2016/05/31

Humans Need Not Apply - by CGP Grey

I like CPR Grey for videos on weird border shapes and the like, but this one on increasing automation and robotics is really good and will fit to our scope.
[can we pleaaase find a better description for "really good"!?!]



[Isn't this a super cheap way to fill up the blog? I haven't done anything here! Didn't I want to avoid this link sharing stuff??
 But those videos are so interesting! Let's drop some Kurzgesagt videos too!]


2016/05/21

The Future, in the Past

How intriguing it is to wonder how people in the past thought about the future! What did they envision? What was grossly far fetched? What will always be impossible from current knowledge, and what was actually not that badly guessed? And most of all: What miracles did they miss? What things were far to advanced to even foresee in, say 1950? 

These postcards from France are hilarious yet slightly disturbing. 2000 in 1900 looked mechanistically batwinged:









This one is terrible: 



This farming on is actually quite interesting since this concept became largely true, I mean, figuratively (in some parts of the world OMG *SO MANY PEOPLE still farming with their hands [I should exercise more])




The lifelong dream of effortless learning. Still not at all there. We need to work on that: 


The 50s and 60s were a great time for futuristic dreams and illustrations. How awesome. In those moon-landing, nuclear war thread manic-depressive time, they had visions:







[Post without link or source? The poor creators!Am I allowed to do this?  At least mention a name here: Klaus Bürkle]


OMGG THERE IS A WHOLE BLOG ABOUT THIS, I DON’T HAVE TO WRITE MORE

Oh, and include this reddit:

[Is this like enough for a post!?! This is super incoherent. But nice pictures. Should I write more? People will not like this]


North Korea loves futurism btw, which makes me wonder a bit…



2016/05/12

Why are you doing this?

Nobody wants to read a blog post like „Why this blog?“, I know. There can a subtle, distressing desperation in such a justification. Plus I’m afraid of the cold, sudden blog death, where all of the sudden, there are no more texts. Maybe some „I’m very busy at the moment, will come back soon“-post, and then never something else. Writing is a lot of work. Why engaging in it, and especially sharing it online, with other people?  

This is a writing project about science, technology and the future. I have to write about these topics. Well, nobody is making me to, I've put this on myself. But still, I have to. Technology is progressing fast. Like, really fast. And our lives are shaken. 


[list Technology advancements here]
artificial intelligence
energy?
list here a lot of interesting things
 small story on how fast this all goes. (maybe link article 2011 Hermine books and magic
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-information

[And drop that youtube link (how to embed this?)]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVbkHBpT2Qg


Why create something, one could always ask. There is this one poem by Ezra Pound, which is making me shiver every time I read it:

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
      Not shaking the grass 

Uhhh. Well, that would be too bad. If life slips by like a field mouse.
I’ll just start writing and let this grow naturally. For now, that’s enough.

Some words about me. My name is Martin, I live an average millennial (*MonkeyCoveringItsEyes*) life in an average city in an average country somewhere in Europe. I’m pursuing my PhD in the area of technology assessment with a focus on renewable energy. This is also kind of a writing exercise in preparation of my thesis (which will hopefully not look as dizzying as this here, but scientists say (whenever I’ll say „scientists say“, what I mean in reality (oh, this is also a good place to drop the disclaimer I kinda like nested brackets, I use those heavily, sorry)) there is a writing organ which you have to train, so I train). Excuse my English, it won’t be perfect all the time, I’m not a native speaker. Perfection can impede progress. I’ll post when something is good enough. This is also a good-enough exercise.
[drop soundcloud link and other private things? too much bragging in this humbleness?]

In the meantime, you could have a look at my all time internet favorites (no, seriously):

Wait but why 

About the name:
The blog will center a lot around what’s happening in the digital world. In the Python programming language, you can import certain packages to beef-up the core functionality. There is a famous xkcd joke on this:


And you can also import the future in Python. Not the future of course, but Pythons future, i.e. the functionality of later versions. It’s a silly title. So there you have a reason for the title.

[Ideas for later] 
Nested logics:
Tell that I wrote this in advance, post a picture of what I intend to write about, and let them see how well that worked…
Made a screen shot of the planned topics and they'd be able to see if I was on time



Estimated Time Status Estimated Date
Layout
2h

20.05.2016
Why are you doing this?
5h

20.05.2016
The future, in the past.
1h

01.06.2016
The past, in the future.
2h

10.06.2016
Technology foresight - Moore’s „law“ and other methods
4h

22.07.2016
Artificial Intelligence and other scary future things
3h

05.08.2016
Complex Systems
5h

07.10.2016
Contraction of sciences
3h


Decision theory and poor judgment
6h

15.11.2016
Underestimation of the speed of the current transformation? (It’s not only computers, you know)
5h


Fatalism - will things soon be completely different anyway?
2h


Short Story (several parts)
20h


Why is it so hard to pick up programming?
5h




posting it actually incomplete?
Will people get this?!
Mention "What About" already