Museum of the Future

Magnavox writes "In Boulder, Colorado tonight there is going to be a rather unusual announcement about the DaVinci Institute's effort to create a Museum of Future Inventions. This will be a museum where they exhibit things that haven't been invented yet, like spray on clothing, instant sleep, genetically engineered Velcro sheep, and metric time. Pretty creative stuff. Some of the people they have involved are Dr. Paul MacCready, inventor of the Gossamer Albatross and Paul Dusenbery, Founder of the Space Science Institute. This looks like serious competition for Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum."

Comments

future FP

[Anonymous Coward]

sometime in the future this will be the FP

Neat Idea

[SallyMac]

It's nice to see progress and innovation. It seems that even with the new age space race, there just isn't excitement in this country about what's next, what else, and what now, except as it pertains to Medicine.

Re:Neat Idea

[eugene ts wong]

Some of those ideas are probably almost here. They have paint on latex, for example.

Re:Neat Idea

[Doc Ruby]

The American psychic pendulum has been swinging through the "fear" realms for years now, and it's just getting underway. However, as per William Gibson, "the future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed". Plenty of us are greedy for progress, but christalibans tend to be sticks in the mud, whose fear response contains unplumbed depths.

I hope they can find space

[Anonymous Coward]

for the troll-free Slashdot thread.

Re:I hope they can find space

[Izago909]

I'd tell you all how it can be done, but dinner will be ready within the centiday and I need to pick up another can of pin stripe jacket since it's getting cold outside.

Re:I hope they can find space

[Minwee]

A Slashdot thread with trolls is a thread with one too many posts.

Ergo, the only troll-free thread is the empty set.

now and then

[MyOrangeJulius]

what will they do in 50 years when the inventions have been practically applied and forgotten?

Re:now and then

[glowimperial]

I imagine that they will update their exhbits as new potential technologies emerge, or as potential technologies become unfeasable. Museums change, update and improve their exhibits all of the time to deal wth changing issues and to encourage repeat visitations.

Re:now and then

[Barryke]

in Eindhoven, Netherlands there was a
wonderfull place called the Evoluon that had very that.
Inventions not yet invented, mostly real and some simulated but looking 100% real.

The fun part was that you could touch almost anything, sadly not including
the o-so-fantastic flexible-elastic LCD postcards that played a recorded audio and videomessage.
Still waiting for that one to arrive.

Anyways, its been lots of years since they closed now. :(
I guess its very expensive to maintain such a collection.

PS: a Evoluon movie (122MB)

Metric time - been done

[Anonymous Coward]

Metric time? Metric time has already been invented - one of those things the French came up with in revolutionary times. (It didn't take off.) I am not making this up.

Re:Metric time - been done

[AndroidCat]

We used to have metric months, but then Augustus and Julius got too big for their britches and bumped September, October, November, December down two to make room for their months. It amkes the names pretty silly since they're just the month numbers.

Re:Metric time - been done

[Anonymous Coward]

Metric time has already been invented - one of those things the French came up with in revolutionary times. (It didn't take off.) I am not making this up.

Metric time is in use. It's called TAI.

There are well defined transformed from TAI to UTC and UT1, and from those to local times. So what if people don't use a metric system for time, that doesn't mean that it isn't used. TAI and UT1 are the two fundamental systems behind all international timing.

Re:Metric time - been done

[Spudley]

Actually, since 'metric' refers to SI units, and since seconds are an SI unit, that surely makes our current time system metric?

But I know what the meant.... and of course, that has also already been tried already.

On the other hand.... velcro sheep. Yikes. That's a scary thought. Even scarier, now that it's been suggested, what are the bets that some mad scientist somewhere decides to try actually creating one? :-o

Re:Metric time - been done

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand.... velcro sheep. Yikes. That's a scary thought. Even scarier, now that it's been suggested, what are the bets that some mad scientist somewhere decides to try actually creating one?

Oh yea. Some mad scientist was having problems in his Velcro room. When the sheep bounced on the trampoline they would sometimes stick to the wall and the ceiling. He found this most annoying and genetically engineered Velcro sheep to make sure they would stick. When asked about the subject he would simply say, "Well, sheep are 10 degrees hotter than women." When we asked the sheep about the subject they simply replyed, "bahhhhhh."

And for my next trick I'll hit AC to avoid any reduction in my karma.

-Slashdot, IT and Velcro Sheep(tm)

Re:Metric time - been done

[retrev]

Not entirely true. SI is an international standard of measure based on metric. The big difference between the two being that SI doesn't use metric time.

Re:Metric time - been done

[Anonymous Coward]

So what if people don't use a metric system for time, that doesn't mean that it isn't used.


Oops, the boss came and I wanted to pretend like I was working...

What I meant to say is: so what if people don't use a metric system time for everyday tasks, that doesn't mean that it isn't essential.
The point being that the meaning and confidence with which people use everyday time in conventional format for international communications and commerce is based on an underlying metric system. The rest is just a formatting issue (ie, UTC is metric (it has a well defined relationship to TAI and UT1 and agreed leap second adjustments). Just because it is usually reported as hh:mm:ss doesn't mean shit, I can report it as an integer). If you've ever looked at or have written support for time in software you know about this. Time is a political and historical quagmire, nothing would work if there wasn't a basic metric system (TAI/UTC) on which to reconcile everything. At the end of the day, everyone can use their own local system of arbitrary DST and lunar adjustments, but they have to agree on the mapping from UTC in order for commerce to work.

Another thing to note is that even hh:mm:ss is metric. There seems to be this misconception that metric = any measurement system as long as it is base 10. This is complete crap. hh:mm:ss is completely "metric" except that it is base-60 instead of base-10.

I think this was attributed to the Babylonians. Of course it is too bad they did not have the inclination to see why a base-(power of 2) would have been better for us computer geeks and arguably in general. Oh well, when I get my time machine going I'll consider fixing that.

Re:Metric time - been done

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck are you talking about.

The SI unit for time is the second.
We can talk about milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, decaseconds, hectoseconds, megaseconds..

Sounds pretty metric to me.
Give me any point of time in any locality and I can convert that time to a single number based on the SI second called TAI time. Granted, this conversion can be a fucking PITA (as any properly implemented time library will attest to). This gets even more intense when you take into account relativity. But the BIPM has thought of this years ago, and TAI is an effective frame of reference because it is normalized for a specific gravitational condition on Earth.

The fact that we typically represent time as a base-60 number leading to a rather weird daily "calendar."

The other thing is that "metric" seems to have been aborted into a synonym for "decimal" or base-10. My dictionary doesn't support this definition, and I personally find it quite a stupid usage when it would be much clearer to say "decimal".

As far as I am concerned the SI second and associated implementaton TAI time is a metric time because it is a well-defined standard of time measurement. End of story.

Decimal time is another thing, and it was a tried and failed experiment. The problem today is that time handling is already a world of shit, and decimal time would add a new layer of stuff to fuck up on top of all the legacy shit. Talk about a Y2K problem, it would be Y2K all over again and when the switch is flipped, we might not.

Remember, POSIX doesn't even specify a sane handling of UTC time (it fucks up leap seconds), what makes you think making everything base-10 is going to cure human stupidity.

Besides it is a tough sell to most people that decimal time will turn the world into a Utopia, or that it will cure any underlying problem at all. In fact it could just lead to more civil unrest.."No, you will not use your lunar calendar because the UN is mandating that all countries and all people use the standard decimal calendar..and if you don't comply we will send you a letter telling you how angry we are with you.."

No one is going to drop their old system overnight, especially if its quirks are the basis of a good part of their way of life.

Re:Metric time - been done

[Tony Hoyle]

The 12 months come from the babylonians (who also gave us 360 degrees in a circle). There were originally 360 days in a year, plus 5 days of debauchery which were 'non-days'. The romans tacked those extra days onto other months to even it out (which is why we have 31 days sometimes).

7 days and 12 months is also from out christian heritage (7 and 12 being the sums and products of 3 & 4 - ie. 3(heaven) and 4(earth)).

btw. Apparently they still have 360 day years in Ethiopia... so if you wanna party...

Re:Metric time - been done

[Anonymous Coward]

How the heck do you reckon that 12 months comes from 'christian heritage' when the babylonian calendar was devised 2000 years before christ?

And 3 = heaven, 4 = earth? What kind of numerological nonsense have you been smoking, anyway?

Re:Metric time - been done

[fatphil]

Yup. I get the feeling that people haven't watched Fritz Lang's /Metropolis/ either.

