Museum of the Future 234
Magnavox writes "In Boulder, Colorado tonight there is going to be a rather unusual announcement about the DaVinci Institute's effort to create a Museum of Future Inventions. This will be a museum where they exhibit things that haven't been invented yet, like spray on clothing, instant sleep, genetically engineered Velcro sheep, and metric time. Pretty creative stuff.
Some of the people they have involved are Dr. Paul MacCready, inventor of the Gossamer Albatross and Paul Dusenbery, Founder of the Space Science Institute. This looks like serious competition for Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum."
Neat Idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Neat Idea (Score:2)
Museum of the future, eh? (Score:2)
I hope they can find space (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I hope they can find space (Score:2)
Metric time - been done (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Metric time - been done (Score:2)
But I know what the meant.... and of course, that has also already been tried already.
On the other hand.... velcro sheep. Yikes. That's a scary thought. Even scarier, now that it's been suggested, what are the bets that some mad scientist somewhere decides to try actually creating one?
Re:Metric time - been done (Score:2)
7 days and 12 months is also from out christian heritage (7 and 12 being the sums and products of 3 & 4 - ie. 3(heaven) and 4(earth)).
btw. Apparently they still have 360 day years in Ethiopia... so if you wanna party...
Duke Nukem Forever? (Score:5, Funny)
Even better than that... (Score:2)
Re:Duke Nukem Forever? (Score:2)
I call prior art! (Score:5, Funny)
and profit, of course.
Re:I call prior art! (Score:2)
Re:I call prior art! (Score:2)
Re:I call prior art! (Score:2)
Re:I call prior art! (Score:2)
Oblig. Simpsons' Quote (Score:4, Funny)
I thought... (Score:5, Informative)
Or at least it was at the time of this posting: 41.911 UMT.
Re:I thought... (Score:2, Interesting)
Now if you want to make 100 degrees in a circle then we can talk.
Degrees in a circle? (Score:4, Interesting)
But there are 2*pi radians in a circle, using proper units.
Shouldn't we make sure there are 2*pi hours in a day or something?
Re:Degrees in a circle? (Score:2)
Re:Degrees in a circle? (Score:2)
Re:At karmatic risk, a sig comment (Score:2)
Re:Degrees in a circle? (Score:2)
Why do we need to round it to a whole number? Mathematics has survived forever without doing that.
Midnight would be 0. Midday would be Pi. 9am in the morning on the old system would be 3Pi/4.
It's so simple it has to succeed!
You could denote years in the same format, as well. So all times and dates could be expressed purely in terms of the only thing we can really measure, which is how far around the planet has rotated. :-p
Re:Degrees in a circle? (Score:3, Informative)
Bravo.
Re:I thought... (Score:2)
I _love_ the new Battlestar Galactica (I hafta download it since it's only playing in the UK thus far), but I wish they'd stuck with some of the made-up words and games. They use minutes, and play poker. But they _do_ use the made-up curse words, which is great. And no daggits (yet)!
Re:I thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
Minutes of 100 metric seconds would be 2/3 longer than current ones, allowing more excuses to be made for being late to work/meetings: "I meant I would be there in 10 metric minutes", hours of 10000 seconds would be about 3x longer, and a typical earth day would be about 8.6 metric hours long. While not very usable while on the planet, in space travel you could expand that to 10 metric hours per "day" (27.8 normal hours).
Just my thoughts..
Tm
Re:I thought... (Score:3, Interesting)
'exactly 9,192,631,770 oscillations or cycles of the cesium atom's resonant frequency'
I am not sure I want the 'second' to be the standard increment of time.
Remember, we use the second because we have divided the clock first into 12 hours, (12 day, and 12 night when the sun casts no shadow) then divided each hour into 60 increments called minutes, followed by another 60 increments of those called Minutes. The last two breakdowns were based upon the fac
how about 2^29 oscillations (Score:2)
Re:I thought... (Score:3, Informative)
In fact, you should ask yourself 'why 12 and 30' rather than 'why 60'. 12 and 30 come up directly from the lunar cycle -- roughly 12 lunations in a year, roughly 30 days in a lunation. It was natural to divide the days into 12 again (hours), and to divide these into 30. This is what the Babylonians did. 60 is the least common multiple of 12 and 30
Re:I thought... (Score:2)
Re:I thought... (Score:2)
Re:I thought... (Score:2)
"In the future, Christ will return for his second coming. To facilitate his travel around the world while still seeming personable, he will travel on a pogo stick that can hop on water."
Hey... it's less cartoony than half the ideas they have on there. Portable holes? Tunnels straight through the Earth? Give me a break
Re:I thought... (Score:2)
Base 10 bad idea? (Score:2)
Another group (apparently either much more intelligent or endowed with an extra diget) noticed that 12 was a Very Nice Number. Where 10 is divisible by 1, 2, and 5 (Making those numbers very easy to use) it really had no other easy to use numbers. 12 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4
Re:Base 10 bad idea? (Score:2)
As I understand it . . .
