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320 - Sludge

El Cid

on May 20, 2020

I meant to post this yesterday, but got sidetracked due to some random real-world wackiness. A neighbor's giant frickin' tree spontaneously split in half and crashed into the yard. When that was all dealt with, it turned out that an opossum had taken up residence in my shed. So, I spent the bulk of that evening researching the best way to trap the critter so I can relocate it… but the more I've looked into it, they seem to be relatively harmless animals, so I decided not to bother. It's still in there.

Not much to say about this page. I redid the panels several times and am still not entirely happy with them. It feels unfinished, but I can't think of anything else to add. At some point, you just have to say “that's enough!” and release it into the world. (or is that “unleash” it?)

Just a few more pages and we'll be on way to the Death Bog. It's not a good sign when that's something to look forward to…







It seems every couple of years now they're coming out with a new World's Smallest Computer. Here's the latest one: From the University of Michigan, at a miniscule 1x1mm, it's less than half the size of the previous contender, and manages to cram hundreds of thousands of transistors into a package that is significantly smaller than a grain of rice. While it's not nearly as powerful as your laptop or iPhone, it does have roughly the same processing power as the x86 chip that ran early 1990s IBM desktop computers. You could just barely play the original 'Doom' FPS with this thing… assuming you could somehow connect it tot a monitor and input device. Not bad for something that only costs ten cents to manufacture!

Currently, this thing is being built as an anti-fraud device to be embedded in certain products and packaging. It doesn't take too much imagination to see how something like this – or an array of them – could be used for high tech spying purposes. But on a more positive side, this technology brings us that much closer to that ultimate sci-fi dream of having nanotech robots capable of performing medical procedures without surgery. I envisioned something like this being used for deep space exploration in swarms of tiny probes operating under a distributed intelligence system, something similar to Breakthrough Starshot.

Or we may just have gotten one step closer to all being devoured by an onslaught of endlessly replicating gray goo. Whatever the case, these are exciting times!