Summoning lightening bolts with lasers. I think we just arrived in the future.
On a related note, I realized the other night that I still haven't really emotionally grasped the fact that I am never going to have superpowers.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
You did hear about the Italian supervillain, right?
(Okay, okay, he's just a hypnotist, but still.)
When I got married, it was a realization that I would never become a superspy.
It still hurts. I hope my wife knows how much I gave up for her!
I have certain Superpowers.
You could still be Batwoman, Megan. Or the Black Widow, or maybe the Huntress.
(This reminds me of that most excellent passage in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash in which the protagonist, Hiro Protagonist, explains how every man believes that, under the right circumstances, he could become the baddest MF'er in the world. Needs to be read to be understood in its full awesomeness.)
Nuts to superpowers. Who needs those when you've already got minions? And in my case, minions that can produce about thirty offspring per fertile female every year. It's only a matter of time, and you humans are at a distinct disadvantage on that point.
Mouse, you're a weirdo. Have you ever "seen" someone for you very obvious problems? I think it's time.
Frank, I appreciate your concern for my health. In fact, I did see someone recently, and that someone confirmed that my eyes are beady, my coat is glossy, and my tail is a thing to envy. A clean bill of health, it was.
I'm also well aware of that Model #13A-44WFG "SpringAll" that you have set under your sink. Peanut butter? You cheapskate. Spring for the butterkäse next time.
Megan,
You must not have heard about this company, Applied Energetics (formerly known as Ionatron). It has allegedly developed something called "Laser-Induced Plasma Channel" technology -- essentially, man-made lightning. The company's pitch a couple of years ago, (back when it was Ionatron) was that its man-made lightning mobiles would zap IEDs in Iraq, blowing them up. The company mainly blew up shareholder dollars, but it apparently still has some classified contracts with the military. There had been allegations of crookery and corruption related to Ionatron and the Defense Department's in-house venture capital group.
You have enough clues to research an interesting blog post on this, should you accept the mission.
Cisco,
Snow Crash was great (supposedly, it was the book that gave the word "avatar" its current denotation). The Diamond Age was even better, IMO, and Cryptonomicon was even better than that. After that, I ordered the first door-stopper in Stephenson's trilogy based on characters from Cryptonomicon (actually, their ancestors), and couldn't get into it.
I read a few years ago that lightning needs a pre-fab pathway to get to the ground, because the almosphere is an insulator. Cosmic rays (sub-atomic particles, mostly protons zinging around space with high energies) can punch a channel through the atmosphere that reduces the resistance of the air just enough for the high-voltage electricity to cross. Cosmic rays are so common that these paths often cross one another-- so the lighting changes direction. In short, cosmic rays are believed to be responsible for the zig-zagging that lightning does. Neat, hunh?
So it looks like this great little laser is punching a similar channel, the filament they call it, through the air, and it does the job of letting the electron surplus, either in teh clouds or ground, get to the other, where there's a relative deficit.
Being able to change the bulbs in some ceiling lights without having to get and then stand on a chair is just one of your superpowers. Enjoy!
Are you summoning the bolts, or making them lighter? Or both? In this last case, you could have used a comma.
Fred,
The only problem with Stephenson's work, and it's a big one, is that he can't write an ending to save his life. His books don't end they just stop.
Shout-out to Snow Crash fans! I reversed the order of enjoyment for the Stephenson stuff Fred. Have you read Zodiac? It helps to be a science nerd to properly enjoy it, but its as whimsical as Snow Crash.
Also- I have superpowers, but in the current paranoid environment, I don't like to broadcast them.
Wiredog,
I get your point, but I didn't have any problems with the endings of the Stephenson books I read. I did get the impression with the first book of the trilogy, that he had too many people calling him a genius by the time he wrote it, so he forgot about entertaining readers.
Ain't that the thing about powers? They have to be super. If everyone else can have them, they aren't special and ego-justifying.
Lightning's spelled wrong.
Zeus has it right - I suspect many of us have superpowers, but because they are ours we tend not to think of them as super. Certainly the ability to get things off of high shelves seems like a superpower to me, at only a bit over 5 feet. (So is the ability to get the lid off of jars, for that matter. And opening DVD packaging.)
I think I have two main superpowers - one pretty common, one not so much. First, I have fairly generic "upper middle class white woman" superpowers. This consists of a psychic ability to persuade shop clerks, waiters, etc., to attend to me promptly and politely. A useful superpower, no doubt, but pretty common. (Well, not that common, otherwise it wouldn't be a superpower.) It also enables me to pass by construction sites and bars without molestation, because I cloud the minds of potential wolf-whistlers with thoughts of their mothers and appear overall too respectable (of course it's the superpower, and not that they don't think I'm hot!).
The other superpower is more fun - I have the ability to make most strangers on the street smile. No, it isn't because of my ears. This superpower is exercised by ... smiling at people and nodding acknowledgement of their existence when passing casually on the street. I've honed this power to a fine edge over nearly 20 years in the hostile environment of NYC, where it seems very rare indeed. So I am pleased to have a superpower that I can daily use for the forces of good.
My husband, on the other hand, has the makings of a supervillain - he emits some baby pheromone that makes small children adore him, which gives him the ability to wind up little kids and get them entirely overexicted just by looking at them across crowded rooms.
Megan, I am sure that you, too, have superpowers, if you only realized it.
Interesting. Wonder if they could use those things to harvest electricity. Or would that just fry out any kind of battery they set up for it?
Mouse,
Hmmmm.... sounds like a feast to me.
Now, all we need are some sharks, and then we'd have sharks with frickin' lightning-summoning "lasers". Awesome.
Everyone should definitely check out "Soon I will be Invincible". Definitely worth the read and a lot of fun.
I guess now is the time for the old question: would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?
Personally, I'd rather fly, especially with gas at $3.89/gal.
aCatforallSeasons wrote: Mouse, Hmmmm.... sounds like a feast to me.
My people have learned how to safely operate the electric can opener, and have further perfected the art of ordering albacore over the Internet. Be careful what (or whom) you snack on, or we won't share.