Futurist

There are 391 posts filed in Futurist (this is page 33 of 40).

Ways to solve our political mess

I’ve been pondering the crazy state we find ourselves regarding politics in this country. Getting elected today (particularly to a national office but local ones as well) comes down to two things:

1. Raising gobs of money
2. Getting your message out.

This tends to get politicians chasing the big donors (i.e. large corporations when aiming for Congress or higher) when they really should be responsive to their constituents instead. Lately we’ve seen how that’s working out, aren’t we?

It’s obvious that we need to do something about the money. So, why are gobs of money needed? To accomplish goal #2: to get your message out. Buying broadcast time is hugely expensive but it’s the quickest way of reaching voters. What if candidates didn’t have to raise money for broadcast time, though? What if air time was made freely available in the name of patriotism?
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Cheap thoughts: illumination

Dead CFL bulb


I began labeling my CFL bulbs with the date I put them into service. This one died today after just 18 months of use. Ordinary bulbs last far longer than this! Cheap (possibly counterfeit) electronics are to blame.

So if CFLs aren’t the answer, what is? When will LED bulbs be ready for prime time? Is there a future where we move beyond bulbs entirely? Are self-illuminated walls and ceilings in our future?

Americans saving more, spending less

I read this Associated Press story with interest Tuesday. It announces “troubling signs” for the economy.

WASHINGTON — Americans cut their spending in June for the first time in nearly two years after seeing their incomes grow by the smallest amount in nine months. The latest data offered a troubling sign for an economy that is adding few jobs and barely growing.

So, what are the “troubling signs (emphasis mine)?”

Consumer spending dropped 0.2 percent in June, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. It was the first decline since September 2009.

… and …

Incomes rose 0.1 percent, the smallest gain since September. Many people are also pocketing more of their paychecks. The personal savings rate rose to 5.4 percent of after-tax incomes, the highest level since August 2010.

So if the cloud is the state of our abysmal economy, the silver lining is that Americans are getting their own financial houses in order.

Roku magic

Roku

A week ago, I decided to dust off our Roku player. It had been spending most of its time umplugged because it competed for the only S-Video jack on our bedroom’s old TV. The Roku can kick out a 720p HD picture, though, and our HDTV has a ton of unused inputs so I ordered a new HDMI cable and hooked it up once it arrived. The Roku looks beautiful on the HDTV.

Yesterday, Netflix announced the company is hiking its prices by up to 60%. While I’m disappointed by Netflix’s move (and think BitTorrent traffic will undoubtedly rise as a result), having the Roku available means I have plenty other choices for Internet TV. Not only does the Roku play Netflix’s streaming, it carries dozens and dozens of other channels, both video and music.

Tonight I used a handy Javascript page to load up the Internet radio station I’ve been building so that it plays on my Roku’s Shoutcast channel. The Roku streams online radio stations very, very well. I like being able to fire up a station on the Roku, turn off the TV, and listen to the station on the stereo. Beats having a full-size computer doing it.

I’ll continue to tinker with the Roku. I’ve been pretty impressed with what it can do.

Space shuttle

This morning at 11:26 AM, space shuttle Atlantis may or may not make its final flight into space. This will be the last mission of NASA’s shuttle program.

I remember watching on TV as space shuttle Columbia made the very first shuttle launch back in 1981. Of course, I also saw a few rocket launches for things like Skylab and space probes like Voyager, but the shuttle program was different. It was touted as essentially a space bus: making spaceflight routine with a reusable vehicle.

It didn’t turn out that way, as the reusable aspect of the shuttle made it incredibly expensive. Shuttles turned out not to be as reliable as they were initially touted. I remember being in my high school’s library, watching video of Challenger exploding as my math teacher sat nearby, weeping. It was a cruel reminder that nothing about riding rockets would ever be routine. The flagship shuttle, Columbia, proved that when it disintegrated above Texas during landing in 2003.

If all goes well, Atlantis will make a safe trip to the International Space Station (ISS) and then roll its way into a museum. With it, a space program stretching into the early 1970s will come to an end. I’m not sure what comes next for American space exploration but I hope it continues in one shape or another.

Local blogs

I was searching through the MT.Net archives tonight, trying to find the name of the service that sorted blogs based on their location. Turns out I found it, or where it used to be, anyway: Local Feeds. It used GeoURL meta tags to mark your blog so that you could easily find blogs in your area. It was a pretty useful service when I first found it seven years ago.

Wow. That’s a long time.

Anyhow, Local Feeds is defunct now, which is a shame. The reason I love Facebook so much is because I like knowing what’s going on in the area. I check Twitter often, for the same reason. Problem with Twitter is that I don’t get enough depth from it. I guess the same applies to Facebook: there’s only so much that one can fit into a status update.

I would like to see someone revive the blog geotagging idea and provide folks with a location-based blog search. I think it would fill a gap that the status-update services just can’t provide. Anyone out there want to take this up?

Roomba’s “other shoe” drops

I’d been enjoying our Roomba robot vacuum again now that it has a fresh battery and its automatic schedule has been set. That all changed yesterday when the Roomba did it’s “wiggle walk” again, indicating that the only remaining wheel sensor has busted.

It has been over a year since the first wheel sensor failed and was hard-wired into place to extend Roomba’s life. Now it looks like I’ll be doing more soldering to patch Roomba up yet again. At least this time I know what to do, though!

Stealth helo

I remember being on base in Pensacola during my Navy training in 1988 and being astonished when two helicopters in the distance suddenly went completely silent. Now I wonder if I was watching some of these stealth helicopters.

The May 2 raid on Osama bin Laden’s luxury compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, had it all: painstaking intelligence-gathering, a heroic Navy SEAL assault team, satellite and drone surveillance, and biometric forensics.

And now this: a possible super-secret, stealthy helicopter, unknown to the wider world before one crashed during the assault.

via Aviation Geeks Scramble to ID bin Laden Raid’s Mystery Copter | Danger Room | Wired.com.

Fallen wires

The tornado that ripped through Raleigh a few weeks ago left much debris and heartbreak for its citizens. It also left a few downed telephone lines, one of which has been lying in the road near my home since the storm struck. I pondered how anyone could find it acceptable for their phone service to be out for over two weeks.

Then I hit upon the answer: no one has landlines anymore.

That copper lying in the street is likely “dead” copper, having long ago beed disconnected in favor of cellphone service or a VoIP connection. AT&T hasn’t been in a hurry to rehang that line because it’s not making any money from it. I wondered how much copper still hanging on those poles is still being used, and if local telephone companies are on a slow march to irrelevance.

Or maybe it’s a quick march.