When the article says something like "tidal generated" black hole, I start thinking of a little string of these MBH swishing up like a current in a pool. Walla! Cosmic string-like series of holes that generate more as they swish by! Sure, they die, complete their life cycle, whatever... but there's always more...

Now, I think _Earth_ needs a re-read...

I'm still waiting for sub-vocal computer inputs.

So it is that, in our version, the electrical meltdown in the LHC saved this universe? For a year...? Have we gotten to the point where because we got scientists saying they can see the swinging stars going around the black hole at galactic center and planets around other stars we think we know anything about physics??! I thought those theories just got a handle on the whole fractoidal, depends-what-scale-you're-at thing about physics down... Folks here post that 'it can't be dangerous, because we haven't seen them when we look out at the stars.' I keep thinking about those sage words: "Space is big... I mean, really big..." They're probably out there chewing on something. But to summon one up next to the only planet we've got is a bit scary.

Hey! Let me tell you a really cool thing! There's these fantastic things they put on bicycles now called gears. Okay, okay. Maybe you live in San Francisco or the mountains. But part of cycling is picking a route that might avoid a few of the nasty hills. If we're going to do a green revolution maybe we'll have to take the longer way round to the store...Maybe what really needs to be written is an article on how to use gears and brakes correctly.

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Horses? Are you serious? Are we going back to 1914 in your world? I believe I heard on TV that equine waste was the #1 problem in large cities of the past. Cities in Asia embraced the bicycle as "normal" locomotion, so should we.

PS: get out more for more "fitness" on your cycle. That "Mum" is seriously out-classing you hills or no hills, I wager.

I keep saying my next bike will be one of those freight hauler bicycle. It's a concept that I think serious bike people wanted for a long time but the bike builders didn't know what to do to bring it about. There was always a "I'd love to ride to the store but what do we do with the goods to get them back home? Better just take the car..." sort of thing going on. Maybe it isn't a stylin' Schwinn or Trek, but it's a get-things-done bike. http://rockthebike.com/cargo/mundo But, the downside is it isn't going to behave nicely going up a tiny radius stairway to get into an office or apartment. I'm stuck with my traditional cycle and a pair of panniers until some changes happen in my community.

The issue with bike commuting presently is having a home on roads that accept bicycles between home and work. When I lived in Chicago I was a serious bicycle commuter. Now I'm outside of Hilton Head, SC and there is no real chance of making a try at commuting. I sort of pictured the spike in gasoline prices would have brought round a greater number of people riding bicycles. It sort of happened on the island where you don't have to use the road the county is trying to keep calling a "highway," but not out where it's the only connector road between destinations. More than gas price will have to drive that sort of change.

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And I wish that those plexi go-mobiles would catch on. But I'd want some sort of mass grouping of them on the roads here to assure people know about them and won't smack into me. And down here in South Carolina, I'd like my boss to let me shower at the work end of the ride :) Don't know if that's ever going to happen.

While it's minimalist shape is improvement on the original It, and surely beats trying to get a bicycle up a stairway and into an apartment or office, I do wonder if it's really capable of hitting the market they want. I run a shipping department at work. Twenty-two pounds isn't exactly "light" over distance. Feel like hauling 22 lbs up a few flights of stairs? (Just picture it like the parents of school-age kids are concerned with backpacks of text books. I agree with the other post about strained shoulders.) Why pick it up at all? Disabled and weak people that need this kind of device sure would need aid to pick it up. Why can't it fold up into a rolling luggage sort of thing? Put those wheels to work moving it into the train station, bus, office building and home.

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But just the same way I don't see Segways at the Wal-mart, but do see the occasional Hover-round Chair, I don't think this is going to transform cities overnight :) It's got too much punch, needs acceptance from communities and the law, and has too large a price tag.

I guess my mom's flippant reaction to my saying there's only a few Shuttle missions left was right? She said there'd be more. In big-picture view, NASA has done okay with the Shuttle. They get their wake-ups and they scramble to show they're a responsive and responsible government agency. Admittedly, the pre and mid launch abort systems on Shuttle hasn't been tested "live" at a launch(and I hope it isn't ever,) but if they had to ditch the rocket portion during ascent they're in a better location attached to the side. You just got to hope the wings don't burn or break off and that the pilot is conscious and able to get his hands on the controls sometime before hitting the ocean. It would be interesting to poll what system the astronauts would like to use.

Those silly rockets haven't changed one bit!

The Segway tried to subtract walking from a human's day and it didn't take off at the price tag of $5000 a unit.

:)

The motor replaced the horse too directly in a lot of ways. Transportation was so stuck on dragging goods and people around, they take out the horse, plop in the motor in it's place. (And measure its work in terms of horse-power, to boot!) I don't think much got subtracted in the system. There wasn't a lot of rethinking of the system and as a result we've got the most inefficient cars.

Just as Jules Vern inspired a few things to come about. Would we have SCUBA and subs without him? It's just a bit sad that every science fiction movie and TV show does not get respect. If there was more shows for the young people to see now we'd continue to inspire some kids.

