Here is a website I created in paint about a group of visionaries in the ROTR-world called "No World Order", and their take on the group called "New Age Thinkers", a rival organization. Guess who doesn't like the NAU?

Darn it, I should've used a different ad on the side! This one just ruins the picture...

Shit I just the date in the news post is wrong! It says August but it should really be February!

Nice. Sounds exactly like the kind of paranoid drivel one would expect from an in-universe Alex Jones. Andrew Johnston from the NWO story update anyone?

^Thanks. Maybe he changed his name from Johnston to Farkas to avoid the police?

Maybe Farkas is just one of their associates/web operatives while Andrew Johnston is still the guy running the site and serving as its primary figurehead.

Just some quick feedback:

1. That looks like a lot of work, good job, and nice consistency.

2. Unless I missed it changing in an update, you might be interested to know that Americans order their dates month/day/year. So if the website is supposed to be by/for Americans, I think you might want to change the dates. Yes, I know it is a backwards way of doing things...

2a. It's even worse in Canada, where (according to wikipedia), mm/dd/yy is in common use in much of canada, but dd/mm/yy is in use a lot in Quebec. However, official Canada dating system is yyyy/mm/dd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time...ation_in_Canada, worldmap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country
2b. Obviously you should do whatever you want, and maybe the NAU incorporated Mexico's format as standard. I'm just saying it looks weird to me as a present day (backwards) American.

3. The side panel ad looks fine to me... but why not just crop the picture (for now) if it bothers you?

Keep up the interesting and good work!

P

1. Thank you very much.

2/a/b. Oh yeah that's right, they do that! Darn it... again... Well, I won't go through as much trouble by just correcting the dates so why not just say America finally caved in and standardized their date system to dd/mm/yy like everyone else.

3. It doesn't bother me that much, I thought I should have picked something less distracting, like "hot singles in your area"...

^ Considering the content/theme of this imaginary website, I'd say the people in charge of it would consider adapting a more sensible dating system to be another spineless concession to the New World Order and the evil Bilderbergers with their evil standardised date formats. No, this is an American site, so it's gotta label the dates in a proper American way, cos anything else would be commie-fascism, boy!

Am I the only one who read the last part in a Southern accent?

Any way nice job Swedishplayer, I personally think that the add fits with the page, since the author is ranting about the new world order having an add that talks about votes being stolen kinda fits with the new world order vibe

Spot on, brotha!



Thanks. Yeah, that's what I first had in mind but then I felt it kinda doesn't fit for some reason...

http://abload.de/img/crackpotgcsvw.png
Fixed dates. Do leave the ad as is though, it's hilarious. Besides that, I really want to know how the internet will work in the 2040s. One would have to assume that most of the world by then having been fully grown up with computers and other electronics, attitudes towards technology would have changed drastically. Hell, there might even be self-conscious AIs as pop stars like Miku.

Quite possibly so. Even some of our in-game units have artificial intelligence such as the Hunter-Killer, the Manticore and the ***** and the initial reaction of the first Manticore crew was not 'holy shit, guys, we've got an AI in this thing' but 'Man, the voice sucks'. Kind of a mundane reaction which suggests that the presence of such technology isn't actually regarded as something utterly new or groundbreaking by the mid-2040s, so the first functional AIs probably showed up several years earlier. As for virtual celebrities, yeah, I can definitely see that in the setting. Hell, CGI has probably evolved to the point of perfect photo-realism, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were movies starring digitally rejuvinated actors or even digital recreations of actors that aren't even alive anymore. It's kinda creepy, but with the advent of such sophisticated CGI - which will probably occur in RL as well at some point - this kind of possibility just begs to be explored, ethics be damned. Interestingly, this also opens up the potential for some serious media manipulation, as it would be possible to frame a public persona of some questionable activities by making an authentic-looking CGI video of them. The boundaries between fiction and reality would get extremely blurry in the setting which naturally goes way beyond the possibilities of what we can depict or deal with, but it's a fascinating thought nonetheless.

I don't think it's creepy though, I'd love that to happen.

Thanks, Sorata. How were you able to edit it so seamlessly? If I would assume it would be much, much larger than it is today. And, with the growing threat of internet security and spies, I bet the dark net would be much more popular this time around. I might write something about it...



That's very interesting. I would assume - since many people have become more watchful - that methods for detecting whether or not footage is fake or not have been implemented. Beside new stunning CGI movies there would probably be some people reverting to the olden days, going outside and filming on set to make it look authentic, just because they do not like the new direction. With photo-realistic video games it would also open up possibilities for VR video games, and by that I mean 'real' VR, not some silly goggles you put on and just sit there waving your hands around. I was thinking a helmet or cables of some sort that you attach to your head, and then they connect with your brain using neural impulses. You fall asleep on the couch and then wake up inside the game. I covered this in a previous fan-fic 'Pop Culture of Today' that I would deem non-canon, and I would like to write a fan-fic about civilian technology. That'd be fun.