Re:Metric time - been done

[mwood]

Yup, they invented ten new months to replace the twelve traditional ones, and made other adjustments. There was a Simpsons episode (featuring the Springfield MENSA chapter or something like it) which gives some of the flavor of those times. Personally I think no metric year is going to work without adjusting the year-length/day-length ratio, and astroengineering is just a little too vigorous a tool for calendar reform if you ask me.

Meanwhile, intraday measures have also been metricated. According to some robot, "the Solarian day consists of ten decads, each of which is divided into one hundred centads." (Isaac Asimov, _The Naked Sun_) How that squares with the length of the second, which is involved in all kinds of fundamental relationships in physics, was not explained.

Re:Metric time - been done

[mwood]

"Besides it is a tough sell to most people that decimal time will turn the world into a Utopia, or that it will cure any underlying problem at all."

Really? How do you explain the people (in high places, alas!) who are convinced that adopting Daylight Savings Time will magically make Indianapolis businessmen smart enough to figure out what time it is in Chicago and Cincinnati, when they supposedly can't handle it now? No matter how silly an idea, someone is ready to buy.

Re:Metric time - been done

[wild_berry]

Anyone talking about metric time is an idiot, in my books. The present system has factors of 2, 3 and 5 in minutes and hours. That's good for me, because I can split them nicely into things like fifteenths and sixths. Losing the factor of three because we count in tens for a lot of other systems is a backward step.

I think I would advocate including a seven in there somewhere: an minute or hour is to be made up of 420 units... It gets a bit silly if we include eleven as well: 4620 units per divisor is too unwieldy.

Duke Nukem Forever?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will I be able to go there and play Duke Nukem Forever?

Re:Duke Nukem Forever?

[zephc]

No, you can only play Duke Nukem for half an hour, sorry.

I call prior art!

[rfischer]

How 'bout we draft some patents on these pre-natal inventions?

and profit, of course.

Re:I call prior art!

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Excellent idea, the patents will be expired by the time the inventions become reality. Instant public domain.

Re:I call prior art!

[dtfinch]

For the patents to be granted we'll first need to produce some working prototypes. Sounds easy enough.

Re:I call prior art!

[G-funk]

Yeah. Sure we do.

Re:I call prior art!

[Anne_Nonymous]

Not if you pay the roylaties to use my Future Patent (tm) machine.

Re:I call prior art!

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Prototypes were once required, but no longer. And it was never required that they be working. Plenty of models of perpetual motion machines were submitted to the patent office for valid patents, but none of the models actually worked.

Re:I call prior art!

[tntguy]

But then you can't put them in this museum!

Oblig. Simpsons' Quote

[aceat64]

"Not only are the trains running on time, but now they're running on metric time!"

I thought...

[Mad_Rain]

I thought metric time already invented?

Or at least it was at the time of this posting: 41.911 UMT. :)

Re:I thought...

[urban_gorilla]

indeed, isacc asimov already proposed this.
http://www.free-definition.com/Metric-time.html

Re:I thought...

[LWATCDR]

No... Time should be base 360. There should be 360 minutes in a day. You can divide the day into 36 decaminutes to replace hours. Time is how we relate to the rest of the universe. This way the sun moves through the sky one degree per minute.
Now if you want to make 100 degrees in a circle then we can talk.

Re:I thought...

[Tumbleweed]

"Decaminute"? I think you mean a "centon". :)

I _love_ the new Battlestar Galactica (I hafta download it since it's only playing in the UK thus far), but I wish they'd stuck with some of the made-up words and games. They use minutes, and play poker. But they _do_ use the made-up curse words, which is great. And no daggits (yet)!

Re:I thought...

[Tmack]

Yes, as has been posted in other replies to your post... but I feel that for metric time to be of any use scientifically, it should be based off of the current Second, rather than 10Metric Hours/Day. That way, all of the other metric units based on seconds would still hold with metric time, no conversions or new unit deffinitions necessary. Also, I think this would be much more relavent in a space travel or submarine setting, where the unit of "Day" is basically meaningless since there is no sun rise/sun set.

Minutes of 100 metric seconds would be 2/3 longer than current ones, allowing more excuses to be made for being late to work/meetings: "I meant I would be there in 10 metric minutes", hours of 10000 seconds would be about 3x longer, and a typical earth day would be about 8.6 metric hours long. While not very usable while on the planet, in space travel you could expand that to 10 metric hours per "day" (27.8 normal hours).

Just my thoughts..

Tm

Re:I thought...

[3waygeek]

Actually, metric time was introduced in 1793.

Re:I thought...

[OverlordQ]

Jesus Jumping Christ on a Pogo stick, I just read through that page. If people already have enough trouble telling time as it is, imagine what it'd be like with this.

Re:I thought...

[rusty0101]

Considering that the second is defined by the NIST as:
'exactly 9,192,631,770 oscillations or cycles of the cesium atom's resonant frequency'

I am not sure I want the 'second' to be the standard increment of time.

Remember, we use the second because we have divided the clock first into 12 hours, (12 day, and 12 night when the sun casts no shadow) then divided each hour into 60 increments called minutes, followed by another 60 increments of those called Minutes. The last two breakdowns were based upon the fact that the number 60 has more even combinations than any number less than it (1,60;2,30;3,20;4,15;5,12;6,10).

The second is a convienence of earth bound existence. Once you step off earth, you need to adjust your clock to the local environment, meaning that the basic unit of time, (the second for us) is going to be different.

To go with a purely metric time, you would want to start by acknowledging that the local time is not going to easily map to the current Metric time. Now use a convienent multiple of the resonant frequency of the cesium atom. Options would be 10,000,000,000 oscilations, 9,000,000,000 oscilations (to be closer to the current definition) or 1,000,000,000 oscilations. (My recomendation.)

Are there some serious problems that this would present? Sure. Hz frequency measurements would all have to be revised. (and yes that would affect your cpu processor speed calculations) Speed of Light constants would have to be recalculated (these recalculations would really be a simple ratio function, but it would annoy all sorts of people.) Natural frequencies would have to be revised. Etc.

Just my own thoughts. (Now go take a look at some of the later definitions of the length of a meter, and see how these ideas would affect that.)

-Rusty

Re:I thought...

[Bob Uhl]

There have been several proposals for decimalised time, including the French revolutionary calendar (which like the rest of the French was discarded but unlike the rest was never restored). The only reason the French system of units was popular to begin with was that the European system had become approx. a thousand local systems with slight and not-so-slight variations, and it was easier to get folks to change to a new system than to get them to change over to someone else's system. Since everyone measures time the same way (in Europe--other parts of the world had their own systems), there was never a need to adopt a new system for time.

Decimal units in general are a stupid idea for a plethora of reasons, but those in most of the world are pretty much stuck for now. One can hope that some sanity will take hold eventually, but it's unlikely.

The standard system could use some modification, too. Among other things, there are too many different types of barrel, and none of them is the 32 gallon barrel it's supposed to be.

Re:I thought...

[Rei]

You should submit "Jesus Jumping Christ on a Pogo Stick" to them. With a description to the effect of:

"In the future, Christ will return for his second coming. To facilitate his travel around the world while still seeming personable, he will travel on a pogo stick that can hop on water."

Hey... it's less cartoony than half the ideas they have on there. Portable holes? Tunnels straight through the Earth? Give me a break :P

Re:I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would interested in seeing a "microchrono" defined as the time it takes for light to move 1x10^8 m. As you may know light moves at around 2.99x10^8m/s. That would make the microchrono 1/3 the length of our current seconds, which is pretty useful for terrestrial purposes. The millichrono would be around 300 seconds, or 5 minutes. The centichrono would then be close to an hour, and a day could be measured in decichronos.

Anyhow, it's just a thought.

Re:I thought...

[dragondm]

Yes, there is actually a metric time system like that, called Astronomic time. It is used occasionally as an alternative to the Julian calendar for astronomical observations.

The units other than the second are informal, but it goes:

second = 1 SI second (same unit)
kilosecond = 1000 seconds
day = 100 kiloseconds
week = 10 days (1 megasecond)

Dates are listed in weeks since the first New Years (GMT) after the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

In Astronomic time it is currently:
1100.221

(Week 1100, day 2, time 21ks )

Re:I thought...

[ToyKeeper]

Yes, though there are at least three different variations of metric time:

• HH:SSS, UCT. the one you linked to... 100 time units per day, with three decimal points.
• BBB, Swiss timezone. Swatch Internet Time: 1000 "beats" per day.
• HMM:SS, local timezone. This is the one I use, because it works best for the things we generally use time for. Feel free to try it, if you have python and gtk. (requires pycfg and tktk too)

The HMM:SS format fits most closely with how people currently think about time. You get a "minute" which is roughly the same length as a regular minute (26 seconds longer, but close enough), and the seconds are pretty close (0.864 seconds per metric "tick"). An average TV show is 20-40 metric "beats" long, instead of 30-60.

