Friday, January 16, 2015

AI (part 3) - Mr. Fusion

Wikipedia.com/Deuterium-tritium fusion


Remember what 2015 was supposed to look like in 1985?

The movie Back to the Future  made many predictions.  There were hits and misses.  More hits than misses.  And here are some of them:  14 Things from Back to the Future II That Actually Came True, and 5 That Haven't... Yet 

Mr. Fusion?

Back to the Future II predicted Mr. Fusion.  Shown below is mad scientist  Doc Brown getting a refuel from a renewable source - garbage.

What about this one?  Hit or miss?

Last year, 2014, an interesting announcement came out:  Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project | Reuters   And this clip shows the rest of the story:


A compact fusion reactor which can be placed on a small truck?  Clean unlimited energy source?  Perhaps a global game changer.  Well, now we may be 20 years away.

But Science imitating Art, this is part of AI - no ... not Artificial Intelligence, but

American Ingenuity ...

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Thursday, January 8, 2015

Signs of the Times (part 6) - Fear of Missing Out

everystockphoto.com/Social Media Patterns
First World Problems?

May these be one of the Signs of the Times?

What are some of these big First World Problems?  And in this world of pain, doom, and strife, they seem rather trivial.  Here are a few of them, which you can tweet - for grins: First World Problems - Funny First World Problem Meme Images

Along with these First World Problem comes another phobia - much of it rooted in social media and the deluge of information coming at us from the ubiquitous internet:

FOMO - Fear of Missing Out

It's an understatement to say there is a lot of information out there.  How do we begin to filter what is important?  Some of this was addressed in a previous blog:   Proverbs (part 1) - Information vs. Wisdom .  And in the cyberspace, we did make many searches, so we would not miss out, such as is summarized here:  Infographic: What You Searched Google For 2014 | Digital Buzz Blog

But the video clip below explains this new First World Problem fear - FOMO - with its philosophical spin:



And King Solomon expressed some of this FOMO - the longing in the human spirit for something more, that there is an intuition that there is something greater.  He infers that the Creator made us this way:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. 
He has also set eternity in the human heart; 
yet no one can fathom what God has done
from beginning to end.
 Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV)


But to not to commit?  Really?  Not make a choice?  Is that not a choice?  Actually, there is an old saying about this phobia (from James, the Just, the half-brother of Jesus):

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
James 1:8 (KJV)

Perhaps, this restlessness, wanting it all, but not committing, refusing to choose, being double minded, unstable, is one of the

Signs of the Times? 

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Previous posts in this series:

Signs of the Times (part 1) - Camping in the Parks (2012)

Signs of the Times (part 2) - Layaway (2012)




Signs of the Times (part 5) - Staycations (2013)

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Photo from:  everystockphoto.com/Social Media Patterns