Pondering the greening September 30, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Energy efficiency, Life, Science, Superfluous musings, Technology.add a comment
The greening of the workplace has made us lazier about business attire. We’ve turned into telecasters – put on jeans and a suite/tie top so when you’re on a teleconference you look professional from the waste up, all that people see. But will this change when employers put teleconferencing cacpabilities at each workstation, not just in conference rooms? In some cases polycoms and the ubiquitous communication tool which really encourage casual dress, but what about the time when those will be replaced by the next generation, a tele-audio device?
Some analysts predict greenhouse gas emission reductions as high as 60- or even 80 percent by 2050. Indeed, there has been a lot of hype about the 2010 and 2020 goals, but imagining ahead a few decades, will the sci-fi movies predict it all well – clean, green new planets humans will colonize…? Do we need to learn the hard way and destroy Earth before we become better stuarts of future worlds and finally manage to keep our home planets pristine and healthy?
Technology in the next 40 years August 28, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in New Media, Science, Technology.add a comment
I was working at the Intel Developer Forum last week and by the last day I was fairly tired. I didn’t have to be up until 10 a.m. and could have possibly slept in until 11. Instead, I was awake at 7 a.m. and out the door in time to see the final keynote. You can see it here for yousrelf.
There were a few things in particular that struck me – beside the incredible demos about the steps taken today toward the Cingularity (the point in time when artificail intelligence will surpass human intelligence). You should see the vide just for the cool robots that can “see” an apple in front of them and grasp it firmly, yet gently and hand it over to another preson; for the cognitive computer control demo of a video game; for the smart radios that could sense the free wavelengths around them and cell phones that can find a signal by hopping to other wirless devices even if their tower is down; for the nanocomputers (Catoms) of the future – tiny robots that will allow for 3D models and even a shape-and-appearance changing mobile devices. But what I thought was even cooler is the practical applications that each Ph.D. student, reseracher, or Intel intern discussed after their demo. Justin Rattner asked each person how they would make their project a viable, useful part of everyday life or medical research. Fareed Zakaria identifies this practicality as one of the United States’ greatest enduring strengths. Other countries are conducting fantastic research as well, but it is a uniquely U.S. trait to immediately and successfully turn a new idea into a product applicable to real life. It’s taking this vital step that separates the United States still, but it should also continue to stress educaiton in general and the sciences in particular, if it is to stay competitive in the global economy of today.
Another uplifting observation I jotted down was that several of the featured researchers were of minority background and even more of them had recognizable accents. This is another point in Zakaria’s book “The Post-American World” – the United States still attracts the brightest minds from around the globe. But again, the country needs to work harder today to keep this level of technological advancement and attractiveness for the emerging scholars of tomorrow.
How green are new energy-efficient fuels? March 2, 2008
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Energy efficiency, Food, Life, Science.add a comment
Recently CNN had a special on green energy and how it wasn’t so green after all – exploring its impact on agriculture and the fact that it exacerbates the worldwide food shortage, burns up coal and oil in the process of its production (for the tractors farmers drive to raise the corn and other crops that make alternative fuels). Can’t find that one but I did read a similar message article in The Economist… it’s interesting and it makes you think. Should we be a little more thoughtful, slower in deploying massive experiments, etc. – i.e. how do we know that the mounds of “alternative” fuels we are coming up with are not in fact worse and less energy-efficient than the very ones we are trying to replace?
Are there just so many prototypes? November 20, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Gibberish, Life, Psyche, Science, Superfluous musings.2 comments
Living in cities that are populous enough that I see new faces every day, I’ve observed something interesting all my life. It’s probably a phenomenon others’ share as well. The experience is something like this: you notice that everyone around you – all the strangers – map quite well onto other people you know. I am talking about appearances only, here, not personality or anything deeper than that. But almost anyone I see and meet looks like someone else and has similar mannerisms… you can sort of see what “kind” of person you are resting your gaze upon. It’s rather odd. I’ve met my share of “doubles” – someone who looks exactly like your best friend but lives half a world around and doesn’t speak the same language. 
So, lately, I’ve been wondering if there are only a limited number of human prototypes, so to speak. And if everyone is essentially a print that belongs to a particular “kind” of person, then could you line up all the people in the world, according to similarities in features, body type and mannerisms? And if so, could you observe a continuance? And maybe you would see that people, all people, are alike because you’ll have an endless string of people who look similar to each other and the features gradually blend in with next string of prototypes and so on until all people around the world could be connected in a blend of sorts. I’m having a hard time explaining this. Let’s see… it’s like that Michael Jackson video (5:27). There.
When the world, and everything, ends November 18, 2007
Posted by midnightzimadreams in Life, Science.add a comment
What happens when the world, and everything, ends? I mean, everything as we know it. Scientists tell us the sun will be around for much, much longer… humans will be extinct by the time our star is extinguished. But that’s nothing compared to the time it will take for all stars’ light to burn out and for the universe to collapse back on itself. Well, I wonder what our planet will be like, what life on it will be like, when the light in the center of our solar system goes out. They always say there are plenty of generations still to come before that event happens. Will we as species be gone long before our planet sleeps in darkness and cold for the lack of sunlight beams? Or will we adapt to the dwindling sun and survive closer to its own demise? Will we leave Earth and establish colonies elsewhere? If so, what will “we” look like there, how will we change – physically, psychologically, spiritually? It’s odd because despite all of the science fiction our present lives are saturated with, I still have a hard time imagining the far future.