It also can be spoken easily, such as "I'll see you at five thirty", which would be 530.00, or about 45 standard minutes after noon. The difference is when people say times like "four ninety", which don't exist in the current system.

Universal time is nice, but has never caught on for interpersonal use. Eight o'clock (08:00) is in the morning no matter where you go, because people like that aspect of time zones. This system does the same thing: noon is always 500.00, and midnight is 000.00. On a stereotypical day, a person might get up at 300, go to work at 350, take lunch from 500 - 525, then go home at 700. After dinner at 750, you'd have 200-250 beats, the equivalent of 5-6 hours, before bed time.

This post was written at 787.82 MST.

Re:I thought...

[chthonicdaemon]

The last two breakdowns were based upon the fact that the number 60 has more even combinations than any number less than it (1,60;2,30;3,20;4,15;5,12;6,10).

In fact, you should ask yourself 'why 12 and 30' rather than 'why 60'. 12 and 30 come up directly from the lunar cycle -- roughly 12 lunations in a year, roughly 30 days in a lunation. It was natural to divide the days into 12 again (hours), and to divide these into 30. This is what the Babylonians did. 60 is the least common multiple of 12 and 30, which is probably why it was chosen as the division for minutes and seconds.

For more fascinating information on the calendar and time in general, check out Mapping time.

Re:I thought...

[Nurgled]

I really love the idea of telling someone, "I'll be with you in just a few megaseconds..."

Re:I thought...

[maxwell demon]

Well, given that the length of the meter is also just an historic "accident" (basically, it's 1/40000 of the earth diameter), and given that it's today defined by the speed of light (which therefore has by definition the exact value 299792458 m/s), why not revise that definition, too? Say, we use your recommendation (1 new time unit = 1 gigaoszillation of the cesium frequency), then if we define the speed of light to 1,000,000,000 new length unit/new time unit, our new length unit will be about 3.3 centimeters.

Re:I thought...

[default luser]

The phrase "Jumpin Jesus on a Pogo Stick" is from one of my all-time favorite monolouges:

"Stuart" by The Dead Milkmen

You know what, Stuart, I LIKE YOU. You're not like the other
people, here, in the trailer park.

Oh, don't go get me wrong. They're fine people, they're
good Americans. But they're content to sit back, maybe
watch a little Mork and Mindy on channel 57, maybe kick
back a cool, Coors 16-ouncer. They're good, fine people,
Stuart. But they don't know ... what the queers are doing
to the soil!

You know that Jonny Wurster kid, the kid that delivers papers
in the neighborhood. He's a foreign kid. Some of the neighbors
say he smokes crack, but I don't believe it.

Anyway, for his tenth birthday, all he wanted was a Burrow Owl.
Kept bugging his old man. "Dad, get me a burrow owl. I'll never
ask for anything else as long as I live." So the guy
breaks down and buys him a burrow owl.

Anyway, 10:30, the other night, I go out in my yard, and there's
the Wurster kid, looking up in the tree. I say, "What are
you looking for?" He says "I'm looking for my burrow owl."
I say, "Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick. Everybody knows
the burrow owl lives. In a hole. In the ground. Why the hell do you
think they call it a burrow owl, anyway?" Now Stuart, do you
think a kid like that is going to know what the queers are
doing to the soil?

I first became aware of this about ten years ago, the summer
my oldest boy, Bill Jr. died. You know that carnival comes into
town every year? Well this year they came through with a ride
called The Mixer. The man said, "Keep your head, and arms, inside
the Mixer at all times." But Bill Jr, he was a DAAAREDEVIL, just
like his old man. He was leaning out saying "Hey everybody,
Look at me! Look at me!" Pow! He was decapitated! They found
his head over by the snow cone concession.

A few days after that, I open up the mail. And there's a pamphlet
in there. From Pueblo, Colorado, and it's addressed to Bill, Jr.
And it's entitled, "Do you know what the queers are doing to our
soil?"

Now, Stuart, if you look at the soil around any large US city,
there's a big undeground homosexual population. Des Moines, Iowa,
for an example. Look at the soil around Des Moines, Stuart.
You can't build on it; you can't grow anything in it. The government
says it's due to poor farming. But I know what's really going on,
Stuart. I know it's the queers. They're in it with the aliens.
They're building landing strips for gay Martians, I swear to
God.

You know what, Stuart, I like you. You're not like the other
people, here in this trailer park.

Instant sleep?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instant sleep...

Zzz

End of Transmission

Re:Instant sleep?

[chill]

aka Narcolepsy. I thought they were looking for a CURE for this, not necessarily enshrine victims in a museum?

Re:Instant sleep?

[CajunElder]

Ball peen hammer to the temple = instant sleep (possible forever with a chance of red spray on clothing)

Re:Instant Sleep?

[stdcallsign]

They already have that, it's called NyQuil :P

Ahh yes.
The Sniffling,
sneezing,
headache,
stuffy-nose,
take-it-in-bed-or-you'll-wake-up-on-the-bathroom -floor
medicine.

Re:Instant sleep?

[Tablizer]

Ball peen hammer to the temple = instant sleep

Tom and Jerry[1] have prior art on Instant Sleep. And, when they fell unconscience into a boiling vat of water, they also discovered Instant Wake.

[1] Resurrected as Itchy and Scratchy

Re:Instant Sleep?

[phritz]

Actually, there's even better than that - there's this stuff called 'Provigil' that's supposed have effects very similar to those of taking a nap. It's not a stimulant, it's a nap in a pill!

Metric time?

[TheLoneIguana]

It's been done. Sort of.

Re:Metric time?

[earthforce_1]

Yeah, now if we can only get the earth to rotate exactly 1000x per trip around the sun, then we can have metric years as well! Setting the galactic rotation rate to produce metric eons is going to be a tad trickier.

Re:Metric time?

[RealOldGuy]

On April 1 -- either 1961 or 1962 -- a technical memorandum was written at Bell Labs that advocated a decimalized time system. This would be done by altering the earth's orbit and spin rates so that there would be 500 days in a year. (A 1000:1 ratio was considered, but discarded as being impractical). Each newday was to be divided into 20 newhours, so that there would be 10 kilo newhours in one newyear. This was to be accomplished by mounting great numbers of missiles along the equator, and firing them in a precise pattern. The memorandum concluded with a cost estimate stated in kGNP (kilo gross national products). Nothing further came of the proposal.

metric time already failed

[Anonymous Coward]

The Frenchies tried to impose a ten-day week and a ten-hour day right after their revolution. It caught on about as well as esperanto.

Re:metric time already failed

[Anonymous Coward]

I always wonder about the French Revolution. Was it really a revolution for the French, or was it just some silly posturing by some quasi-intellectuals? I don't see the imposition of things like metric time revolutionary, just an unproductive abuse of power.

So, basically, did anyone outside of Parisians even feel much of an effect from it all?

Re:metric time already failed

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't feel much at all - the guillotine, after all, was designed for an instant and near-painless kill by even the completely untrained executioner.

The need for such a device alone should give you an idea of how "real" this revolution was...

Re:metric time already failed

[LinuxHam]

It caught on about as well as esperanto

Hey! At least Esperanto was in Gattaca!!! :)

Re:metric time already failed

[Hogwash McFly]

The French also created Velcro Sheep, but they didn't catch on either.

Re:metric time already failed

[mwood]

Darn, I left my Esperanto dictionary at home.

Instant Sleep?

[ProdigySim]

They already have that, it's called NyQuil :P

Negative calories

[3770]

Screw those inventions. What I want is potato chips with negative calories.

Re:Negative calories

[Anonymous Coward]

What you really want is yourself without the fat ass.

Re:Negative calories

[coolmadsi]

In that case, all you need to do is make cellery taste like potato chips. As far as i know, cellery has so little calories that you loose more eating it then you get from eating it.

Re:Negative calories

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't cook them. The toxic response to eating one or two thin-sliced raw potatoes should be enough to remove them from your body. The effort in doing so will almost certainly cause a caloric loss ... :/

Alternatively, you can tie the bag of chips to one end of a slender 4' stick and mount the other end of the stick onto the handlebars of a nice bicycle.

