World, Writing, Wealth discussion
The Lounge: Chat. Relax. Unwind.
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Future stuff
I believe we already have smart fridges that can do just that. As for household robots, I'd say give it a decade or more. The progress in that area is staggering, though they probably won't be in the form of geminoids as much as lots of smaller robots coordinated by a central AI.
Give another 20 or 30 years and robotics/AI will transform the nature of work and the economy in unprecedented and probably unpredictable ways. Politics and law will struggle to keep pace.
How many people really need a fridge that tells you when the use-by date has been reached? First, you can usually keep stuff longer so do you need visitors to see a fridge with all these alerts? Do You? Also, it takes away the feeling of actually going to the back of the fridge and marvelling at what is actually there :-)
Ian, you underestimate the capabilities of your smart fridge. Using the camera and a facial recognition feature it will be able to differentiate between the visitors. Thus, if you have a social security officer paying a visit in order to decide whether you need food stamps, the fridge will return with a red alert that it's been empty for 3 days already.
While if you have Jeff Bezos coming over for a lunch, it will relay containing lots of caviar and expensive spirits.
Lastly, for those insisting on keeping the overdue products, it might just blush a little, but otherwise adhere to a retro suit-:)
Nik, I suspect your smart fridge is a liar! If you can afford a smart fridge, how come you need food stamps? As it happens there are no such things anyway in NZ, and I can't see Bezos coming to lunch here, so that leaves, er, the ancient stuff at the back. Personally, I prefer not to have a continual reminder of that :-)
Ian wrote: "Nik, I suspect your smart fridge is a liar! ..."Some ppl here say: "It's not the guns, it's their owners", meaning the machinery is neutral, and it's how you program it: be absolutely candid or bend the truth a little bit -:)
Bank of America suggests these are gonna be future moonshot techs, which can encompass 6.4 trillion USD market (however with dollar depreciating it might not be as significant as it sounds :)):https://finance.yahoo.com/news/moonsh...
So, in which sphere are you gonna claim a share: immortality, flying taxis or maybe brain-computer interface?
None for me. I just don't know when to short.
How about hardcore Megaproject engineering?How to create an artificial magnetosphere for Mars
https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.06887
Provided you know when to get in and get out of the duds, the green tech is probably the place to invest now.
Intriguing link, J. My concern would be how to manage "using electromagnetic and plasma waves to drive a net current in the ring(s)".. If they didn't conduct this could be a bad one. As an aside, the option I picked in one of my novels was to put a high temperature superconducting magnet at the Mars-Sun L1 point. A few years after I published the ebook, NASA proposed the same thing :-)
Ian wrote: "How many people really need a fridge that tells you when the use-by date has been reached? First, you can usually keep stuff longer so do you need visitors to see a fridge with all these alerts? Do..."And those of us who are the average "Joes" are not going to pay $3,000 or more for a fridge. I can't even imagine the repair bills or extended warranty prices. If I was crazy enough to do so, mine would be empty, so no worries about the stuff in the back. That would also resolve my biggest dislike of the ones I have seen - glass doors to see what it is inside. I guess if I could afford the fridge, food, and maintenance, I could pay someone to clean it once a week?
This may be one of the defining moments for the future of the human race.DARPA FUNDED RESEARCHERS ACCIDENTALLY CREATE THE WORLD’S FIRST WARP BUBBLE
https://thedebrief.org/darpa-funded-r...
J. wrote: "This may be one of the defining moments for the future of the human race.DARPA FUNDED RESEARCHERS ACCIDENTALLY CREATE THE WORLD’S FIRST WARP BUBBLE
https://thedebrief.org/darpa-funded-r......"
This would be huge if it can scale up. The use of the word "Casimir" though makes me question the approach . The Casimir effect would operate well on the one micron sized particle, but it scales from memory, inversely to distance to the power of 4. (Memory may be wrong, but it does scale inversely to a power.)
So cool. Are you saying it wouldn't work, Ian? Or is it maybe just a first step toward something that would work?
If they have shown the concept works, Scout, that is huge. On the other hand, if they have shown it depends on the Casimir effect, even something a millimeter long could be too big to use it. We need more information.
Ok. Waiting for future developments, then. You know, sometimes I'm glad I won't be around too much longer because things seem to be falling apart and out of control -- then again, I'd like to be around for some scientific things that are really cool:-)
There have always been members of the older generation that bemoan their perception that the world of the present and future generations is slowly deterioritaing and that things are not nearly as wonderful as the Good Old Days.My personal opinion is that the world we experienced when young and in our prime only seems to have been in better shape because we were in better shape. The best thing about the Good Old Days is that, back then, I wasn't good and I wasn't old. For the record, I am now 74-years-old.
Come on, now, Jim. You're old enough to remember your parents telling you to go outside and play and come in when the streetlights came on, when the bad guys were put in jail and not released to go out and do it again the next day, when one income supported a family and when the environment was clean, when children grew up to be better off than their parents, when there was no social media. I could go on and on with examples of how life really was better in the good old days.
