Tracking both Web articles and print publications of interest to futurists is just one of the things Plausible Futures does beautifully—visitors can catch the buzz on Rudy Rucker's new SF novel, Postsingular, or scan a review of the most recent issue of Futurist Magazine. Meanwhile, a video interview in a recent post discusses the possibility that Earth and everything it contains is merely a highly sophisticated simulation. This philosophical question has been kicking around at least since the time of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but it has gained cachet recently in the era of The Matrix, World of Warcraft and The Sims.

The interaction between technology and politics is examined closely in Plausible Futures' articles on privacy, information warfare and emerging medicines. Other entries look at the global economy, military inventions, out-of-body experiences and even a host of Existential Threats, such as the hypothetical risks posed by nanotech devices that haven't been invented yet and the number of possible starvation victims in the event of a nuclear exchange in South Asia.

Science fiction—particularly hard SF—has come under fire in recent years from those who feel the genre has become too concerned with the present, that in a world already filled with marvelous gadgets, writers are failing to imagine vivid, wild and yet credible futures for humankind. Within that context, a site like Plausible Futures serves as a source of inspiration, not only to authors looking for the meat of their next story, but for anyone who wants to kick back and imagine what life might be like in another decade, century or even millennium.