Re:Negative calories

[Anonymous Coward]

You we just need to increase the amount of energy it takes to eat. Tighten up the joints in the jaw a bit, so you've got to really work to chew.

Re:Negative calories

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to love raw potatoes. Would hang around in the kitchen while Mom was making scalloped potatoes and steal half of the cheese and the potatoes before she was done.

Re:Negative calories

[Anonymous Coward]

then freeze your potato chips... Don't you know the calorie is a measure of heat?

Re:Negative calories

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-matter makes you anti-fatter.

Re:Negative calories

[tattoi.nobori]

Screw negative calories! I want a commercially-available Skittlebrau!

Re:Negative calories

[StikyPad]

Just sprinkle a little sulfuric acid on your chips as seasoning, and you'll lose weight in no time.

Re:Negative calories

[damiam]

They still won't be negative unless you can get them below absolute zero. Now that would be an accomplishment.

Re:Negative calories

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to write some journal entries, too funny dood.

Re:Negative calories

[Anonymous Coward]

"Screw those inventions. What I want is potato chips with negative calories."

Make some out of tachyons?

Re:Negative calories

[totipotentsoul]

Don't you remember Olestra? Zero calories and gives you diarrhea. I think that's pretty close to negative calories.

Re:Negative calories

[SamSim]

How about making the bag really, really difficult to open?

Prior Art?

[bloodstains]

The question is, can exhibits from the Museum of the Future be used as prior art in patent requests.

Re:Prior Art?

[back_pages]

Of course. You need merely read 35 USC 102 and 103 (they're short) to know what can qualify as prior art.

It would be ridiculously easy to write claims for those exhibits while disqualifying them as suitable prior art. That fact has to do with the level of "enablement" present in a fluff-journalism paragraph. The very basic concepts are taught, but throw in 5,000 details of implementation and you have yourself a completely different animal.

Innovation...

[Blue-Footed Boobie]

Innovation is going to be the US export of the future. Outsource the crappy tech support, outsource the manual labor. Create a workforce of innovation. Own the world through patents and ideas.

Maybe this museum ill bring back some of the creativity that is so lacking in this current fed-everything-through-games-and-tv generation.

Re:Innovation...

[SillyNickName4me]

> Own the world through patents and ideas.

And back them up with bullets and missiles eh?

Re:Innovation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude-

"the place is going to hell in a handbasket"

45 years I've been hearing this same old crap from the same old shits who are too lazy to get off their asses and actually do something. If you do a little research you'll find the same refrain since the dawn of man. Recent cave painting translations state, "this valley is going to hell in a mammoth stomach" (they didn't have handbaskets then, they carried stuff around in mammoth stomachs). Read up on the history of hagis if you don't believe me.

Noe I'm gonna get back to the lab and see if those damn mousebrains have managed to telepath the fucking maze coordinates so I can find my fucking beer.

Re:Innovation...

[Elwood P Dowd]

Innovation is going to be the US export of the future.

You seem to think that we have some kind of competitive advantage for innovation. If we do, I don't know what it is.

Re:Innovation...

[Blue-Footed Boobie]

I suppose I should have said: "Innovation is going to have to be the....."

Re:Innovation...

[tbjw]

Good! Innovation is sure to boom under the science driven administration!

Re:Innovation...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I don't think it will work. Too much innovation is being stifled by excess litigation. Then there's the stuff being patented that, by any reading of patent law, shouldn't be patented due to prior art, being obvious to anyone in the trade and other reasons.

What we need is to export the litigiousness such that everyone is bogged down.

Spray On Clothing

[epiphani]

has been around for quite a while. People just think its a lot like nudity, thats all. Try woodstock or martigra for references.

And of course, there is even a japanese company selling spray on stockings, so I wouldnt call it future technology. But I'd definitely like to see more of it.

Re:Spray On Clothing

[TheOtherChimeraTwin]

Mustn't.... visualism... slashdot... geeks... wearing... spray on clothing... arrrgGHHHHHH!

Re:Spray On Clothing

[BReflection]

My grandma calls sunscreen with high SPF "liquid shirt" =)

Re:Spray On Clothing

[CyberKnet]

But I'd definitely like to see more of it.

Now picture RMS with spray on clothes... hell, or spray on stockings. Still want to see it more? =)

Re:Spray On Clothing

[bbkingadrock]

i think i just developed a new fetish

Re:Spray On Clothing

[utexaspunk]

Mustn't.... visualism... slashdot... geeks... wearing... spray on clothing... arrrgGHHHHHH!

it'stoo late!

Backers

[Anonymous Coward]

genetically engineered Velcro sheep

And just who is behind this idea?

Re:Backers

[Tantrum420]

>> genetically engineered Velcro sheep
>And just who is behind this idea?

I dunno, but how long do you think before they start making Velcro chaps?

Seriously... Is this for real? Modify sheep to grow Velcro? ...Or is it just a joke?

I guess if you can milk Spider-goats for silk, anything's possible...

T

Re:Backers

[AndroidCat]

It would certainly make a game of wool sweater Twister more interesting!

Re:Backers

[Auraveda]

I thought something like this was already in use, although it wasn't genetic modification. Basicly how I remember it is when it's time to shear the sheep they're given an injection of something which causes the new hair growth to be extremely weak and brittle - sort of like an internal Nair. You wait a couple days for the stuff to work through the sheeps system, then you just bring in the sheep and peel off the wool. I can't remember where the heck I heard that, must have been on some discovery channel show.

but spray paint clothing does exist

[Anonymous Coward]

painted clothing

Dot com ideas

[slashname3]

Wasn't there another slashdot story about a web site recycling all those dot com business plans?

This sounds like they are going to take all the ideas from the failed dot coms and set them up in a museum. I wonder if they can still get the smoke and mirror presentations to still work?

Velcro sheep? Is that so the hillbillies don't have to face the sheep over a cliff while they take care of business to get them to push backward?

Bahh, that's nothing! I get FutureFeedForward !

[StefanJ]

It's a newsfeed from the future!

Really!

FutureFeedForward.

Re:Bahh, that's nothing! I get FutureFeedForward !

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy: Get the list of slashdot stories from the past couple of days (or two posts ago) and choose them at random, insert into newsfeed and it will successfully predict the future stories!

Content-Free, Thanks to Epimenides

[m0nk3ym1nd]

The place could fit in a shoebox. Won't it be populated entirely by ideas versus things? As soon as an idea is realized, oops! Get it outside quick before we have to change our name!

It's like the barber who shaves all and only those who never shave themselves...

It may not be "instantaneous"...

[winkydink]

but, in about 10 minutes, 20mg of Ambien puts me out for 8 hrs

Re:It may not be "instantaneous"...

[Dun Malg]

but, in about 10 minutes, 20mg of Ambien puts me out for 8 hrs

Yeah, and other than the nausea, diarrhea, amnesia, and possible heart attacks, there's hardly any down side to it!

As an insomniac, I find I'm better off just not sleeping as much. But then again, for some insomniacs it's better than no sleep at all...

Re:It may not be "instantaneous"...

[winkydink]

Just about any med these days has some/all of those listed as potential side effects. Read a few more pages of the PDR.

Announcing me

[Niscenus]

Naturally, you'll find my optical (see through) computer suspended in a case (while a real one hiding inside the case - or ceiling - is doing the actual work). And my delicious CRT-based 3D projector, which does work...except it only shows non-moving images. I have no knowledge how that'll be fictioned up.

-Zen

Looney Tunes

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or were some of these ideas stolen from cartons?

The moveable hole.
Through-the-Earth Travel System.

I just feel like Wiley Coyote should be using these things to capture the roadrunner.

Re:Looney Tunes

[El]

The moveable hole. Somebody has watched The Beatle's Yellow Submarine way too many times... "I've got a hole in me pocket!"

Re:Looney Tunes

[benchbri]

You really only need to watch it once.

Once, but really, really high. and hope you invent it before the buzz wears off.

Spray on clothes

[suso]

Hey, I already have spray on clothes. Someone just get a lady right over here and I will demostrate. ;-)

Museum business plan

[TimmyDee]

1. Exhibit stuff no one has actually made
2. ???
3. PROFIT!!!

This is Old News

[serutan]

I bought a season pass to that museum two years from now and went there twice next month.

Re:This is Old News

[Anonymous Coward]

OT:

Nice try. I'm reading this from Windows. EVERYONE has root access to my computer.

Well, except for me.

genetically engineered Velcro sheep?

[stdcallsign]

Wouldn't it be easier to make the gloves velcro?

Re: genetically engineered Velcro sheep?

