And now for something entirely different

About a decade ago -- when nanotechnology was entering the common vocabulary -- I read an SF book called Bloom (quite a good novel, actually), and then forgot all about it.

Much later, I read a feature article in some magazine, about how nano is being used in PAINT and COSMETICS these days; how the damned things, being so itsy-bitsy, can and do get right through the barrier of your skin and ... golly only knows what they're going to do to odd items like your heart, your liver. Your brain.

Well, far be it from me to be a doomsayer and a disaster monger. Heaven only knows, the worlds of NARC and Hellgate aren't likely to come to pass without nano. Turns out, we need those little guys.

Still, it makes you wonder -- when you know that the very cells of our bodies are turning to plastic. And then (all the while wondering) you stumble over a video like this:



Like I said, makes you wonder! And I think I'm going to pull our Will McCarth's SF novel, Bloom, and read it again. Last time I read it, I was on a plane halfway between Anchorage, Alaska and Tokyo. (I remember, I was also reading William Gibson's The Difference Engine -- that one, I finished while lying flat on my back in a departure lounge at Narita Airport.)

And I think ... just maybe ... I feel a novel idea coming on!

So, when someone asks you, "Where do you get your ideas from?" Well, blame the nano -- in all probability, your brain is already full of them. Like mine.

Bizarre concept, isn't it?