Star Trek didn't do too bad predicting stuff from the 60's. I think one thing Roddenberry's crew took for granted was that the computer would just 'be there' for our bridge crew. And that was 1963 when personal computing was still not really thought of. People still used slide rules and mechanical adding machines and cash registers. I think it's simply a trickle of stuff that makes it, like the article hints. Things with the lowest effort to adapting present tech to new methods will make it arrive faster than the more difficult ideas. Like food created on the fly and matter transporters. And methods for which people pay a premium to embrace will surface the quickest. Think computers, cell phones and Walkman's. A minority of people paid the sky-high prices for the originals and encouraged the knock-offs to drive the price down fast. If the power of the peoples' pocketbooks wasn't so free on "have to have" stuff we wouldn't have tiny cell phones and iPods.

Star Trek had quite a few pointed predictions:

1. flash memory cards. Back when your recording media had to move at the correct speed to recreate sound this appeared too impossible. This stuff is now down to the size of a thumbnail.

2. medical scanners. For sure this is what is MRI today. Or the further development of ultrasound. And it's getting to the size of the tri-corder sooner or later. The room you have to put the unit it gets smaller every year.

3. Tablet PC/Palm computers/PDA/Kindle. (When they had to show a pretty girl, she came around for a signature with a tablet.) Only they actually got more compact than depicted in the show.

4. communicator. The cell phone. (Okay so you don't have to be on an away-team to have one... But the perk of getting a Blackberry from your job used to be a big thing.)

Stuff that hasn't made it:

1. the hand held phasers. These hint at power storage to size greater than even the smallest battery can bring today. Plus we still don't have the kind that would stay cool in the hand as it unleashed its charge. Stunner tech is almost there but hasn't 'gone wireless' to the distance they could zap someone on the show. There's a level of energy storage we still haven't reached.

2. matter transport and creation. A single photon across a room is hardly a start on this making you a turkey sandwich on the fly.

3. space craft/shuttles to space. The X-prize was an ambitious try to getting money behind the effort. We're almost there. But I still suspect someone will 'take the skies' from those ambitious folks in the name of regulating space for the good of the earth governments and not smacking willy-nilly into existing equipment up there in orbit. (And with NASA turning back to rocket technology of the 1970's to continue heavy lifting to the ISS a sleek little space ship bus not going to come from them. The tried and true is cheap enough for government work.)

4. warp drive/small fission/small fusion. Of course, we're going to have to wait for small-scale fusion or the space race developed fuel-cell tech because there's a level of danger.

The technology might be ready to adapt to the 'next greatest thing' but the ease of use still hasn't eliminated the 'idiot factor' in the design and operation. Like the article's jet pack example. You're putting a fuel on a person and directing the jet past their body. Someone is going to make a mistake sometime. Presently, there isn't a company out there which wants to face the class action court case for burns and accidents. There's a level of risk that businesses no longer take. I think there's not a lot of individuals that want to take on that level of risk. Great strides forward might be sitting on shelves all over America because of this.

Newspapers are for my mom. Not really gone yet. People that need to feel they've brought news home with them love them still. Small communtity newspapers might hang on awhile. Now, she'd *love* an Internet with not just guardrails but tracks like some vast trolly you can never get off of and do bad things to her indentity and computer files. Once newspapers and TV reported that the Internet was scary and difficult to remain as unknown as someone picking a newspaper out of a newspaper box she ran for the hills... with her paper.

Sounds like he's still whining about not having product that sells. Nor listening to his people that tell him how to sell stuff in the enviroment specific of the Internet.

I think Seaquest DSV had a race of nuke-resistant soldier-slaves. The idea had appeal to TV writers back in the day. IIRC that TV show was around just about the time Chernobyl went poof!

I sort of vote for electricity distribution as changing the habits of humans the most. Once we broke the difficulty to do stuff after the sun set, all heck broke loose. (if we just could have remained "green" from the start...) I don't know that the Internet is up that high on my list of "greatest inventions." Sure it's nifty, but people like my mom want a fridge, running water, toilets, TV and air conditioning over computers and the ability to check news and weather radar instantly. After all there's radio and newspapers if you need news and the post office if you need to reach someone... She wouldn't cry about her computer not working, it's only for games and printing the letters going into the mail box after all (and she sounds a lot like this Sony guy about how useless the Internet is. She's never received an email in her whole life.) But dang, the moaning you hear if the AC is on the blink or, if the price of a newspaper goes up again.

I guess I'm a bit scared that we're going to come to our senses and realize the energy expense of the Internet and ATMs and cell phones and the like is what is really causing all our climate trouble. Is the Internet a pipe-dream like my mother thinks it is? I know I've read articles where people figured the energy to run data center computers and support stuff is awful in terms of watts and waste heat. But people also point to savings in not having as many emissions by the different things the Internet has streamlined the delivery of. Is it a net saving or expense? Is there a movement out there to downsize the Internet to save the planet? I think there's now a generation of people that can't cope without the Internet the way I freak out when the electricity goes out. What will we do then?

A panel with print and film whining about how their respective technologies are being phased out. I'm sure it was a little pity party. It's never good to whine and cry about that. Get up and invent something that works in the new situation. That's what younger "comic strip" artists did when they couldn't make a break into getting their strips into newspapers. They're now web comics creators and they network with each other on the best business models that are working out for them. I follow a few that are struggling with the methods of payment for their works and even they wrestle with the concept of getting their viewers to pay for their work, but at least they embraced the change in technology their art instructors scoffed at just a few years ago.

I think it's a new euphemism for an executive worrying about his business in a economy not seen for sixty years. I'm sure if Gates was examined he'd be in the same situation.