  (Jarvis for short).  In the beginning I hadn't really intended to write about Jarvis that much, but as I wrote the story I realized Jarvis would play a crucial role. And as I further defined who he was, and added details, I was definitely inspired by other great stories I've read in the past.  Imagination is more important than knowledge — Einstein once so famously quoted. I believe that's essentially true for sci fi authors because the AI research I did was overwhelming and it was only the sheer power of imagination that got me out of the quicksand

Part of a Meyers Briggs personality type are a group called NT's which means Intuitive Thinking. This type of personality trait is  rather infrequent. They are also known as The Promethean but I'll get that part in a second.  Pictured above for instance, is a character in a television series - Suits - which embodies an NT type known as the ENTJ. ENTJ character traits are clever, logical, intense, blunt, and efficient. ENTJ's are born leaders, absolutely loyal to people who are loyal to them, and are unlikely to forgive when that trust is broken. They care deeply about certain people, though they rarely show it.  NT's are described as people who like to build things, and therefore they are also associated with Prometheus. In the Ancient Greek story, Prometheus made man more like the gods, by giving him fire, the symbol of light and energy. In harnessing light and energy he gave mankind control and understanding of nature. To understand and control nature is to possess it

Looking through an old pamphlet titled Marina Tiare Sailing Expeditions is what first caught my eye and just underneath — Come sail the South Pacific Chile or Antartica. She sat near me perched in her seat (now in her seventies) as I curiously poured through some of the information. As I scanned over the pages, she quietly told me that  she had years of sailing experience before  she took the Marina Tiare sailing expedition, but that she had been hurt by someone at that time, and she thought the voyage would help her through the pain. As I listened to more of the details, it made me understand how much she must have wanted to heal, and gave herself the opportunity to explore the world around her.  Twenty days of sailing across the Pacific Ocean.  I looked back down at the aged brochure seeing a few sentences like— gaining offshore experience, practical coastal and celestial navigation. I turned the page reading over more about the captain - John Neal and his hands on ocean cruising

When I was writing my second book  From Phobos To Mars   I had a lot of questions in mind about weight, mass and gravity. I had read about light gravity effects and how the 1/3 Mars gravity would cause bone and muscle loss for Martian colonists, so for my books, I invented a type of space suit they would wear that would make up for the light gravity. For instance if a person weighed 125 lbs on Earth - they would only weigh about 41 lbs on Mars - so therefore the heavy suit would need to weigh about 84 lbs.  I called these suits  Heavy's  for short. The confusion for me is mass which creates gravity, yet a heavy gold bar without much mass can also create gravity. Let's just say for a few nights, I went into a rabbit hole doing research on how gravity could be increased on Mars which would take a heavy bombardment of meteors and other implausible ideas. Eventually I just said to myself "somehow" a suit would have to be done. I had also invented the idea of a simple cott

x When it comes to robots, writers take the lead in compelling ideas for what robots may or may not be . Scientists however try to specify what robots can and cannot be . I confess to know not a bit about the can or cannot's of A.I., but know just enough to get myself into trouble by speculating about what they might do. However, as a writer it is important to differentiate that we are not bound by facts. We are freed by what is possible.  I suppose part of the fun of being a writer is we can skip past some of the ethics, scientific theories and ongoing research and assume the ultimate goal will be possible: that AI will become much like a human. Which also happens to be the goal of AI science. Hell, it's a lofty target, but what's a story without a sentient robot anyway? A story cannot simply resort to a robot who can play chess.  What about this then? the writer contemplates.  Can't be done! Says the scientist. Can't be done so far.....replies the writer.    My r