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There are often times that I have read something in the paper that was so strange I knew a writer would never get away with putting it in a book. The reader would just not accept it.
If you are like I am then you have probably read a lot of strange fiction and you may doubt that there could be real things that are weirder.
The Google has lots of lists of such things and I am sure my readers do, too.
Consider that counterfeiters were caught a few years ago making and passing one dollar bills. Handy for use in laundry-mat machines to get coins, of course. Put that in a book and the editor would cross it out and mark it in bold letters as too unbelievable even to be funny.
My heart goes out to the 65 year old German lady who will have quadruplets this summer. She is happy about it. Put it in a fiction book and out comes the editor’s pen, I have no doubt.
Imagine huge icicles falling off buildings and piercing cars. How about fire-fighters who pour jet fuel instead of water on a fire in a training exercise. Snap goes the book as the reader says, “Too much!”
Think of all the diaries here on Daily Kos that begin with, “This is not from the Onion!”
As I read The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku I am reminded that what is coming in the future may also be a bridge too far for me. Useful robots who can go into dangerous places and rescue people would be wonderful, I admit, but there are other things that make me wince.
Pg. 99
For example, a construction worker might telepathically exploit a power source that energizes heavy machinery. Then a single worker might be able to build complex buildings and houses just by using the power of his mind. All the heavy lifting would be done by the power source, and the construction worker would resemble a conductor, able to orchestrate the motion of colossal cranes and powerful bulldozers through thought alone.
Part of me thinks that would be good, but then I wonder about how many people will be without jobs as result and I shudder.
Freeing up time for people who now work too many hours would be good, but taking jobs away is harsh. It has already happened in so many fields, of course. Our local bank closed this past week putting people out of work so I am sensitive about this.
Pg. 103
What happens when we can become a master of any discipline simply by downloading the file into our memory?
This is so tempting. If I could download Spanish, French, Italian, and Japanese, I would jump on the idea.
What about 3-D printing? I have read scifi stories where people just told a box what they wanted and got it. According to the wiki article, the price has come down dramatically since 2012 and depending on what the printer is used for might be less than $1000.
Wiki says: (This is an interesting article with pictures and I have only touched on a few things that are mentioned)
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
“Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did....Just as nobody could have predicted the impact of the steam engine in 1750—or the printing press in 1450, or the transistor in 1950—it is impossible to foresee the long-term impact of 3D printing. But the technology is coming, and it is likely to disrupt every field it touches.”
— The Economist, in a February 10, 2011 leader
3D printing (or additive manufacturing, AM) is any of various processes used to make a three-dimensional object. In 3D printing, additive processes are used, in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control. These objects can be of almost any shape or geometry, and are produced from a 3D model or other electronic data source. A 3D printer is a type of industrial robot.
… In distributed manufacturing, one study has found that 3D printing could become a mass market product enabling consumers to save money associated with purchasing common household objects. For example, instead of going to a store to buy an object made in a factory by injection molding (such as a measuring cup or a funnel), a person might instead print it at home from a downloaded 3D model…
Consumer use
… As the costs of 3D printers have come down they are becoming more appealing financially to use for self-manufacturing of personal products. In addition, 3D printing products at home may reduce the environmental impacts of manufacturing by reducing material use and distribution impacts.
In addition, several RecycleBots such as the commercialized Filastruder have been designed and fabricated to convert waste plastic, such as shampoo containers and milk jugs, into inexpensive RepRap filament. There is some evidence that using this approach of distributed recycling is better for the environment.
Food
Cornell Creative Machines Lab announced in 2012 that it was possible to produce customized food with 3D Hydrocolloid Printing. Additative manufacturing of food is currently being developed by squeezing out food, layer by layer, into three-dimensional objects. A large variety of foods are appropriate candidates, such as chocolate and candy, and flat foods such as crackers, pasta, and pizza.
Professor Leroy Cronin of Glasgow University proposed in a 2012 TED Talk that it was possible to use chemical inks to print medicine.
Bio-printing
In 2013, Chinese scientists began printing ears, livers and kidneys, with living tissue. Researchers in China have been able to successfully print human organs using specialised 3D bio printers that use living cells instead of plastic. Researchers at Hangzhou Dianzi University designed the "3D bio printer" dubbed the "Regenovo". Xu Mingen, Regenovo's developer, said that it takes the printer under an hour to produce either a mini liver sample or a four to five inch ear cartilage sample. Xu also predicted that fully functional printed organs may be possible within the next ten to twenty years. In the same year, researchers at the University of Hasselt, in Belgium had successfully printed a new jawbone for an 83-year-old Belgian woman.
Space
In September 2014, SpaceX delivered the first zero-gravity 3-D printer to the International Space Station (ISS). On December 19, 2014, NASA emailed CAD drawings for a socket wrench to astronauts aboard the ISS, who then printed the tool using its 3-D printer. Applications for space offer the ability to print broken parts or tools on-site, as opposed to using rockets to bring along pre-manufactured items for space missions to human colonies on the moon, Mars, or elsewhere. The European Space Agency plans to deliver its new Portable On-Board 3D Printer (POP3D for short) to the International Space Station by June 2015, making it the second 3D printer in space.
Environmental use
In Bahrain, large-scale 3D printing using a sandstone-like material has been used to create unique coral-shaped structures, which encourage coral polyps to colonise and regenerate damaged reefs. These structures have a much more natural shape than other structures used to create artificial reefs, and, unlike concrete, are neither acid nor alkaline with neutral pH.
Forbes investment pundits have predicted that 3D printing may lead to a resurgence of American Manufacturing, citing the small, creative companies that comprise the current industry landscape, and the lack of the necessary complex infrastructure in typical outsource markets.
List of emerging technologies
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Molecular nanotechnology
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Potential social impacts
Benefits
Nanotechnology (or molecular nanotechnology to refer more specifically to the goals discussed here) will let us continue the historical trends in manufacturing right up to the fundamental limits imposed by physical law. It will let us make remarkably powerful molecular computers. It will let us make materials over fifty times lighter than steel or aluminium alloy but with the same strength. We'll be able to make jets, rockets, cars or even chairs that, by today's standards, would be remarkably light, strong, and inexpensive. Molecular surgical tools, guided by molecular computers and injected into the blood stream could find and destroy cancer cells or invading bacteria, unclog arteries, or provide oxygen when the circulation is impaired.
Nanotechnology will replace our entire manufacturing base with a new, radically more precise, radically less expensive, and radically more flexible way of making products. The aim is not simply to replace today's computer chip making plants, but also to replace the assembly lines for cars, televisions, telephones, books, surgical tools, missiles, bookcases, airplanes, tractors, and all the rest. The objective is a pervasive change in manufacturing, a change that will leave virtually no product untouched. Economic progress and military readiness in the 21st Century will depend fundamentally on maintaining a competitive position in nanotechnology.
My grandma (1886-1970) went from the horse and buggy to the beginning of space exploration. I was born at the same time as the atom bomb was being built and what will I see before I die? Great things, yes, but will the world be able to change with the times?
I hope that books and movies about the future can help us.
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! Waking up.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...