[nizo]

I just assumed it was because velcro sticks to kilts, but I could be wrong or beaten up by irate Scotsmen later.

Re: genetically engineered Velcro sheep?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ayeah, an' that's the reason Scotsmen wear kilts in the first place, 'cause sheep can hear a zipper a mile away!

A little late

[SuperKendall]

I would have liked to go, but sadly the announcemnet on the museum of the future seems to have occured most firmly in the past.

An inauspicious start...

Re:A little late

[Prof.Phreak]

Amm... I wonder if museum of the future will exhibit museum of the future which will exhibit museum of the future...

Degrees in a circle?

[Trejkaz]

But there are 2*pi radians in a circle, using proper units.

Shouldn't we make sure there are 2*pi hours in a day or something?

Re:Degrees in a circle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahah. That would be great, it would drive the Bucky people crazy.

Re:Degrees in a circle?

[LWATCDR]

okay you have got to win the obscure reference of all time award. It is a shame that you probably will not get modded up for this since almost no one will get it.
Bravo.

Re:Degrees in a circle?

[LWATCDR]

We would have to round pi to a hole number then and that could just get all sorts of ugly.

Re:Degrees in a circle?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanna be COOL TOO, what's it mean!?

Re:Degrees in a circle?

[Doc Ruby]

Pi is a "hole" number - it's a sine from above.

Re:Degrees in a circle?

[Trejkaz]

Why do we need to round it to a whole number? Mathematics has survived forever without doing that.

Midnight would be 0. Midday would be Pi. 9am in the morning on the old system would be 3Pi/4.

It's so simple it has to succeed!

You could denote years in the same format, as well. So all times and dates could be expressed purely in terms of the only thing we can really measure, which is how far around the planet has rotated. :-p

Re:Degrees in a circle?

[notthe9]

I thought that I might be the first to reply this. Instead, it had taken 8 minutes.

I must have forgotten this was /.

Re:Degrees in a circle?

[mwood]

Setting pi=3 is sort of demonstrated in _The Metafontbook_, IIRC. The letter 'oh' comes out hexagonal. I think people would be miffed.

Re:Degrees in a circle?

[maxwell demon]

Well, with current definitions, a century is approximately pi gigaseconds.

Outpost

[mpost4]

The last picture on the right side of the main page, is from the old game for windows 3.1 Outpost, I never did well on that game but interestin to see that picture again.

Epcot

[DoctorHibbert]

Isn't this basically the same idea as Epcot?

Re:Epcot

[civman2]

Why did you mod this funny? Insightful, people. EPCOT was built to showcase future technologies.

Re:Epcot

[mcrbids]

Isn't this basically the same idea as Epcot?

I don't know about you, but Epcot in California is the lamest, most retarded excuse for a place to give yourself nausea since the whole building is spinning without any way to visually orient yourself to what's really going on.

So, what do you get for your price of sickening nausea?

An entire sea of cheap PCs set up with dumb flash games for the kids that they can also get (coincidentally) by going to any of a number of sites on the Intarweb.

I sincerely hope there's something better in Florida, 'cause the one in California is a no-go.

Re:Epcot

[BreadMan]

Epcot in FL isn't that much different. More space between the buildings, that's about it. Buildings are very dated. The Land building, IMHO, is the worst of the lot. The GM Test Track ride is just OK, but you're better off visting 6 flags if you want thrill rides. The whole Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow concept has been abandoned, you don't go to Epcot to see what World of Tomorrow will look like, instead it's a door mat for the World Shopping Mall^w^w Showcase.

You feel like you're on a very Brady vacation; the 70's style inflation stuck around too as the prices for nearly anything are 3x the real-world.

Even better than that...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Even better than that, you'll be able to go there and browse the dupe-free Slashdot of the very, very distant future.

here is the direct link to the picture

[mpost4]

https://www.davinciinstitute.com/new/admin/content /FCKeditor/uploads/Museum%20Concepts%203.jpg

I wonder if they got permission to use it?

Social inventions?

[mi]

Like some decent replacement for Democracy? This is not a flamebait -- Democracy has serious flaws, as was famously pointed out by Winston Churchill.

When playing Civilization, I prefer Corporate Republic (I guess, this is what we have in US now) to everything else, but am forced to switch to Virtual Democracy at the end, since C.R. is not suitable for too big an empire...

Re:Social inventions?

[Rude Turnip]

A constiutional republic will work just fine as long as the citizens have some balls to use their rights. Unfortunately, I think in the US we've been wading in cold water for the last 40 years.

Metric time has definitely been done before.

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to the one that the french tried out, the Gregorian Programmers' Guild release a metric clock desk accessory to go with dwm. (circa 1992, iirc).

I still run a clone of it as a WindowMaker Dockapp.

1 decimal second = 0.0864 imperial seconds.

It's currently 93:76:83 (in the uk)

Not invented yet?

[reality-bytes]

Surely if they've described the item / concept then they have just 'invented' it.

At least that what the USPTO believes.

V.F.W. Military Exhibit

[sakusha]

I look forward to the Military exhibit wing, sponsored by the Veterans of Future Wars.

future inventions....

[KillerCow]

In Boulder, Colorado tonight there is going to be a rather unusual announcement about the DaVinci Institute's effort to create a Museum of Future Inventions. This will be a museum where they exhibit things that haven't been invented yet, like spray on clothing, instant sleep, genetically engineered Velcro sheep, and metric time.

Where are the flying cars?

Re:future inventions....

[nsillik]

they were invented in the year 2000.... didn't you get yours yet?

Re:future inventions....

[Anonymous Coward]

Spray on Clothing has already been done, although it's more of a fetish thing, rather than a practical get up and go to work thing.

Re:future inventions....

[trick-knee]

> rather than a practical get up and go to work thing.

well, maybe not for you....

Metric time

[zoeblade]

This will be a museum where they exhibit things that haven't been invented yet, like... metric time.

There were ten hour pocketwatches a long time ago, if that's what you mean. They just never caught on.

Re:Metric time

[zoeblade]

Here we go: according to Wikipedia, decimal time was officially introduced in 1793 and one proposed metric time system was introduced in the 1990s. They most definately have been invented yet.

But surely if you can think of something, by its very definition it's been invented, you just don't have a working prototype...

Caffeinated Eye Drops

[grangerg]

Already tried this.

Note to self: Don't try to pour Dr. Pepper in eyes again.

Competition?

[Jason1729]

This looks like serious competition for Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum.

The Science Fiction Museum has much more realistic content.

Jason
ProfQuotes

Monorails?

[bstadil]

Any Futuristic presentation since forever always show monorails

Can someone please explain the attraction, I traveled in a few like Disney's and one in Las Colinas (Dallas) and I fail to see the benefit.

Re:Monorails?

[digitalhermit]

We have one in S. Florida called the MetroRail. It's very good for eliminating those pesky budget surpluses. Plus, many of the benches make convenient public urinals.

Re:Monorails?

[MalachiConstant]

Well, they're nicer than busses and trains in some ways (from wikipedia):

-require minimal space
-more attractive than elevated trains
-quieter

But mostly I think it's the same reason you always hear of jetpacks and flying cars: These were popular "future inventions" from the 50's, a monorail looks perfect in a painting of a "city of the future".

There doesn't seem too many "sexy" inventions that have any chance of becoming reality any time soon. Robots? Too complicated for general use, AI is very far away. Driverless cars? Same problem. Food in a pill? We could make it, I guess, but you'd have to eat a bowl full of them. More fuel efficient cars are coming along nicely, but that's not really sexy. Space travel for all? We're getting there slowly.

Then there's the stuff we already have. Instant communication anywhere, GPS, powerful and affordable computers.

Most of the stuff that was popular future technology in the 50's is far more difficult than most people realized at the time. But monorails could be made then and the graceful sweep of the rails and the bullet-shaped cars looked very futuristic.

Re:Monorails?

[Dyolf Knip]

Food in a pill? We could make it, I guess, but you'd have to eat a bowl full of them

I dunno about that. I imagine it is well within our capabilities to put a daily 1000-2000 calories, vitamins, carbs, and protein into something the size of a candy bar. To take it further, could a week's worth be so condensed into a package that resists digestion in stages for several days, essentially 150 hours of food in a tiny package? But really, apart from rations for soldiers, campers, survivialist nuts, and people vying for the 'perfect' diet, why would we? To me there's nothing better than a big, steaming plate of spaghetti and garlic bread. Dammit, now I've got a craving for some italian food.

WOW! == Negative calories

[Anonymous Coward]

You've clearly never had WOW! chips with Olestera in them! All the calories from them and everything else you've eaten recently come shooting out of you so fast, all you can say is.. you guess it.. Wow!