Scout wrote: "Come on, now, Jim. You're old enough to remember your parents telling you to go outside and play and come in when the streetlights came on, when the bad guys were put in jail and not released to go..."The time period in which a person grows up has little to do with how they are raised or mature. It is the parents' guidance and family life philosophy that most often determines how a generation turns out. I believe that the recollection of many older people that life was so much better, more fair, and wonderful in general when they were young is due more to self-delusion or memory loss than factual recollection.
My children all had chores to perform around the house. From the age of 14, all four had summer jobs to provide them with spending money and savings. Each paid their way through college (1 served 4 years active duty in the U.S. Air Force, 1 worked nights as a nurse assistant in a hospital to pay for her Registered Nurse title, and 1 worked nights as a night manager in a local restaurant while earning his degree). None had to take out loans or have me pay for their advanced education.
The criminal justice system in the past all too often administered justice only to the wealthy and well-connected while incarcerating the poorer classes to rediculously long sentences for minor legal infractions, many of which they were later proven to have been innocent.
The environment was much more polluted due to coal dust and factories polluting the atmosphere with noxious fumes in the inner-cities during the 1940's and 1950's than it is today. As soon as the stubborn deniers of the root causes of 'Global Warming' finally admit to the obvious, the environment will improve even more.
All four of my children are much better financially situatied than I was at their age.
Lately, it's "screen and gadget" childhood, as opposed to "outdoors" one previously. Each has drawbacks and advantages. Maybe modern kids don't know how to make a bonfire or which mushrooms are edible, but they'd be quick to find explanatory videos on youtube :)
Yes, but if you ever need to make a bonfire, you should be somewhere where access to youtube is not exactly practical. (We hope they are not making bonfires in their apartments!) The other point is that there is a real difference between learning practically how to do something and watching a video.
Ian wrote: "Yes, but if you ever need to make a bonfire, you should be somewhere where access to youtube is not exactly practical...."If not yet, soon you'll have all forests covered by 4, 5, 6 G cellular. A little later you might not have forests
Ha, but with the response to global warming forests are being replanted and encouraged :-) Of course you will be forbidden to light fires in them.
1.) The main reason for the declining upward mobility of successive generations, since the Boomers, happened in August of 1971. Nixon even claimed that was in the interests of American workers.https://youtu.be/4-cB1Z9qceI
2.) YouTube can be an incredibly valuable source for tutorials on many things. The problem is winnowing the wheat from the chaff.
3.) I will stipulate that many people have been disadvantaged in life by parents who never taught them basic skills, like proper dinner etiquette.
Jim wrote: "Scout wrote: "Come on, now, Jim. You're old enough to remember your parents telling you to go outside and play and come in when the streetlights came on, when the bad guys were put in jail and not ..."Jim, responding with your own family situation doesn't really address the things I cited. Children being safe outside without supervision; criminals staying in jail instead of being released same day; one income comfortably supporting a family; pollution not having a big impact because the population was smaller; children having a better life than their parents instead of having to move back in with their parents; no social media to influence and distract from real life. Want to specifically address these ways in which the good old days were really good?
Scout wrote: "Jim wrote: "Scout wrote: "Come on, now, Jim. You're old enough to remember your parents telling you to go outside and play and come in when the streetlights came on, when the bad guys were put in j..."Scout,
The personal information described in message 22 merely cites the end results and rewards of responsible parenting and upbringing. My family's personal experience is just one example of the vast majority of situations experienced by families that make an effort to pass on self-discipine, good behavior, mutual caring, empathy, a strong work ethic, and love shared and displayed by the majority of families since time immemorial.
Too many try very hard to ignore the fact that The Good Old Days included slavery, legal racial segregation, often ignored both physical and mental child and spousal abuse, socially accepted dual standards and, sometimes, even misogyny within the workplace and social organizations, class distinctions, and dual standards pertaining to one's social, religious and/or cultural philosophies.
Every generation experiences good, bad, happy, sad, interesting, wonderful, terrible, and boring times. Unfortunatetely, too many older people reminisce solely about the positive experiences and minimize, ignore, or even deny the existence of the negative aspects experienced during their lifetime.
One cannot truly appreciate or even recoginze happiness unless they have been sad, companionship unless they have experienced loneliness, or good health unless they have been ill or incapacitated.
One may choose to dwell in the past or participate actively and enjoy the present while laying the groundwork for the future.
My children are way better off than I was financially at their age and they also were able to obtain degrees that I couldn't. Yes, student loans and the eventual payment will catch up to them, but I didn't even have the access to the amount of grants and loans they do.I agree that much has to do with what we teach our children. My father taught me responsibility but he did not teach me independence. My chilidren were taught both.
