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Museum of the Future

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the give-us-talking-fruit dept.

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."

17 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. I hope they can find space by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    for the troll-free Slashdot thread.

  2. Metric time - been done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  3. Duke Nukem Forever? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  4. I call prior art! by rfischer · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    and profit, of course.

  5. Oblig. Simpsons' Quote by aceat64 · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  6. I thought... by Mad_Rain · · Score: 4, Informative

    I thought metric time already invented?

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

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    1. Re:I thought... by Tmack · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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

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  7. Negative calories by 3770 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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  8. Prior Art? by bloodstains · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  9. Innovation... by Blue-Footed+Boobie · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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.

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  10. Re:Spray On Clothing by TheOtherChimeraTwin · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  11. This is Old News by serutan · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  12. Degrees in a circle? by Trejkaz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

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  13. Epcot by DoctorHibbert · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Isn't this basically the same idea as Epcot?

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  14. Not invented yet? by reality-bytes · · Score: 3, Interesting


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

    At least that what the USPTO believes.

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  15. Largely Irrelavant by beaststwo · · Score: 4, Informative
    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?

  16. Velcro sheep? by nizo · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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