Re:WOW! == Negative calories

[Jeff DeMaagd]

If that isn't a joke...

I'm pretty sure that was the PR spin of a pretty rabid anti genetically-modified-foods group. Some people did have poor reaction, but IIRC, it wasn't much worse than standard potato chips.

Re:WOW! == Negative calories

[BancBoy]

Not a joke... I don't know anyone that has experienced "anal leakage," their term, from eating "normal" potato chips.

Re:WOW! == Negative calories

[lisaparratt]

Nope, users of Xenical get a similar reaction.

They don't work by stopping you absorbing fat, they work by stopping you from eating it because you don't want to be shooting oil out of your arse.

It's fairly logical - if it's not being digested, etc. then it's got to go somewhere.

Largely Irrelavant

[beaststwo]

When I was in grad school (1990), I read the book "Megamistakes" by Steven Schnaars, Professor of Marketing at the City University of New York. An amazingly interesting book that can be read cover to cover in a few hours. Professor Schaar's book talks about science and technology forecasting and how wildly wrong such forecasts almost always are. He then goes on to talk about why forecasts go wrong.

The uptake of the book is that even the "best of the best" forecasters are only right one prediction in nine. The record falls off sadly as you move away from that top tier.

So while hearing visionaries talk is fun and can be enlightening, they seldom represent anything likely to actually happen. After all, isn't Popular Science still telling us about how we'll drive personal aircraft instead of cars in a few years?

Re:Largely Irrelavant

[Dyolf Knip]

He then goes on to talk about why forecasts go wrong.

Hmmm, isn't that itself a forecast prediction, with an 8/9 chance of being wrong?

That said, it's funny how much stuff that was predicted never came to pass and how much stuff came to pass that was never predicted. At least it ensures that our future, no matter how many sci-fi novels are written, will be surprising.

Re:Largely Irrelavant

[Dun Malg]

He then goes on to talk about why forecasts go wrong.

Hmmm, isn't that itself a forecast prediction, with an 8/9 chance of being wrong?

Actually, it's not. It's a statistical analysis with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. You don't have to make any predictions of the future to figure out why jetpacks, smell-o-vision, and atomic generated electricity so plentiful it's too cheap to meter" didn't happen.

It is NOT tonight, it WAS yesterday

[DonDiablo]

I live in Denver, I was getting all psyched up to go, but too bad, it happenned already :-(

My comments on the ideas

[Antony-Kyre]

The Self-Cleaning House: Some people may find cleaning enjoyable. Something like this may not change much.

The Movable Hole: Something that seems impossible. Plus, the solution would be for a really stupid mistake one did. Make sure you don't drill the hole in the wrong place in the first place.

Instant Sleep: Hypnosis could probably accomplish this.

Caffeinated Eye Drops: It's a problem in our society if we can't get a good night's sleep to offset this.

The Virtual Ceiling: Wouldn't work in smog filled cities, but a great idea. I would love this. I assume this would be accomplished by a ceiling made out of a certain material, then have four projects, from the four corners of the room, projecting onto the ceiling in a high definition format.

The Dream Recorder: Can you really capture something so intangible? And what about the non-audio/video parts of the dream?

Plaid Spray Paint: Should be very possible. Design it so the device you use automatically shifts to the right colour, and use tracking sensors to know where it's at. Like, move three inches over, switch to colour red.

Re:My comments on the ideas

[Daniel]

The Movable Hole: Something that seems impossible. Plus, the solution would be for a really stupid mistake one did. Make sure you don't drill the hole in the wrong place in the first place.

I see you haven't played the Multi-Dimensional Thief! :-)

Daniel

Re:My comments on the ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Instant Sleep: Hypnosis could probably accomplish this.

Caffeinated Eye Drops: It's a problem in our society if we can't get a good night's sleep to offset this.

Duh! Once we invent Instant Sleep, we use that to offset the Eye Drops. And since caffeine is an appetite suppressant and a diuretic, We'll all be thin enough to want others to see us in our spray-on clothing!

Is it me, or does this sound like a bit from Futurama. I can hear Professor F. describing these inventions: "Apart from the horribly disfiguring burns that you receive, my rocket shoes really are a fine invention!"

instant sleep

[waveclaw]

As a long time gamers, what is this sleep stuff I keep hearing about?

I it something that comes in can form? Or do I have to stop playing for 5 minutes to pop a pill?

From what I hear, as long as it tastes better than 'instant' coffee, this *sleep* stuff might just be worth trying. But I gotta go, too many spawns to camp.

Velcro sheep?

[nizo]

You wouldn't be able to mix velcro sheep and regular sheep, otherwise they will stick together, forming one large sheepmass.

Re:Velcro sheep?

[Greyfox]

that is honestly not the first comment I expected to hear about velcro sheep. Of course, I browse at +2, and the sheep comments of the nature I was expecting tend to get modded down...

Re:Velcro sheep?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ironic that somebody has probably spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to make they sheep everybody else counts out of velcro.

Re:Velcro sheep?

[nizo]

I think this is the comment you were looking for :-)

Re:Velcro sheep?

[themaidtricks]

sheepmass
Just don't let the Beowulf cluster get near your sheepmass, or there'll be hell to pay with Farmer Brown.

Re:Velcro sheep?

[Tim Fraser]

sheepmass.

ROFL -- My hat is off to you. One hilarious word like this can dispel a whole week's worth of workplace misery. Thanks nizo, and thanks Slashdot.

- Tim

Re:Velcro sheep?

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't be able to mix velcro sheep and regular sheep, otherwise they will stick together, forming one large sheepmass.

Worse yet, it will vote for Bush.

Re:Velcro sheep?

[Anonymous Coward]

SHHH! This is how the strong nuclear force works holding nucleons together! (That quark stuff is just a bunch of disinformation spread by the Southern Baptist Convention.)

Don't forget

[Anonymous Coward]

Missing children.

Oh, you meant cartoons.

A Nude Protest

[Anonymous Coward]

...haven't been invented yet, like spray on clothing...

I look forward to the time when I can walk around naked to protest the ozone depletion.

Re:A Nude Protest

[Beardo the Bearded]

As do we all. Bring oil. ;)

10 day week

[Magickcat]

Ah yes, metric time. I bet we're all just dying to have a ten day week.

I'd suggest they put the metric time display across from the "Duke Nukem Forever" display, and next to the "Perpetual Motion Machine" display.

all wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

really innovative stuff would be:
genetically engineered velcro clothing, metric sleep, spray on time, and instant sheep!

A different opinion

[asliarun]

I beg to differ from most of these "future" theories. More often than not, if asked to envision the future, we let our imagination go wild and concoct devices that use things like anti-gravity, super-intelligent robots, infinite engergy producing machines, and so on. IMHO, the reality of the future would be different, yes, but not this different! If you trace innovation and progress down the years, you'll mostly see progress happening on a linear basis. Real innovation actually happens very very rarely (fire, internal combustion engine, wireless communication, silicon based computing etc.). I'm talking about innovation that you can count on your fingers. After this new idea has taken seed, there's a very long period of time when this "new-fangled" device or concept is tested, marketed, and finally accepted by society. This is when the idea is modified, perfected, and customized. Look at automobiles for instance. Are the cars today fundamentally different from the cars made a hundred years ago?? Cars today still use an internal combustion engine, ride on 4 wheels, and have a chassis to hold all the shit together. Yes, we have better engines, better tires, and a better chassis. But fundamentally different? No. We've even tried the hovercraft, the personal helicopter, Segway, etc. but none of these concepts have really replaced the good old automobile. I'm not saying that inflection points never occur. Yes, they do. However, i'm not so sure that a lot of what we see around us, in terms of technology and automation, will be so dramatically different from today as we imagine it to be.

Re:A different opinion

[tfoudray]

Look at automobiles for instance. Are the cars today fundamentally different from the cars made a hundred years ago??

yes.

also known as: cars 100 years ago were not powered by internal combustion. that was made viable later than 1904, although the technology was actually only an adaptation of steam power.

Re:A different opinion

[asliarun]

Ok. Maybe, i was not accurate in the timelines. What i was trying to say is that there has been no *fundamental* change in a car's design and implementation. If i was living in, say, 1950, i might have predicted that by 2004, tires, propulsion systems, analog displays, and fuels would have completely changed. I would have imagined a concept car that can fly or glide, is naviagated by computers, and/or will be nuclear powered. However, the fact is that a 2004 model is really not that different from a 1960 model.

