191–200 of 237 posts
It’s not exactly the same, but Burning Man comes pretty close in a lot of ways. If you haven’t been, there are thousands of art projects at a grand scale, things that take up blocks of space a piece, and they are built by artists from around the world, giving everyone a global perspective of what is possible. I also love the idea of showcasing what is possible for a society. There is a true sense of community, immedi…
The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened. The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened. What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahea…
The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened. The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened. What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahea…
My mom went to the ‘64 worlds fair almost every day (according to her, she had an uncle that worked there.) She told us stories about various exhibits when we were kids, but the thing she remembered the most was the video phone- that she should see as well here someone across the planet. Fast forward to 2020 and she is spending hours every day on video calls with her grandchildren. We might have missed on some of our…
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I don’t get the fuss with the pledge of alliance (non American here). > "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Why is it bad to declare your commitment to the country you’re born in and it’s values? It’s not like you can’t leave (except for the IRS) if you don’t like it.
Borderline indoctrination. You're not pledging commitment to it's "values" and young children are not at an age to have a nuanced discussion or awareness about what those exactly those values are, and make a decision about if they should be declaring a commitment to them or not.
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That’s why in non-American English it’s called earth. :) I had no idea. Hackaday explains as well as some other things I’d not though about. https://hackaday.com/2017/08/17/living-on-mars-the-stuff-you...
Like you call the ground earth or you call ground earth? I fail to see how earth is less ambiguous.
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My mom went to the ‘64 worlds fair almost every day (according to her, she had an uncle that worked there.) She told us stories about various exhibits when we were kids, but the thing she remembered the most was the video phone- that she should see as well here someone across the planet. Fast forward to 2020 and she is spending hours every day on video calls with her grandchildren. We might have missed on some of our…
Video phone was not new at that point, though. Germany had commercial installations, though fixed point to point, in 1936. The first descriptions of it date to just two years after the telephone was invented. The exhibit may have made more people aware it was possible, but the idea was already out there, and had been for a long time.
The last really prophetic world's fair was New York, 1939. That's famous for GM's vision of the future of 1960, the original "Futurerama" . Freeways everywhere. RCA had television. AT&T let you make free long distance calls. All that stuff happened. The 1964 World's Fair had another GM exhibit. Colonization of the Moon. Underwater cities. None of that happened. What could we have in a World's Fair now that looks ahea…
With a few more years of AI, I want software that can automate engineering - so, I can say “figure out a factorio layout that makes 1 rocket per minute”. Then “play factorio from scratch to liftoff”.
Translated into the real world, I want to a robot that can build a brick wall, and an AI that can design and manufacture the brick wall building robot. I think this is structurally the same problem as “play factorio” - the only difference being a few orders of magnitude of complexity.
Ultimately I want to be able to take a few minimal pieces of robotics and drones and stuff into the wilderness (or Mars) and say “build me a house like this with working solar panels and plumbing”, and it can gather resources, design and assemble intermediate machines (Eg sawmills) and bootstrap the manufacturing needed to arrange atoms in any specifically described way.
This is both a utopian and dystopian technology. At scale the same technology could be used to both clean up the great pacific garbage patch, and convert the Amazon rainforest into a massive industrial wasteland. I don’t think this is as far away from our current technology as we imagine it to be. (Decades not centuries)
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The 1984 Olympics, considered to be the most financially successful Olympics ever, were ran on the basis of renovating existing infrastructure, not building new stuff in a new city because the previous two Olympics were financial disasters. Also, yes, if you mess up LA the United States will still truck on. Also Nationalism isn't just flags, hate and hands in the air, it's also an outward expression of ideas and idea…
Does the US still have an identity as a country? I certainly would have a very hard time explaining to someone not from here what it is that the United States stand for at this point.
Ask those who want to immigrate, and ask the recently immigrated who now want to preserve what they have.
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The vast majority of people do just that. The small number of people who actually attend the Olympics in person are 1) journalists covering it 2) relatives of the athletes 3) people living near the venue who attend a few events out of curiosity and maybe have discounted tickets because of where they live 4) wealthy people who can afford the high cost of decent tickets with a clear view of the athletes.
The Olympics sound a little miserable to watch in-person because you probably won't have a clear view of a sport you're not all that interested in. And unlike most popular sports where it's an event where you pick a side to cheer for, most Olympic events are individual, so there isn't 90 minutes of cheering for your team, hoping they'll win.
I admire the optimism and motivational tone of the article, but fairs and expos are a thing of the past. We don't need to build elaborate, carefully constructed single-use cities to showcase the scientific advances of the world. Those showcases happen day by day on the internet and mass media.
Who remembers the Millenium Dome? It was a self-conscious emulation of the 1951s Festival of Britain, that ended up being characteristically Blairite bland.