I don't think these VR systems would be available in the same way as modern day game consoles, since a device that directly interacts with your brainwaves would likely be subject to strict safety and probably even content regulations. I would imagine something like VR 'theatres' instead, i.e. facilities that are purpose-built to provide people with interactive VR experiences under controlled circumstances. You'd go there in the same way as you'd go to a cinema, an actual theatre, a night club or a paintball range, depending on what sort of program you wish to consume. That would also be a lot more affordable than a VR console that's literally in your house with no safe way to pull you out of the simulation if something goes wrong. And yes, this technology would be most likely be subject to the same TV pundit debates as video games in RL^^

Just to bring a slightly different perspective to the matter. I'm a graduate student in psychology and someone who is interested in brain structure, thought, cognitive interface, and I think the future is really unclear. While things like "mind-machine interfaces" and "learning/memory tailoring helmets" are staples of Scifi, there is a quite reasonable argument (IMO) that they are not in the near future at all.

From what I understand, each person's brain, while structurally similar to most other humans, may be building its neural network of thoughts, memories, and reactions in different ways. Additionally, there seems to be much more cross-activation of brain structures than previously thought; while some things are well localized (like language centers) there is very little evidence to show that I organize all of my words about animals (for example) in the same place in that brain structure as Swedish does. Memory is also somewhat of a mystery; early experiments in open brain surgery found that stimulating certain areas of the brain in some patients resulted in incredibly intense memory playback for things like music... but the same areas did nothing in other patients. TLDR; brains are far more complicated than we thought, and there is significant and confusing differences between functionally normal people in the same culture.

I can't predict the future at all; what I am really saying here is that if the mods declared that there was no brain/computer helmet interface (or even a common surgical implant equivalent) and that people just used fancy visors to experience VR and had smarter (but similar) internet page-like web interfaces, I think it is a defensible (if conservative) view of the future of computer interface, 30-some years from now.

I personally hope that the future is more like Swedish suggests, but I will not be surprised if human variation in individual brain development makes it all-but-impossible.

Just my (off topic) two cents...

Fair point, although personally, I'm generally appreciative of futuristic, if sometimes slightly fantastical elements in ROTR fan-fictions because such amazing technological achievements and cultural developments in the 'civilian' part of the ROTR world add some much needed whimsy and positivity to a setting that would be quite dark and depressing if judged solely by its military/political aspects.

Agreed. And the background and feel of the world in ROTR is one of the things that really makes it special, and (I think) inspires the community. You all have done and continue to do an incredible job!

To talk about virtual reality...

I believe the technology doesn't have to actually edit your memories or anything, just stimulate certain nerve impulses - essentially, passing information from your brain directly to the computer. So, all we have to do is figure out how to stimulate certain senses (like smell, taste, hearing, touch, vision) at certain times, and accurately pass information into them. It might have a slight edge of quirky, but far less so than actually editing the brain.

If that's so, just induce a lucid dream.

A lucid dream state seems like the go-to for legitimate virtual reality (by that, I mean an entire sort of full-dive experience, where all of your sensory input is reporting on the game). Sword Art Online gives a great take on this technology.

I'm not sure that i get it, but it seems interasting.
And you surely did good work in making it unique.

That's pretty much how I would imagine that VR to function as well. It's not so much about implanting fake memories of awesome events à la Total Recall and more about generating a kind of setting or scenario in a person's mind while they aren't 'awake' which is stable enough for them to explore and interact with it.

Right so. You simply need a computer that directs the nerve waves and input/output and via internet your data is send to a server that synchornizes with other VR stations world-wide and each user's brain waves are shifted based on said input. Like, I see a person I can talk to, so I speak in-dream. The machine recognises the train of thought, transmits it to the server, the server directs it to the other person whose avatar I see and gives them the input. The rest is done by their own brain, which should save a lot of processing power and speed.

Though, I feel there would be a central computer system that directs the game world and keeps track of everything happening in it. If it's super realistic, it would take your words, translate them into however you are speaking (your voice and character may be completely different from your real self, as well as the language in use), then produce a sound in the game world (which would act like sound in real life). It would do the same for smells, touch, vibrations, etc. It would truly be another reality, nothing like anything that exists today.

Shadowrun BTL chips anyone?

(Sorry for necro) I have read the technology comments again and I am thinking of writing a fan-fic about it. MARS, would it be possible to write something about a technological regulation committee, that makes sure no dangerous technologies gets into the hands of the public?

You'd have to be more specific on where you'd like to take that idea.