another Gibson interview

from Boing Boing, here: http://boingboing.net/2011/09/01/william-gibson-interview-boing-boing-exclusive.html

Lots of interesting stuff as usual, including: What things are keeping your interest lately? 

"The sheer surreality of the Republican presidential primary, Libya, Iain Sinclair's monolithic ongoing anti-Olympics project (Hackney, That Rose Red Empire and now Ghost Milk), the "gray man" concept in personal security, the culture of personal aerial drones, parts of the United States as newly undeveloped sub-nations and the foreign outsourcing thereof...
"

(wow - two posts today!)

what we should know about time (and aging)

From Cosmic Variance: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/09/01/ten-things-everyone-should-know-about-time/

In particular, this one:

9. Aging can be reversed. We all grow old, part of the general trend toward growing disorder. But it’s only the universe as a whole that must increase in entropy, not every individual piece of it. (Otherwise it would be impossible to build a refrigerator.) Reversing the arrow of time for living organisms is a technological challenge, not a physical impossibility. And we’re making progress on a few fronts: stem cells, yeast, and even (with caveats) mice and human muscle tissue. As one biologist told me: “You and I won’t live forever. But as for our grandkids, I’m not placing any bets.”

Kurzweil has been singing this song for a while, and it makes sense.   When extreme healthy-life extension becomes possible, how society responds and adapts to the possibility will be fascinating.     How'd you like to see the same set of supreme court justices for 200 years?   ;-)