As a woman, I certainly have more rights and better equality now than when I was a teen and young adult in the 1970s. I can buy a car without my daddy co-signing the loan! I can get birth control without my husband's approval!
Personally, I would rather have the technology that makes my life easier than to go back to the card catalog system and microfiche days. My children being able to use that technology matters. My daughter's master from John Hopkins is something to do with technology in education. As children, they had to earn that game boy and eventually a computer - which was part of chores and teaching responsibility.
I believe that despite the costs, newer cars are safer. I like that my kids can call me whenever and it's not plan on a long distance call on holidays or when rates are lower.
Yes, I admit that as I get older there are moments where I say I remember when ... but I wouldn't trade now for then.
I don't understand why Scout thinks we have less criminals in prison. We have the highest percentage of population incarcerated in the world with over 2 million in jails, prisons, lockup of some type. Per the Bureau of Justice, in the 25 years since the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, the incarcerated population rose from around 300,000 to more than two million, Recently, there has been a release of more inmates due to changes in some drug laws (depends on the State) as well as the federal laws, along with covid causing issues that resulted in release in some places. The statistics indicate violent and property crime are down. You might find this article interesting.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...
I'm not saying that the good old days were perfect. Of course not. But I'd wish for our children to live in a safer, simpler atmosphere than we have today. I find myself these days being glad that I'm not going to be around in 20 years, and worrying about the world my grandson will face. I don't think people felt that way when I was growing up, so in that sense they were good days. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
Who do you think you're watching?https://youtu.be/nwOywe7xLhs
How it was done:
https://youtu.be/p7-B8S734T4
Yeah, with the deep fake our favorite characters like Joe Biden can live forever :)
I can't joke about this. If you watch the videos, you see how fake ones can look real. It's a hell of a world now, one in which you can't believe what you see. Everything is f****ed up in the real world. How much more can we take until we want to escape into virtual reality?
Scout wrote: "....How much more can we take until we want to escape into virtual reality? ..."When we do, they'll be ready :)
Koenigsegg's Tiny Electric Motor Makes 335 HP and 443 Lb-Ft of Torquehttps://autos.yahoo.com/koenigseggs-t...
There is a part of me that wants to put it in a motorcycle for drag racing.
It's incredibly anecdotal, but...T-cell immunotherapy tied to 10-year remission in two leukemia patients, study finds
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/02/health...
Sounds great, but this isn't a scientific study. Sounds more anecdotal.
Just read about "smart windows" and electrochromic glass to preserve the view but to prevent heating: https://www.explainthatstuff.com/elec...
Dear Nik,why would u want to prevent heating with smart windows. what is electrochromic glass to preserve the view but to prevent heating? Is it so the windows don't melt from a nuclear warhead space blast battle star galactic break down ? What's ur nuclear base ccloacking devoice and look like ??
I'm all for making my life easier, but not for adding a layer of complication to it. I know a few doctors who say that a lot of the e-charting programs are a nightmare and that they don't allow for nuance or certain phrases or conditions that might record the most accurate diagnosis. I have no desire to have anything that's "smart." I'm smart. I don't need to be talking to my appliances.
The only thing I might go for would be a driverless car - it would be like having your own chauffeur.
Scout wrote: "Ok. Waiting for future developments, then. You know, sometimes I'm glad I won't be around too much longer because things seem to be falling apart and out of control -- then again, I'd like to be around for some scientific things that are really cool:-)"I suspect future things would only seem cool if you'd lived long enough to know what it was like without them. Otherwise, you'd grow up like us in an era of planes, cars, TVs, computers etc which seem completely normal to us.
But imagine what Henry VIII would think if you could show him around for a day (presuming he hadn't had you killed for being a demon)...
My father went to school on a horse, grew up on farm where they ploughed with horses and harvested with a scythe. I can use a scythe, but could not manage a team of horses. As a boy, if you wanted to phone you had to find a public telephone, insert coins, dial the operator and ask to be connected to a number, and hope the party line was not busy. No TVs, steam trains, so for me the world has changed a lot. People adapt, but I think the gap for Henry VIII would be too much.Having said that, I did write a novel about a Roman that was shifted into an advanced society, and hopefully made it plausible that he could adapt. But he was primed for the shift.
My dad wrote an autobiography for we family members when he was in his early 70s. He was about 10 years older than I am now. At that time I was in my 30s. Seeing the changes that have happened during my lifetime, I now appreciate what he was trying to say to us a whole lot more. Those who fought in WWII, who were young men and the women who supported them at home and on the field, from nursing to everyday putting a meal on the table - the world has changed astonishingly.
One of the sadder things in my life is I did not get the stories of my parents and their generation. I didn't want to pester them because In thought it might remind them they were going to die, but an awful lot of interesting stuff did die with them.
So, when will we see household robots cooking and serving the table? Or smart fridges showing on their digital fronts the expiry dates of the products inside?