61–70 of 226 posts
I still like this concept from a while back:
https://kottke.org/10/08/us-dollar-redesign
Replacing GW with Obama might be a bit contentious, but the rest of it seems solid.
Alan Turing's achievements * Designed the programming of world's first commercial computer (Ferranti Mark 1) * Devised Turing Test, to test whether computer is capable of thinking like a huamn * Got an OBE for his wartime services * Inventor of Turing Machine. To this day, all stored-programme digital computers are modelled on this invention * Built the machine that helped in the breaking of the Enigma code used by t…
I learned about Turing as part of Baby's and the Mark 1s history first before any wartime efforts as I did my BSc at the University of Manchester. Also only later would I realise the honour of Tom Kilburn handing me my degree when I graduated and having nice chat with as well.
* [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Baby#First_programs
It's good that Turing gets put on a banknote - and about time. However, the concept art in that article is really ugly. I'm not that familiar with British banknotes - are they usually that messy looking? Every piece of text is in a different font, and it seems pretty vulgar to have a quote on the note at all. There's even drop shadows! It honestly looks like something I'd put together in Corel Draw in the mid-2000s.
These announcements always make me ponder about the people we'll put on bank notes or erect statues in honour of in 50 years and are alive and persecuted today but not recognized by society.
We won't be using bank notes in 50yrs. Should be all digital.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you want that for them? The idea of immortal humans is extremely unappealing to me.
May they live as long as they wish a happy and healthy life, and may they die when they are ready and have made the choice themselves.
It's already at the point today where real estate and other relatively scarce resources are much more available to and owned by the wealthy who then use this to extract rent from the younger generations. Give those people another 80 years or so to do play the game and we will all end up in hock to them. You'll be born in debt to someone who was born a century or more before you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> are they usually that messy looking? They don't really look much like that. See: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/current-banknotes I'm hoping the fact that's just the concept art means it'll be reworked to appear more like the existing notes ...
That $5 pound note looks great, I love the white sides with the emblem of the notes in general. But the pattern remains, those bills are for the most part extremely dense and overflowing with information and layered graphics. Especially the existing $50 one which is crammed full of stuff. It's like someone came up with a list of ideas and said yes to all of them.
Fact is, there's even more that you can't see, there's microwriting on them too (can't find an image, but on the £5 and probably all others) and it's almost unnoticeable without magnification.
Can anyone find an image of this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
66 years from Kitty Hawk to landing on the Moon. Progress must start somewhere, and encouraging is more helpful than pessimism. Even if I don’t live forever, maybe my kids will. That will meet my success criteria.
Would you want that for them? The idea of immortal humans is extremely unappealing to me.
> The color blue makes me feel sad
Downvoted! I love the color blue.
Edit: and now I'm being downvoted for this observation. Maybe Alanis Morissette would say this is ironic
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
That’s poetic, but oddly terrible advice as we can actually build ships. Longer lifespans is already a goal, but aging is unlikely to be “solved” in in the next 100 or even 1,000 years. People took much longer than that to figure out how to fly and we have been trying to solve aging for as long if not longer. Consider buildings age as do diamonds. To fix aging we need to get bodies to do things like regrow teeth and…
Re brain syncing, the early tentative experiments are ongoing https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-neuralink-works-monkeys-...