Saturday, July 03, 2004

Web-Slinging, Stepford Nano


Now that I'm a new dad again, I of course will not be going to see a movie for a little while. But, I've been told, popular cinema continues to weave the nano meme into our culture. This, of course, is my clever segue into "Spider-man 2," which Georgia Tech nano researcher Daniel Moore tells me contains more nanobabble as some sort of scientific explanation for a supervillain's supervillainous powers. I'll quote an excerpt from Moore's blog, but I'll wait until the neonanoluddites grab a pen to write this down and incorporate it in their next pseudoscientific diatribe against nanotechnology … Ready? OK:

    Doc Ock's mechanical arms are attached to his brain using nanowires which are real enough. Of course, something goes wrong with them, proving, once again, that nanobelts are a far superior material to nanowires. I mean, really, how many scientists need to be turned into psychopaths for us to finally realize that nanobelts are better than nanowires? More here.

I love it. Hilarious. But, Dan, you realize that the next anti-nano nanoramous Googling up a storm and looking for information to prove an already solidified point on the horrors of nano is going to grab the phrase, "Something goes wrong, proving that … scientists need to be turned into psychopaths," and it will end up quoted in the next ETC Group report sent off to Prince Charles and Jim Hightower.

Oh, and my daughter tells me that "nanochips" are the science mumbo jumbo inside "The Stepford Wives" remake. I found this review:

    stepfordThe problem with this film is that it could have been an absolute masterpiece... if they'd managed to figure out how they wanted to do the robot/brainwashed women. If you're paying attention during the film you'll eventually realize that the filmmakers obviously couldn't decide whether or not to go with robots, or with some sort of nano-tech engineered chips being implanted in the womens brains. My guess is that the nano-tech chips were what they decided on after shooting too many scenes with robot oriented material. More here

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