More Personal Transport

Remember the Solowheel? I posed about it previously. 
The whole idea of small personal transport gadgets just gets bigger and bigger: this is oblivious to the basic health of users who should at least walk some small distance each day  - but who cares about that, right? we all wanna look cool on a zoomy thingy that you can carry in your bag or stash in your school locker . . . . .

But there is a new twist to the story now: First, here is the Onewheel:

Like it's compatriots it has electronic balancing and control, new batteries and a motor - in this case in the wheel hub.  It's actually a good design I think since it is narrow, has a large wheel with an airfilled tye so you can use it offroad and there is plenty of foot spacing to allow the rider to balance well.

 Now check this out: at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show this year, a Chinese company turned up with knockoffs for sale.  they lasted about five minutes.

Should I even mention Hoverboards? it seems this is what the two wheeled devices will now be called even though they don't hover. The big mess about who has the license to make and sell them  - never mind those terrible battery fires - will be with us for a while yet.  Pah! they can't handle a decent bump and stick out too wide on the footpath too. I'll take a Onewheel any day. or walk.

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There was one other CES 2016  thing that caught my eye: Cooki. This is the kitchen gadget that I have been expecting for a long time:  have a look here.  Yup, let's replace another basic human activity with a gadget and  reduce it to a mechanical process so that folks can spend more time on Facebook or Netflix. Note that the real plan is to pre-pack ingredients and sell the packs to users - that is where the real money is, just like printers and ink carts.

MR. ROBOT

I confess, I have not watched teevee for a long time - well, okay, I watch something while I eat dinner  - but not SERIOUSLY watching any shows for years. No kidding.  . . . . . until MR. ROBOT.

But don't take my word for it,  have a look for yourself. 

The Secret War

Here is my "conspiracy theory": The Secret War is the real war, the war of the rich on the poor. This war is not fought with guns and bombs as much as it is fought with insult, uncaring and blatant attacks on everything that represents caring, kind society.
It is working because the warmakers have all the money and power to prosecute it: they have even managed to convince some of the "enemy" (those who are not really, really rich) to attack their own fellow commoners with the same kind of elitist intolerant crud they spread themselves.

The clearest evidence for this war is the activities of big money: but let me make myself clear here, those who do these things are not necessarily deliberately settting out to destroy, they are are not even that smart or deliberate: they only want to make more money even though it is insane to destroy whole countries for a few more luxury yachts - but there is currently no control system or force of international policing that will find and either stop or prevent this insane behaviour from continuing.  

Once again, the horrible truth of human nature is exposed: we are quite limited in our intellectual capacity but there is no shortage of madmen and idiots in positions of control who are content to carry on abusing their fellow man.

Of course, most of this won't matter in the long term as the oceans rise and the price of oil rises too: we can almost be certain that the latter issue alone will provoke wars and thus lead to massive depopulation (which might even slow down the destruction of our ecosystem ) but none of that will make humans any smarter, or more importantly, any wiser.  A massive superintelligent computer devoted to fixing our mess would not be so bad in comparison to our track record - but then what humans are going to happily surrender national and international control to a machine?  We couldn't build one anyway.

A Real Sci-Fi Story

Check out this story. Who needs cheezy Sci-fi movies when reality is so amazing if you just look into history?   It might even make a good movie with the settings and props maded to look futuristic.

Also,
From Scott Adams (he of "Dilbert" fame) comes this article: "How to beat ISIS with a hoax"
What do you think: is Scott's analysis of human nature and media true?  

Totally . . . . .

Today I found some musicians that I really like. It does not matter to me that I cannot understand their lyrics, they are the essence of the future: two Japanese ladies who make accordian music in an eastern european style (well, something like that) - and, well I just like them, they are fun.

Charan Po Rantan

The world is now a mixture of styles thanks to the internet - maybe it gets more mixed up every time I look, and some of those combinations are wonderful.  These lovely ladies definitely fit that category.
There are one or two translations of their songs such as this one for "Beauty and youth"

Loads more vids of these two on Youtube too.

From those who know

. . . and so it begins