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BT's Predictions for the Future
Saluton_Mondo writes "BT describes the future as looking "ever more exciting each year"... you won't be surprised if you read their white paper on a timeline of technological development in various aspects of human culture, running up to about 2100. It's a bit out of date, but still pretty funny. Some are reasonable predictions, like the introduction of ID cards in the UK by 2010, or the rise of an American dictator in 2000. Others are just funny, like an orgasm via e-mail in 2010, or a security Barbie which searches for lost offspring. I'll not even mention the emergence of the Borg in 2040... see what you think."
It always seems these sort of lists are exaggerations. It isn't inevitable that all this technology will be created.
I wonder is people create these lists to try and guide the future course of technology. By trying to predict what will technologies will be created, those that actually create tend to think along these same lines and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here's the google cache, which is a text format of the pdf:
: www.btexact.com/docimages/42270/42270.pdf+introduc tion+of+ID+cards+in+the++site:btexact.com&hl=en&ie =UTF-8
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:OuHNJeCwdWUJ
And yet no-one can answer the question: what form of ID will I need in order to get an ID card? eg Will a forged Turkish passport do?
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This sig is inoffensive.
Or more curiously, why did none of the national press seize upon the fact that the London Council's webcams were mysteriously out of action wherever a war protest was taking place, either when the president visted recently or when the whole Iraq war thing started? And no, I'm not wearing a foil hat - check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34062.html or http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/29883 .html
>Do they say how we're going to power all this new technology when the oil and gas runs out in fifty years or so?
When I was a kid I remember people telling me that oil and coal would run out in 50 years. 20 years on, I still hear this 50 year figure being bandied about. Do you think my grandchildren will be told that oil and coal will only last another 50 years too?
We definitely need some form of population control otherwise it will be done for us.
"Or how we're going to feed the billions and billions of people on this planet?"
That question is based on out of date predictions of the population - in most countries the birth rate has declined significantly since the overcrowded earth scenarios became popular. The US is just about replacing its population, in Europe the native populations are decining (the worst case being Italy, where the birth rate has dropped well below replacement levels). Africa and the Middle East have expanding populations, but even there the rate has generally slowed. The last predictions I saw estimated that world population would peak around the middle of the century and then decline.
One could argue, and I will, that internet speak is just like shorthand. Shorthand was used long ago (well think 1800-1900's) in letters to abbreviate things to make letter writing easier and quicker for people. Nowadays we have what you described which is really no different.
:)
After all, despite you writing it like that any native english speaker would have little trouble understnading what you wrote, even if they had never seen internet shorthand before. People are still able to write effectively, for the most part, otherwise they just use shorthand when on the internet talking socially. Or, outside america, for text messaging. I cannot believe how many people here in europe text each other instead of calling and the dialect if you will that has grown out of this.
Personally I can't stand it but I understand why it is done and don't begrudge a person just because they do it. Well unless they do the whole I p0wnz0r j00 fagg0rtz!111 crap .
But why is this article copyrighted in 2002? It certainly sounds older than that. I'm confused.
It's not always 50 years - A couple of years ago we were doing some work from a text book from the 70s or 80s, and it said words to the effect of "If we keep using fossil fuels at the rate we are now, the supply will be depleted by the year 2000" - see, that one was at maximum 20-30 years!
"You must not live in the U.S. Dissent is bigger than ever, and unstifled."
*cough*
"If being a geek means being passionate about something, then I pity those who aren't geeks." - Pike65
Shorthand is decidedly different from the quick writing (as you've described). Shorthand was not really used to shorten written conversation but as a stopgap measure to accurately take dictation. There are several variants on both, as briefly covered here.
In brief, though, most shorthand systems do not look anything like longhand. They're phonetically based and each stroke generally represents a consonant sound. The consonants are then embellished with vowel digraphs because most words can be constructed with only consonants (same principle used in many spellcheck systems).
The idea is to be able to get all the details quickly and then to transcribe your notes to make a full reproduction of the original. To this end, most systems (gregg, teeline, quickwriting) are not capable of reproducing the full longhand vocabulary and are more or less used for transcribing exclusively. Almost every system was designed to be used by reporters, secretaries, clerks, and others who could be educated in the system. None that I know of were designed to make writing easier (the Korean system is, but that's not really a shorthand system).
