Futurism
What makes a cryptocoin (or any currency) valuable?
Submitted by brad on Sun, 2022-11-13 15:55
Why is a Bitcoin valuable? While almost all concede that shared faith -- or what I would term "Brand" -- is a major component of all currencies, there has been much debate over whether there are more intrinsic values that can keep the currency or token valuable, or get multiplied by brand to even higher value.
Launching the Alef, a try fly-and-drive flying car
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2022-10-19 21:23Today I attended the launch of the Alef, a new e-VTOL vehicle that drives as well as flies. Most so-called flying cars don't actually drive, and there are reasons for this, but Alef thinks the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
I've been friends with Alef since 2018, though I have no stock, so here's my report on the issues in their design and launch.
Could AI art generators involve copyright violation?
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2022-09-19 11:29
Oh, the cases you'll know!
Intentional communities in European towns in decline
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2022-06-08 10:00You may have seen news coverage of various towns (mostly in Italy) that are selling houses for one Euro. There are even web sites to search for them.
This happens because many small towns face migration of their population to big cities. As population drops, houses get abandoned. These can become a blight on the city, possibly worsening its decline. To stop this, the cities seize the houses and give them away -- with some big catches.
Breaking Banks/Futurist Podcast on Keens and Stewards, Exploiting brain bugs and more
Submitted by brad on Sat, 2022-05-28 10:46I recently did an episode of the Breaking Banks/Futurist Podcast. We go over many topics, and I hope you will like it all, but in particular I delve into two topics I have yet to complete my writings on. The first is my model of the great tribal war between the Keens (future-loving, more secular, liberal) and the Stewards (Past defending, less secular) which the Keens will win but are being dicks about.
The NFT of the first tweet collapses in price. What does this tell us about what value NFTs have, if any?
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2022-04-13 23:49Elon Musk buys NFT of Will Smith's "Slap" for $832M (5.6B DOGE)
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2022-04-01 12:57Forget smart cities, you need to make your infrastructure stupid to survive the future
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2021-07-27 12:43The instinct of many transportation planners is to make "smart infrastructure," and to try to make plans for it going out 30 years. That's impossible, nobody knows what smart will mean in 5 years. The internet solve this problem, and grew by making the infrastructure as stupid as possible, and it revolutionized the world. The internet teaches lessons for how all infrastructure planning must go in the future -- keep the physical as simple as possible, do everything in the virtual, software layer.
NFTs are not just hype, they may be the essence of art sale
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2021-04-07 12:56
Huge buzz has arisen over NFTs -- non-fungible-tokens -- due to the purchase of a token representing a piece of digital art by "Beeple" for over $69 million. Is it a craze, or does it make sense?
Really remote school should continue, partially, forever
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2020-07-31 12:36Will Covid-19 sound the death knell for old school public transit?
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2020-04-28 12:17Nobody wins the GoFly Prize, but personal flight is coming
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2020-03-02 09:58This weekend I went to the finals of the GoFly prize, a Boeing sponsored contest for personal VTOL flying machines. Sadly, nobody was able to build one that could meet all the requirements in the rules, and only a few of the contestants could even fly. That was disappointing, but then so was the first Darpa Grand Challenge.
AIs will rule the world by unconsciously manipulating humans, not as robot overlords
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2019-06-05 11:48
New York congestion charging could be much more
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2019-05-28 10:57
Now that we can, what if we don't wipe out the disease-spreading mosquito?
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-02-22 11:42Flying Cars and National Parks
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2018-09-11 12:14
The road trip robocar and tourist robocar
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2018-07-18 11:07Yesterday I wrote about the future of group tourism and made reference to the tourist robocar.
Google can spin the "Duplex" calling agent in a much more positive way
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2018-05-22 12:45Most of the world was wowed by the Google Duplex demo, where their system was able to cold-call a hairdresser and make an appointment with her, with the hairdresser unaware she was talking to an AI. The system included human speech mannerisms and the ability to respond to the random phrases the hairdresser through back.
Robocars, Flying Cars and Hyperloops, oh my! The not so fictional future of the city
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2018-04-23 12:25The primary purpose of the city is transportation. Sure, we share infrastructure like sewers and power lines, but the real reason we live in dense cities is so we can have a short travel time to the things in our lives, be they jobs, friends, shopping or anything else.
Sometimes that trip is a walking one, and indeed only the dense city allows walking trips to be short and also interesting. The rest of the trips involve some technology, from the bicycle to the car to the train. All that is about to change.