This is not exactly a book review-reread of "Virtual Light" - which was the first novel in what has become known as the 'bridge trilogy' by SciFi visionary (and one of the more infamous 'Nam-era draft-dodgers) William Gibson. This post is really more about bio-mimicry and future of (non-origami) paper planes - of the 747 variety. Not to mention- the future of the future.
'Virtual' was a fine read and like all of Gibson's books, had prescient technological underpinnings. His timing was a bit off on almost every detail - as is generally the case with prophets. Prophets can occasionally see glimpses of the future in surprising detail, but almost never get the timing down. An explanation for this temporal shortcoming, from biblical to blasphemy, is that "the future" may already exist in potential - but in an ongoing balance. Like the French, all humanoids may exist in timeless state of past imperfect, present subjunctive and future conditional. Despite Gibson's success as a writer - in which almost every book (~15 million novels in print) features AI or something similar in the way of advanced computing, he never had a special relationship with PCs. Reportedly "Neuromancer" was written on a Selectric. Go figure. Anyway, one of the small details in 'Virtual' was a new kind of (old) structural material: to wit *paper* - that's right PAPER. The novel featured future bike couriers (no gasoline available in this dystopia - but amazing computers) whose 'ride' was constructed mostly from an advanced paper, instead of steel or carbon fiber. Many readers must have thought this was just too far-out for the time - 1993 - but very soon thereafter the technical article below was published re: the very same paper material - but made by bugs - "bacterial cellulose". In many ways, especially cost, this material is superior to graphite fiber and has a 10-1 performance advantage over the best steel. It is a nanomaterial, but not necessarily man-made as the "manufacturer" itself is nano (Acetobacter xylinum) One of the characters in Virtual Light, a gal of flexible morals named Chevette Wahington, who was pretty much the predecessor for Jessica Alba's character in the cult TV favorite - 'Dark Angel' - has one of these paper bicycles which is almost theft-proof, having its own AI computer. You would have thought it would be a self-powered bike too, but nope -- this is no utopia and apparently Gibson (in a strange twist for a SciFi-guy) did see a future generally obeying one set of Laws (LoT). In 'Virtual' Gibson takes us to a near future of ... opps a couple of years ago - 2005. Like I said, he got the timing way off. Welcome to NoCal and SoCal, the uneasy sister-states of what used to be the Golden State: California. The millennium has come and gone leaving in its wake stunned cash-poor survivors, but somehow with great computers, nearly weightless bikes, and not much else. Anyway the structural paper article is here: http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/1997/pdf/6911x2453.pdf "Production of bacterial cellulose by agitation culture systems" by Takayasu Tsuchida and Fumihiro Yoshinaga Abstract: An economical mass production system of bacterial cellulose (BC) on agitated culture was constructed. We frst conducted screening of BC producers in agitated culture. A total of 2096 strains were isolated from natural sources and the best BC producing strain, BPR2001, was selected. Of the several organic nitrogen sources used to supplement the culture medium, corn steep liquor (CSL) was found to be the most suitable for BC production. END of abstract. All we need now - to accomplish an improved subjunctive-conditional-future, and to convert the pending Gibsonian dystopia into a near utopia, is the advanced power supply. Duh. Otherwise, we risk another dystopia, the post-human vision of the "Matrix" ... where we ARE the power supply <g> Jones