Usage of composite materials, tubeless tires, ABS, xenon headlights, perhaps, but nothing that can be considered as a fundamental change.

Re:A different opinion

[spisska]

Ummmm. Please read your links before posting them, and think for a minute before saying something wrong.

According to the article you cite, automobiles featuring 4-stroke internal combustion engines, carburators, and four wheels were being made in the mid 1880s. By the end of the decade, the transmission had been added.

Before the turn of the century, there were automobile factories (of a sort -- no mass production), automobile races, and fatal automobile accidents. You've already posted the link to this info, so I don't need to repeat it.

The point made by the parent is a valid one -- that all the improvements to cars in the last 100+ years (direct fuel injection, turbo, electric windows, beaded seatcovers, fuzzy dice, etc) are embellishments of the same basic design.

A modern car is of course faster and more efficient than one from the late 19th century, but if you stripped a new car down to its core, an engineer from the Benz workshop could still identify the parts and tell you how it worked.

It was last night.

[Duke]

If you are planning to drop by, note that this was last night. (First line of text on the Web page: On Wednesday, November 10th the DaVinci Institute will be hosting a very visionary event.)

If you are in the neighborhood, the Boulder Linux Users' Group will be meeting at 7:00 PM tonight in Fleming Law Building, room 102 just a few hundred yards from Fiske Planetarium, site of last night's DaVinci Instutue meeting. Richard Johnson will be speaking on "Anatomy of a Widespread Security Compromise."

another ploy

[Striker770S]

it is just another ploy to get people to go to a place in which nobody has even heard of. It was like the side attractions in the 50s and 60s. People would come off the side of a highway and visit some crappy cheese house and be amused. There is no point in looking at this because these are the same inventions that people in the 50s or so would think we would have by now. This is what the museum will most likely look like - the walls at unusual angles and made of see-through colored glass. there will be a strobe like to, yes a strobe light. and a bunch of cut-out pieces of star trek characters with "ray guns" and other crap that we will not invent. I cant believe that people are actually waiting for this side attraction to open. this is just another sign that stupidity has ruled the earth.

George Bush Science Museum of Devil Witchcraft

[gelfling]

Because unless the Baby Jayzus said so, we're not gonna larn us that.

Sorry 'leets but the museum of the future will be a museum to the technologies we already have but were outlawed in The Great Quickening of '06.

Base 10 bad idea?

[bill_kress]

As I understand it, there were two competing concepts at the beginning of communications. There were a bunch of not-terribly-smart people who saw that they had ten fingers and decided that was the number to which they would count.

Another group (apparently either much more intelligent or endowed with an extra diget) noticed that 12 was a Very Nice Number. Where 10 is divisible by 1, 2, and 5 (Making those numbers very easy to use) it really had no other easy to use numbers. 12 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, making them all gret number to work with, and 8, 9 and 10 are pretty easy being multiples of some of the good numbers.

Many of the original concepts were founded by the smart people--the clock and spoken word apparently being two of them (ever notice that eleven and twelve use a very different pattern than thirteen through ninteen?)

Anyway, a base 10 clock would be lousy. The quarter hours are gone, the only division is the half hour. You also lose the rarely used ability to divide the hour into thirds easily.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the base 12ers won... I tend to think we'd be way ahead in mathematics because in basic math it would be so much easer to visualize the patters as opposed to route memorization of tables.

Re:Base 10 bad idea?

[droleary]

As I understand it . . .

You clearly don't understand much. There is nothing particular smart or stupid about a particular number base; rather it's a question of utility. The utility of base 12 in having a number of factors is only for systems limited to integer math with small numbers. In that respect, it is the "stupid" choice.

Anyway, a base 10 clock would be lousy. The quarter hours are gone, the only division is the half hour. You also lose the rarely used ability to divide the hour into thirds easily.

Are you being deliberately dense? The divisions you find so handy are completely arbitrary and are a chicken-and-egg issue. They can also be expressed in decimal. Hell, they can be expressed in binary, and you'd look like just as much a fool on Slashdot if you started moaning about base 2 being that much more limited because it's not even divisible by 5!

Re:Base 10 bad idea?

[Boronx]

Isn't the whole point of metric to make simple calculations easier? Wouldn't base 12 have helped that?

Where I live we've got an 8.3 percent sales tax...which is almost exactly 1/12th of a dollar!

Re:Base 10 bad idea?

[Tablizer]

Agreed. If humans were truly "designed" (as the red states believe), then we would have 12 toes and fingers instead of 10 to get our number system off to a good start. Well, I suppose a truly intelligent being would have told the early guys to use 12 instead of 10 for their base. "Thou shalt forgeteth your hands and useth 12".

Re:Base 10 bad idea?

[droleary]

Isn't the whole point of metric to make simple calculations easier? Wouldn't base 12 have helped that?

I think the answer is "no" on both counts. The two main advantages of metric (i.e., SI units as derived from cgs) that I can easily point to is that it 1) standardizes relationships between different units and 2) uses a common notation for orders of magnitude. I don't see how base is a particularly important factor in that.

Where I live we've got an 8.3 percent sales tax...which is almost exactly 1/12th of a dollar!

So what? How does that help you in any way? I have a 6.5% tax. How would your base 12 help me in any way? As a geek I can work reasonably well in a number of different bases, and to me all a fascination with base 12 means is that your mind is stuck on integers.

Re:Base 10 bad idea?

[notthe9]

And which IS exactly .083 dollars per dollar. I don't see that this is difficult.

Base twelve would eventually have gone to floating point calculations (.083 base 10 being about .1 base 12 [I find myself for the second time today wishing that /. allowed <sub> tags]) if you wanted it to be infinately precise. At which point who cares about fractions, which are more difficult to work with and perform calculations with when they are proper and greater than one, and difficult to conceive of when they are improper.

Re:Base 10 bad idea?

[bill_kress]

Pointlessly abusive, eh?

The ability to conceptualize fractions like 1/3 and 3/4 long-predates the ability to deal with decimals.

The first place that everyone learned fractions was looking at an old analog clock. It transfers to something you can use every day with ease, and moves those concepts into your brain at a very young age.

If you ask your kid what time it will be 33.3333333 minutes after the hour that has two disadvantages.

First of all they are learning decimal not fractions. Fractions aid visualization, decimals don't.

Secondly

Aaw, why am I bothering. You're pretty obviously a decendant of the base-10 tribe and won't get it no matter how long I go on.

Re:Base 10 bad idea?

[droleary]

Pointlessly abusive, eh?

Yes, you were pointlessly abusive of those who use base 10. Oh, did you mean you're the one feeling hurt because you're being called an idiot for calling other people idiots? Dish it but can't take it, eh?

The ability to conceptualize fractions like 1/3 and 3/4 long-predates the ability to deal with decimals.

Would you also say it then pre-dates the ability to . . . wait for it . . . tell time?

The first place that everyone learned fractions was looking at an old analog clock. It transfers to something you can use every day with ease, and moves those concepts into your brain at a very young age.

I see you indeed are being deliberately dense. There are any number of "every day" uses for integer division. It's totally moot, because that is merely one type of division and how you represent that special case should in no way serve as a framework for all math. I'm frankly surprised to see such ignorance displayed on Slashdot by someone with a relatively low UID.

If you ask your kid what time it will be 33.3333333 minutes after the hour that has two disadvantages.

I assume you mean for an hour that consists of 100 minutes, which translates to currently asking a kid what time it will be 20 minutes after the hour. I'm sure he'll respond that it's 20 minutes after the hour (or 33 1/3 in the "evil metric time future"; oh, see how I can still use a fraction? :-)

First of all they are learning decimal not fractions. Fractions aid visualization, decimals don't.

If they just have to parrot back the number they give them, they aren't really learning much of anything, are they? But, seriously, what about getting a third in any base is hard? If a kid can divide 60 by 3, they can damn well divide 100 by 3 and then go on to represent it any way they want. I'm not buying your "visualization" argument, either, because it begs the question by assuming a particular clock face. You could still just as easily produce a clock that had 100 minutes using the current divisions and, guess what, it'll still be a third of an hour when the big hand is on the 4 (though it would make more sense labeled "1/3", which totally blows your argument out of the water). Decimal notation in no way impacts how you deal with a fractional hour. It merely changes the representation from something like 4:20 to 3.33.

Aaw, why am I bothering. You're pretty obviously a decendant of the base-10 tribe and won't get it no matter how long I go on.

