The Enneagrammatic Linguistic Interface (ELI) for artificially intelligent organic computers was first developed by the Israeli company Breath Logic before being released as an open source project and adopted by SEDA’s Center for Education, Research, and Applications (CERA). ELI depended solely on human-vocalized commands and inquiries, which it would parse for contextual semantic meaning and translate into the native commands of the machine for which it served as an interface. It was capable of responding with human-like voice synthesis in addition to text. Its learning logic made use of research into personality typing and biases to become a better and more responsive work partner for the various humans with which it interacted. Continue Reading »

The third episode of The Mercurials has been posted, in which our heroes move out of the stasis room, get themselves into a fight, and encounter further mysteries.

Episode 1:3 also features the choice of a new navigation system, designed based on reader feedback.  It offers two  navigation bars that you can drag, drop, and reposition anywhere you like on the page.  It should also make reading the photo graphic novel a lot easier since it eliminates the need to reload the entire web page for each page of the comic.  Since it requires Javascript, you’ll still have the option of using the original version, which doesn’t.

Also, Episode 1:3 introduces a much improved system for designating who’s talking.  Because we’re trying to maintain something of a cinematic feel, we’ve avoided speech bubbles in our photo graphic novel.  Instead, each character now has a small avatar picture beside their lines so you can more easily tell who’s speaking.  Spoken lines are now in a regular font, thoughts are in all italics, and sound effects are in ALL CAPS.  Thanks again to our readers for these suggested improvements!

 And if that weren’t enough, Episode 1:2 has been retrofitted with the new dialogue avatars as well, with Episode 1:1 soon to follow.

Enjoy!

In response to some of the excellent feedback we received, and in preparation for the next episode (to be posted this coming Sunday), we’ve been implementing a new navigation scheme for The Mercurials episodes.  You can test it viewing Episode 1:1 or Episode 1:2.

A few notes and caveats:

• The new nav system is still being worked on and tested, but it would be a good time to get feedback on it from interested readers.  Just let me know what browser you’re using if you have problems.
• The old system will continue to be available, since it is supported by most browsers.
• The new system requires a browser that has Javascript enabled and that supports CSS.
• There are currently some page formatting issues that I’m working on ironing out.

New Features:

• No more reloading! The user interface uses Javascript to avoid reloading the page every time.  That means less scrolling back down the page.  When the system’s working properly, you should also be able to leave your mouse pointing to the “Next” link for added convenience.
• Drag-and-drop Navbar!  Different readers suggested positioning the Navigation bar in different places, so now there are two bars, a horizontal one and a vertical one, that can be dragged and dropped anywhere you want.  Just click on the 4-arrows icon on the bar, hold down the mouse button, reposition the bar where you’d like it to be, and release. Continue Reading »

Its ill-advised wars of the early 21st Century began the rapid decline of the diplomatic and military hegemony of the United States of America around the world, and its economic collapse in the ‘20’s hastened its exit from the world stage just as the Chinese Republic was advancing.  The lead in space exploration shifted from the U.S. and its allies in Europe and Japan, to China and the new “launch powers” in South America and Africa.  For a time, space exploration seemed to be stuck in a cycle of déjà vu as these countries repeated the launch-orbit-moon path blazed by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R during the Cold War of the 20th Century.  The resurgence of the U.S. economy in the 2030’s gave then-President Rice the wherewithal to declare a new Space Race, this time to not only explore the solar system with manned flights and boost national morale, but also to exploit the natural resources of those other worlds to repay that investment.  Continue Reading »

Part 2 of the first chapter of The Mercurials has been posted a few days early.  Enjoy!

You can now click on any page in an episode to go the next page, and links to the previous and next episodes have been added below.

Thanks for visiting The Mercurials.  We’re off to a good start and the second episode is almost ready for posting this Sunday, July 15th. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know about some of the ways you can interact with us and this site.

First, most blog postings are open for comments.  We’d love to know what you think of the latest episode and answer your questions.  On the home page, there’s a button at the end of each post that shows how many comments that post has already.  Click on that cutton to view and add comments.  Continue Reading »

Biobots, usually called ‘bots or bb’s, are nanoengineered organisms that live inside human bodies and provide internal communication links to external data networks, monitor and correct health problems, and provide targeted microdoses of manufactured pharmaceuticals.  Continue Reading »

Part 1 of the first chapter of The Mercurials has gone live.  We hope you enjoy it! 

If you have any feedback, please leave your comment on this post.

The CS Mercurial, the third interstellar colony ship launched by the international Space Exploration and Defense Administration (SEDA), is the first space-going vessel to be driven primarily by mercurials.

The discovery in 2015 that a large portion of the universe’s “dark matter” consisted of small particles of immense density that appeared to rapidly wink in and out of existence only deepened the mystery over the nature of our cosmos.  Not until more than fifty years later did research reveal that these particles did not actually come into existence and disappear, but were persistent entities that were constantly moving  - but primarily through other physical dimensions, only tangentially dipping into our four space+time dimensions. Continue Reading »

Here’s a quick guide to dialogue:

This is spoken text.

This is an inner thought.

SOUND EFFECT!!!