You clearly don't understand much. There is nothing particular smart or stupid about a particular number base; rather it's a question of utility. The utility of base 12 in having a number of factors is only for systems limited to integer math with small numbers. In that respect, it is the "stupid" choice.
Anyway, a base 10 clock would be lousy. The quarter hours are gone, the only division is the half hour. You also lose the rarely used ability to divide the hour into third
Re:Base 10 bad idea? (Score:2)
Isn't the whole point of metric to make simple calculations easier? Wouldn't base 12 have helped that?
I think the answer is "no" on both counts. The two main advantages of metric (i.e., SI units as derived from cgs) that I can easily point to is that it 1) standardizes relationships between different units and 2) uses a common notation for orders of magnitude. I don't see how base is a particularly important factor in that.
Where I live we've got an 8.3 percent sales tax...which is almost exactly
metric time already failed (Score:2, Funny)
Re:metric time already failed (Score:2)
Hey! At least Esperanto was in Gattaca!!!
Re:metric time already failed (Score:2)
Negative calories (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Negative calories (Score:2)
Re:Negative calories (Score:2)
Re:WOW! == Negative calories (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure that was the PR spin of a pretty rabid anti genetically-modified-foods group. Some people did have poor reaction, but IIRC, it wasn't much worse than standard potato chips.
Prior Art? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Prior Art? (Score:2)
It would be ridiculously easy to write claims for those exhibits while disqualifying them as suitable prior art. That fact has to do with the level of "enablement" present in a fluff-journalism paragraph. The very basic concepts are taught, but throw in 5,000 details of implementation and you have yourself a completely different animal.
Innovation... (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe this museum ill bring back some of the creativity that is so lacking in this current fed-everything-through-games-and-tv generation.
Re:Innovation... (Score:2)
You seem to think that we have some kind of competitive advantage for innovation. If we do, I don't know what it is.
Re:Innovation... (Score:2)
What we need is to export the litigiousness such that everyone is bogged down.
Spray On Clothing (Score:3, Informative)
And of course, there is even a japanese company selling spray on stockings [japantoday.com], so I wouldnt call it future technology. But I'd definitely like to see more of it.
Re:Spray On Clothing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Spray On Clothing (Score:2)
it'stoo late! [tronguy.net]
Re:Spray On Clothing (Score:2)
Now picture RMS with spray on clothes... hell, or spray on stockings. Still want to see it more? =)
Dot com ideas (Score:2)
This sounds like they are going to take all the ideas from the failed dot coms and set them up in a museum. I wonder if they can still get the smoke and mirror presentations to still work?
Velcro sheep? Is that so the hillbillies don't have to face the sheep over a cliff while they take care of business to get them to push backward?
Bahh, that's nothing! I get FutureFeedForward ! (Score:2)
Really!
FutureFeedForward [futurefeedforward.com].
Content-Free, Thanks to Epimenides (Score:2, Funny)
It's like the barber who shaves all and only those who never shave themselves...
It may not be "instantaneous"... (Score:2)
Re:It may not be "instantaneous"... (Score:2)
Yeah, and other than the nausea, diarrhea, amnesia, and possible heart attacks, there's hardly any down side to it!
As an insomniac, I find I'm better off just not sleeping as much. But then again, for some insomniacs it's better than no sleep at all...
Re:It may not be "instantaneous"... (Score:2)
Museum business plan (Score:2, Funny)
2. ???
3. PROFIT!!!
This is Old News (Score:5, Funny)
A little late (Score:3, Funny)
An inauspicious start...
Re:A little late (Score:2)
Outpost (Score:2)
here is the direct link to the picture (Score:2)
I wonder if they got permission to use it?
Epcot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Epcot (Score:2)
I don't know about you, but Epcot in California is the lamest, most retarded excuse for a place to give yourself nausea since the whole building is spinning without any way to visually orient yourself to what's really going on.
So, what do you get for your price of sickening nausea?
An entire sea of cheap PCs set up with dumb flash games for the kids that they can also get (coincidentally) by going to any of a number [addictinggames.com] of sites on the Intarweb.
I sincerely hope t
Re:Epcot (Score:2)
You feel like you're on a
Social inventions? (Score:2)
When playing Civilization, I prefer Corporate Republic (I guess, this is what we have in US now) to everything else, but am forced to switch to Virtual Democracy at the end, since C.R. is not suitable for too big an empire...
Not invented yet? (Score:4, Interesting)
Surely if they've described the item / concept then they have just 'invented' it.
At least that what the USPTO believes.
V.F.W. Military Exhibit (Score:2)
Metric time (Score:2)
This will be a museum where they exhibit things that haven't been invented yet, like... metric time.
There were ten hour pocketwatches a long time ago, if that's what you mean. They just never caught on.