Shorthand writing systems were obsoleted in practice by the stenography machines used in courtrooms today. I believe the machines operate under the same principle, but I haven't looked into it. The rise of electronic typewriters and computers, which allowed extremely fast typing has risen to somewhat fill the role shorthand played in secretarial work. Journalism schools rarely teach shorthand any more and they usually teach the Gregg system.
Someone without training would be completely unable to read shorthand. It looks absolutely foreign.
For Tolkien fans, the Tengwar system (flowing script used for decoration in the LOTR books) works similarly to many shorthand systems. It can be used to represent quite a few languages, including English.
Why write this? I am fascinated by writing systems, particularly neat looking ones. I've wanted my own secret writing system since childhood but never was motivated/creative enough to invent my own. I've taken up Pitman Shorthand (which can serve as a full writing systm) as an acceptable substitute. With only a few thousand writers in the world, and most of them over 60 at that, it's secret enough for me.
Um no. Aids deaths this year were 3 million people. Why is this not front page news every day in every country? When SARS killed like 200 people it was front page news for months. 3 frickin million people died last year from AIDS. There is no excuse that this should not be the single most important item on anyones agenda. If terrorists killed 3 million people last year what would the media do? Theyd be apoplectic. Tom Brokaw would have a seizure on screen. People need to get their priorities straight.
>>Perhaps you have lost site of the fact that the state has always been the master.
In the UK, the seat of power was (until quite recently) the landed gentry and a bunch of mega-wealthy industrialists. They basically told the state (i.e. government of the day) what to do.
Since WW2 however, the influence of the upper classes has dimimished to almost nothing and has been replaced in the main with a bunch of ambitious, unscrupulous politican/lawyers with media-baron friends who know nothing about anything, yet have an insatiable desire to control and intefere in every part of our lives.
Well, I see I have stirred a controversy and a good discussion thread (although I'm still a troll, apparently).
Consider this: As a Canadian, I have grown up never being out of reach of the American Media. Ever. Even when we only got 5 channels, 4 of them were American. I know quite a bit about the US and her culture (stop laughing Europeans). I have many friends and relatives in the US. I really feel I understand your country, being so close. Now, if, despite all of that, I can form a negative opinion about the conduct of the US government (as a large number of your own citizens have, by the looks of the news and this thread), imagine what kind of opinion a poor kid in a Palestinian refugee camp, or one that lived in a poor part of Africa or Malaysia would form. They don't know your country at all. While I can draw the difference between the American poeple and the American government, those people cannot (since most don't live under democratic regimes where the government can change on a regular basis). Thus, they hate all Americans.
They are very leery when the US speaks. Often because they espouse "freedom" and "democracy" on one hand, but support brutal dicators (remember Saddam in the 80's was our friend. Donald Rumsfeld thought so) or lock up people arbitrarily (as at Gitmo - an if they are all terrorists, shouldn't that be proven in a court of law?). So when you grow up with this and try to get out of your miserable life by joining a radical Islamic organization or the Shining Path or similar. Now, are you going to blame for all your troubles? Who's office buildings are you going to be willing to fly airplanes into?
If the US government REALLY wanted to win the war on terror, spend 1/10 of it's war budget in Iraq on medicine to wipe out polio around the world, or tb or any one of the hundreds of preventable, curable child hood diseases that our children never get anymore but kill millions in the rest of the world every year (yes, Bono's idea and I agree). Balance and consider the interests of everyone, not just your own.
Forgive loans to countries that the IMF ruined in the 80's with their "all-strings-attached" loans.
These people are more likely to admire and respect a country and a government that saves their lives with medicines and jobs rather than destroys their homes and infrastructures with bullets and bombs.
And if you want to go after Al-Queda, go after Al-Queda. Find OBL. Find Saddam. Finish the job. Don't do anyhting else until its done.
But don't pretend the war in Iraq has anything to do with freedom and democracy or weapons of mass destruction or support for terrorists. Nobody beleives it anymore. Come clean and move on.
I tried not to be preachy (I know, didn't work) but I genuinely care. The US has some great people and wonderful qualities that the rest of the world should know about. Right now they just see the only superpower running around acting like a bully, then getting upset when someone strikes back or dares question why.
See my sig:
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha