Monthly Archives: September 2008

Recommended Weekend Browsing

Check out FutureCars.com. They provide a fairly comprehensive overview of future automobile technologies with an emphasis on future fuels. Plus, they provide a good run-down on the various ways that the flying car scenario might be realized, including this summary of the challenges that need to be overcome:

A flying car should:

  • be able to utilize the current infrastructures for both cars and airplanes

  • feature a flight system that does not require the owner to have a pilot’s license

  • meet all FAA regulations

  • be fuel efficient and economically viable for the average car buyer

  • be powered by renewable fuels

That’s a pretty good summary. I would venture to guess that we will solve our energy problems and have some fairly sophisticated AI in place before we see a true flying car. A machine that flies but that requires no more highly developed skills than those required to operate an automboile is going to have to be highly automated.

Wiki-Judge Gets Spanked

This is Interesting:

Appeals court smacks down judge for relying on Wikipedia

References to information at Wikipedia have shown up in various inappropriate places, from homework assignments to college term papers. But there’s one place that it seems everyone can agree that it doesn’t belong: the US court system. The US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, ruling in an immigration case, has agreed with the Board of Immigration Appeals in finding that a reliance on information in Wikipedia is insufficient grounds for a ruling. Nevertheless, it sent the case back to the Board, requesting that it clarify its decision.

This relates, I believe, to our recent FastForward Radio discussion about whether judges or lawyers will one day be replaced by automated systems. Clearly, any such systems that come online will require more reliable data sources that Wikipedia.

Of course, we cite Wikipedia all the time at the Speculist, but then most of what we write doesn’t subsequently become law.

Texas Home Swallowed by Wormhole

I love this.

Last summer, a condemned house in Houston, Texas was sucked into a small wormhole, its wooden facade slowly slurped though another dimension and spit out into an alley behind the backyard. This bizarre mashup of real estate and theoretical physics was created by local artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, who saw in the abandoned house an opportunity to remind people how fragile the fabric of spacetime really is.

houseinwormhole.jpg

Follow the link above to see where the wormhole comes out.

I’m not sure which is more remarkable, the fact that a project such as this would be carried out in the middle of some nondescript neighborhood, or the subject matter that the artists chose to depict. It’s not a slam-dunk for the latter — in my neighborhood, you get a nasty-gram from the HOA if one of your bushes dies or if paint starts to chip in some corner of your house’s exterior that you didn’t even know was visible from the street or anyone else’s house.

I can’t imagine what they would do if something like this were to appear on one of our streets. Of course, it would have to happen fast. (As in, overnight.)

Category: Art

FastForward Radio

Weathering Storms; The Power of Inclusiveness; The Future of Work

Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon observed Labor Day with a special between-the-political-conventions edition of FastForward Radio.

They talked about Hurricane Gustav and the future of humanity’s relationship with the weather, the future of labor, the changing face of politics, and what a Speculist looks for in a presidential candidate.

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