It’s a recession. The housing market is tough, the job market is worse, and the country is so sharply divided we’ll be lucky if anything useful happens in Washington D.C. in the next two years. Whole economies are backpedaling into austerity programs. This does not feel like a ride up the steep right-hand curve of the emerging technological singularity. But I think that’s where we are – in that place of so much change we can barely keep up, and in a time when many people are falling so far behind that they will never catch up. Continue reading The Future is Now: the Recession and the Steep Upward Slope
Tag Archives: Brenda Cooper
The Universe of 3D Possibility
Don’t forget that for the rest of this year, I’m revisiting topics, updating research, and chatting about possibilities. I hope you’ll add to the discussion. So, here goes:
There’s been a lot of 3D print in the news lately. There’s some cool things that are now easy to do – you can upload your designs at i.materialise.com (although I have to say, the “i” in front of EVERYTHING is as bad as the “.COM” behind every business’s name just before the .com bubble bursting. But I digress. i.materialise is catchy. I’m personally waiting for i.teleport). After you upload and pay, your new object is printed and mailed to you. You can drop by Shapeways.com for the same service. If you don’t feel like making your own designs, you can buy them from other people. I like the math art piece Interlocked Moebius.
So that’s how I decided to re-visit 3D printing – just in time for Christmas if you start planning now! I bet you could be the first in your family to design a Christmas ornament and have it printed. I might even have to try that this year… if I can find time. It sounds like math is involved. Continue reading The Universe of 3D Possibility
Camels and Bulls and Bar Talk: cloning revisited
Two-million-dollar cloned camels running races in the desert with robot riders. Makes you think of a science fiction story, huh? But that’s happening now. In an early version of this column, I wrote about the world’s first cloned camel, Injaz. I thought I’d check up on Injaz, and I learned about the world’s second cloned camel, and the hope that Bin Soughan will be a racing sensation (see the Al Jazeera YouTube video on cloned camels for more of the story).
In case camels weren’t enough, we now have a cloned fighting bull. At the risk of observing the obvious, cloned racing camels and cloned fighting bulls are all pretty masculine activities. This feels like cloning for profit and prowess rather than to make the world better. I mean, what will we be cloning next at this rate? Quarterbacks? David Beckham?
So that’s how I decided to re-visit cloning for this month’s column. Continue reading Camels and Bulls and Bar Talk: cloning revisited
Riding the Wire: Space Elevators
The 2010 space elevator conference is coming soon to Microsoft. It turns out there is also a space elevator event coming to The Seattle Library (on getting a space elevator to the moon). Coincidence? Probably not. But it got me researching, and thinking I might just see a wire to orbit in my lifetime. Continue reading Riding the Wire: Space Elevators
A Most Fundamental Substance: Oil and Oceans
Every month, I spend about a week with an ear to the news, specifically sifting for ideas for this column. I like to plan around something that resonates with me. This month, I’m sick at heart about the catastrophic oil spill. It feels like death. But there are already a lot of people writing about it. Besides, it would make me sad to research it extensively. So I turned my attention to the oceans in general. I was surprised to find out how much they feel the same as the oil spill. But I’m going to write about them anyway. I normally hope you’ll enjoy my column, but in this case, I think I just hope you read it. It’s tough to feel enjoy news about our oceans right now. Continue reading A Most Fundamental Substance: Oil and Oceans