No, I am obvious a person with no particular affinity to any particular base or representation. For some reason your mind is stuck on the notion that a base having a lot of small integer divisors is somehow special. It's not. Even binary will do the job. If anything, technological advances have shown that a base having fewer integer divisors makes the math easier to do. I'll match my base 2 computer against your base 12 computer any day of the week. You're right in thinking I won't "get" your point of view if you kept droning on; I have no desire to be as mind-bogglingly wrong as you are.

The Moon

[empaler]

Are you it had nothing to do with the moon? For some reason Hammurabi and his countrymen (who lived in what is now the rabbles of Iraq) counted in dozens, and they were there a bit before those roman guys...

Re:The Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

You're both wrong.

That there are 12 months in a year is a function of the meaning of month -- one cycle of the moon from full to new to full. The ancients could hardly make a "metric" month and still have it fit with the seasons. Now, our current months are too long to sync up with the moon, but that's because the number of months in a year is uneven, so they padded all the months with extra days to make up for it, so that every month had either 30 or 31 days.

Well, this was fine until Julius (=July) and Augustus (=August) decided that they needed months named after them. And not just any old short 30-day months, but good 31 day months. Now, as the parent poster pointed out, in those days most months were named after roman number, aka DECember = 10, NOVember = 9, etc. But they didn't have just ten months (which is impossible if you care about knowing the seasons at all), they just said the year started in March instead of January. So, when July and August were bumped from having 30 to 31 days, they had to steal the days from somewhere else, so they cut it off of the last month of the year, February. This is also why February was the logical place to put leap days, it being the last day of the year by the old system. It was only later that people decided to start the year in January (named for Janus, the two face god) instead, and the rest is history...

(Also, our current system sucks! But, it's probably too late to replace it.)

Re:The Moon

[empaler]

That was what I said.
The reason they counted in dozens was most likely this division of the seasons...

Re:The Moon

[AndroidCat]

So, did Julio and Augusto steal their months off the end of the year, or did they originally start the year in March? (Considering the bitching about a few days during the Gregorian switch, I'm surprised that even an Emperor could pull it off without major riots. [or has that just slipped out of history?])

Metric Time has been available for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

For metric time(and watches that run on metric time) go here: http://www.swatch.com/internettime/home.php

Swatch has their own "Internet Time" that divides the day into 1000 "beats" each beat being about 1m26.4s

hammy

This just in...

[Vornzog]

Museum of the Future announced in the past! See yesterday's innovations today!

Now, where did I put that 'News at 11:00' cliche - it was just here...

(That event occured last night, 11/10/04, according to the announcement linked in the article.)

Museum of the future, eh?

[Rei]

I'm eager to see the exhibit containing a wax scultpure of Darl McBride begging on the streets, and Linus tossing a quarter in his cup.

People interested in the Museum might also like...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Encyclopedia of Ignorance"
by Ronald Frederick Henry Duncan, Miranda W. Smith
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing
Pub. Date: March 1979
ISBN: 0671790870

This book does for Science what the Museum seems to be doing for Engineering. Sadly the book was published in the 1970's and as far as I can tell, never updated; nonetheless, it provides an interesting snapshot of what was unknown "then".

It is out of print, but available in used book stores.

It may be even more interesting to see what things are now known and to what we STILL must concede our Ignorance.

Pi as a whole number

[empaler]

Some states almost have, and one has.
Ugh.

So...

[Valdier]

Basically it is a museum of Science Fiction?

You know... all those things that will never happen like say... Flying Cars, Teleportation and Orbital Laser Beams?

I want the museum of things that DID happen and just sucked... Other than Microsoft Bob...

Antimatter = antipasta?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just never mix pasta and antipasta or you're in trouble

spray in clothing?

[circusboy]

a little behind the times aren't we?

Already Obsolete?

[MonkeyCookie]

I knew computers and technological devices became obsolete at an insane rate, but this is ridiculous!

Equipment is now obsolete before it's invented! So obsolete, in fact, that it's in a museum!

Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Will my girlfriend be on display there?

Spray-on Clothes

[Tablizer]

Japanese beat us to it

a tough race indeed

[binarybum]

This looks like serious competition for Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum."

Yeah, I can't decide which one to poop on.

Spray on clothing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheesh! I see spray on clothing all the time at
Burning Man, Exotic Erotic Ball, Fantasy Fest.
It gets to the point where I can't tell if email
list discussions are about LaTex or latex every
August and October.

At karmatic risk, a sig comment

[Niscenus]

From my experience, it would appear that the gnu-matically correct version would be:

make love --not-war

Re:At karmatic risk, a sig comment

[Doc Ruby]

It's bad karma to attach to karma :). Unfortunately, that spelling is too far from the "Make love, not war" epigram to keep its referential resonance (for me).

This is functional

[Niscenus]

And work will take less time than in Mr. 27.8-Earth-Hours-Metric-Day's silly idea.

Ingenious; give yourself a personal point that, while useless karmatically, still means a lot from me.

Seems to me

[Wierd Willy]

The Velcro Sheep would be popular in Montana and New Zealand..

fp

[notthe9]

guys they allready have metric time no joke

Slashdot in the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have future dupes?

Doraemon's Pocket!

[pikine]

... You obviously missed this important piece of fine Japanese manga/anime character, Doraemon. A museum of the gadgets in his pocket is a museum of the future!

See some of his gadget at work here and here.

how about 2^29 oscillations

[dominux]

or better still go with the microfortnight. VMS waits on bootup for a period defined in microfortnights. http://computing-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/ microfortnight

Prior art ;)

[Gernot]

But there is already a museum of the future , the Ars Electronica Center ! It's in Linz, Austria. :)

Re:Prior art ;)

[Gernot]

Darn, I meant the AEC center, which
is part of the AEC concept :-)

Plaid

[Cackmobile]

I love the plaid spray paint. Just imagine tagging with that. I think a beer can/bottle that has a cooling system. goto the shops buy your beer. When your ready push the button and 5 seconds later its cold. now worries for fridge space at the next bbq. awesome.

Competition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it compete with The Museum of Jurassic Technology"? The webpage does not do justice to how seriously weird this place is.

You get some idea from Lawrence Weschler Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders, a Pulitzer Prize finalist (and for sale via the museum's website).

spray on clothing hasn't been invented yet?

[jhimm]

how were all those metal chixxx
getting their jeans on in the morning
during the height of the hair metal days?

that aside,
wouldn't spray on clothing
simply be a matter of turning liquid latex
into an aerosol?
mmmm... maybe i should patent.

fundamental Planck time

[peter303]

Its been proposed not to base time on the cycles of astronomical objects, but on fundamental physical constants. Some fiddling with Planck's quanta action and the speed of light defines the smallest quantum of time likely to exist. Then you scale this up by powers of ten (or two) to the round interval closest to the conventional second to define the "Planck second". Ditto for the Planck meter and Planck gram.

concept of the "future" evolves over time

[peter303]

From 1930s to 1960s the "future" was mainly about machines: better cars, airplanes, spaceships, appliances, robots, etc. Then in the 1970s and 1980s it was about ecology and psychology. In the past 20 years its become about computing and communications.

You can track the evolution of futurism by looking at old library books, or better the futurism exhibits at the Disney Parks. The original Tomorrowland was about machines. Then the Epcot dome depicted the post-Earth Day eco-thought. Finally the newests exhbits are digital.

Metric time is messy

[Retired Replicant]

I guess you could divide each day into 10 "hours" and then have smaller subdivisions of hours by 10, etc. But what are they gonna do about the fact that the earth completes one orbit around the sun every 365.25 days? Also, even though you could easily divide a year into ten months instead of twelve, you would still end up with 36.25 days per month.

and patent law

[jmpnz]

I wonder if these exhibits could be considered prior art?

Think of the sorts of cross-overs...

[Kickassthegreat]

which would be possible between the Museum of the Future and Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum! It would be great if they had coordinated exhibits, so that you could go to the SFM to see the place in science fiction where the idea came from, and then go to the Museum of the Future to see what's being done to make the fiction a reality.

Does anyone have a favorite invention from science fiction which they think would work in the new museum?

Personally, I would like to see the "Bronto Burgers" (made from real dinosaurs), "Eggplant" (now with 5 yolks!), and the walk-in genetic makeovers using nanomachines and custom viruses (which would make things like fully-functional sex changes and animal-human grafts possible) from John Varley's Steel Beach.

Good old Spray-On Clothing

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember reading about spray-on clothing before I was a teenager, so that must've been in the 1960s.

So the idea is anything but new, but since it was in a non-US magazine, it happened in a part of the world that doesn't really exist. Remember, Iraq only exists as long as it's in the media.