I bloody hate this cartoon that's doing the rounds (I think it's by the incredibly talented Len in Private Eye). Here's what I want the caption to say: OK, one more time: Get here at least 30 minutes early because the queue barely moves and you'll inevitably be stuck behind someone trying to pay for […]
A few years ago, I got rid of all my paper books and switched exclusively to eBooks. Whenever I tell bibliophiles1 this, they usually shriek in horror. What about the smell of books2?!!? What about showing off your bookcases to impress people3!?!? What about your signed first editions4!??!?! But the other day I had someone…
It's 2026. The Fediverse is tens of thousands of instances, but they don't federate with each other because every single one of them is on a blocklist. Either the one now built into Mastodon, the one created to block the instances using the built-in blocklist because screw those guys, or the "free speech" one built to block both since neither of them are in favor of "free" speech. It's normal, now, to see many Mastodon users having multiple accounts on multiple instances. All talk of politics, religion, and sex is banned on almost all instances participating in a blocklist. Who knows what will start another FediWar, and get that instance attacked by the other side, with denial of service attacks, or swat teams, or anything else to destroy. For talk of politics and such, people now go to BlueSky, or the new Element features for forums. Oh, Matrix is just called Element now because that's basically the only client that works with Matrix version 450.5. Mastodon clients now have a "check in" feature, where you can check up on your friends, or enemies, on other instances. It just takes a username, and pulls an RSS feed from the other person's instance. There's even a "take screenshot" button beside each post, so you can paste it into Discord, or Element, with your friends and gossip about it. There's talk of a mythical server that doesn't have a block list, but FediExplorers still haven't found it.
But the fediverse is now cold, and spiteful, and angry. And alone. Because no one can live among others. No one understands anyone else anymore. It started out so small, and with the best of intentions. And now, for better or worse, social media is broken.
📌 Industrial robots today are programmed to perform specific and repetitive tasks, which limits their versatility; to make them perform different actions, they need to be reprogrammed by a person.
I believe the most important phrase in science in coming decades will be "ontological shock." Our approach to scientific advancement thus far has largely focused on observing matter and energy at micro and macro scales, but it is clear that observation alone does not explain the behavior of said matter and energy.
In quantum mechanics, we see we do not understand the behavior of the tiniest constituents of matter.
In our observation if distant galaxies, we see we don't understand the nature of matter on a macro scale (ie: socalled "dark matter).
We have reached our limit of understanding by looking only at matter as a physical phenomenon, and we are on the brink of a new paradigm that will upheave everything we thought we knew.
This will overhaul our understanding of the nature of spacetime, quantum fields, and consciousness, through a "nonlocal" lens.
Check out this long-haul transport truck that traveled 1,000 km on a single fill of liquid hydrogen.
Nice to see that green hydrogen was used here. It sounds like the bottleneck to making fuel-cell trucks more mainstream in the long-haul industry is the lack of availability of green hydrogen. There have been a bunch of stories lately about green hydrogen plants starting up – I wonder if/how the industry will grow to meet demand?
After three long years of struggling with the book and analyzing it I finally put my thoughts into a coherent blogpost. I never expected the Ministry to be #solarpunk , but I hoped that it will paint a future to look forward to.
Consider this:
When the U.S. Constitution was drafted human beings were entirely capable of comprehensively understanding nearly every aspect of how the world around them worked.
How to grow food. Run a business. Understand emerging topics in science, math, philosophy and the arts. The optimism running through the renaissance thinkers is not surprising.
The drafters of the Constitution were masters of their world (to often unfortunately include slaves). They were confident in their direction moving into the future because they could predict the future --- based on their comprehensive knowledge of their present.
AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES STROSS, Hugo and Locus and Prometheus Award winning author and science-fiction visionary. We grill him about the future of our world! His perspective is very distinctive indeed. Don't miss out.
Scientists at the DOE/Argonne National Laboratory say they've developed a new method for recycling high-density polyethylene (HDPE) into a fully recyclable and potentially biodegradable material that can be recycled repeatedly without loss of quality.
Over 25 years in #IT has taught me one thing: the human-computer interface is fundamentally flawed. Our brains don’t process information the way #computers do - leading to wasted time, frustrated users, and people scared of #technology.
I found a really interesting piece by Jason Yuan where he offers one possible solution: a concept he calls #MercuryOS that focuses on INTENTIONS instead of applications.
NGL, it hurts my brain, but it could be the #future.
I prepared #food for the weekend and next week, so it's easier to eat properly when everything is ready. This is my #goal in the #future as well. I even bought these little boxes for this purpose. They don't take up much space in the freezer. #cooking#healthyliving#suomimastodon#finland Mäisky ruusukaalit (in #Finnish) are cooked Brussels sprouts that are flattened with a drinking glass and seasoned well and then fried in the oven until they are crispy.
They say if you sell your crafts, post about them. OK.
I love the future - the future of the 1970s, not what we got. TLDR - I created light props to resemble the blinking computers of 1970s scifi futuristic movies. I sell them as kits on Etsy; all you do is solder the LEDs to the board.
The slow-flashing LEDs drift out of sync and make patterns that fool your brain that something deeper is going on. This is the bigger one, the Super-Computron 4500.
Let's do a little thought experiment and have a look into the very far(?) future.
Shall we?
It is obvious that at some point in time humanity will cease to exist. Latest, when the last star runs out of hydrogen, it's over, but I guess, it will be far sooner. So: At one moment, there will be the very last human being.
What do you think? When will it be? In a 1000, a million or in a billion years?
Timeline of the far future (en.wikipedia.org)
I discovered this Wikipedia entry a week ago. I've been reading it once a day since then. It's extremely fascinating.
Kbin Foundation when?
When will there be a Kbin Foundation that:...