Re:Metric time (Score:2)
Here we go: according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], decimal time was officially introduced in 1793 and one proposed metric time system was introduced in the 1990s. They most definately have been invented yet.
But surely if you can think of something, by its very definition it's been invented, you just don't have a working prototype...
Competition? (Score:3, Informative)
The Science Fiction Museum has much more realistic content.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Monorails? (Score:2)
Can someone please explain the attraction, I traveled in a few like Disney's and one in Las Colinas (Dallas) and I fail to see the benefit.
Re:Monorails? (Score:2)
Re:Monorails? (Score:2)
-require minimal space
-more attractive than elevated trains
-quieter
But mostly I think it's the same reason you always hear of jetpacks and flying cars: These were popular "future inventions" from the 50's, a monorail looks perfect in a painting of a "city of the future".
There doesn't seem too many "sexy" inventions that have any chance of becoming reality any time soon. Robots? Too complicated for general use, AI is very far away.
Re:Monorails? (Score:2)
I dunno about that. I imagine it is well within our capabilities to put a daily 1000-2000 calories, vitamins, carbs, and protein into something the size of a candy bar. To take it further, could a week's worth be so condensed into a package that resists digestion in stages for several days, essentially 150 hours of food in a tiny package? But really, apart from rations for soldiers, campers, survivialist nuts, and peopl
Largely Irrelavant (Score:4, Informative)
The uptake of the book is that even the "best of the best" forecasters are only right one prediction in nine. The record falls off sadly as you move away from that top tier.
So while hearing visionaries talk is fun and can be enlightening, they seldom represent anything likely to actually happen. After all, isn't Popular Science still telling us about how we'll drive personal aircraft instead of cars in a few years?
Re:Largely Irrelavant (Score:2)
Hmmm, isn't that itself a forecast prediction, with an 8/9 chance of being wrong?
That said, it's funny how much stuff that was predicted never came to pass and how much stuff came to pass that was never predicted. At least it ensures that our future, no matter how many sci-fi novels are written, will be surprising.
Re:Largely Irrelavant (Score:2)
Hmmm, isn't that itself a forecast prediction, with an 8/9 chance of being wrong?
Actually, it's not. It's a statistical analysis with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. You don't have to make any predictions of the future to figure out why jetpacks, smell-o-vision, and atomic generated electricity so plentiful it's too cheap to meter" didn't happen.
My comments on the ideas (Score:2)
The Movable Hole: Something that seems impossible. Plus, the solution would be for a really stupid mistake one did. Make sure you don't drill the hole in the wrong place in the first place.
Instant Sleep: Hypnosis could probably accomplish this.
Caffeinated Eye Drops: It's a problem in our society if we can't get a good night's sleep to offset this.
The Virtual Ceiling: Wouldn't work in smog filled cit
Re:My comments on the ideas (Score:2)
I see you haven't played the Multi-Dimensional Thief!
Daniel
instant sleep (Score:2, Funny)
I it something that comes in can form? Or do I have to stop playing for 5 minutes to pop a pill?
From what I hear, as long as it tastes better than 'instant' coffee, this *sleep* stuff might just be worth trying. But I gotta go, too many spawns to camp.
Velcro sheep? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Velcro sheep? (Score:2)
Re:Velcro sheep? (Score:2)
Re:Velcro sheep? (Score:2)
ROFL -- My hat is off to you. One hilarious word like this can dispel a whole week's worth of workplace misery. Thanks nizo, and thanks Slashdot.
- Tim
Already Obsolete? (Score:2)
Equipment is now obsolete before it's invented! So obsolete, in fact, that it's in a museum!
a tough race indeed (Score:2)
Yeah, I can't decide which one to poop on.
Doraemon's Pocket! (Score:2)
See some of his gadget at work here [dmd-sales.com] and here [dmd-sales.com].
Re:Instant sleep? (Score:2)
Re:Instant Sleep? (Score:2, Funny)
Ahh yes.
The Sniffling,
sneezing,
headache,
stuffy-nose,
take-it-in-bed-or-you'll-wake-up-on-the-bathroo
medicine.
Re:Instant Sleep? (Score:2)
Re:Metric time? (Score:2)
Re: genetically engineered Velcro sheep? (Score:2)
Re:A Nude Protest (Score:2)
Re:Looney Tunes (Score:2)
Re:now and then (Score:2, Informative)
wonderfull place called the Evoluon that had very that. [evoluon.org]
Inventions not yet invented, mostly real and some simulated but looking 100% real.
The fun part was that you could touch almost anything, sadly not including
the o-so-fantastic flexible-elastic LCD postcards that played a recorded audio and videomessage.
Still waiting for that one to arrive.
Anyways, its been lots of years since they closed now.
I guess its very expensive to maintain such a collection.
PS: a Evoluo [belgers.com]
Re:future inventions.... (Score:2)
well, maybe not for you....