The always wonderful Paleo Future blog has uploaded a full PDF copy of a treatise on the future done in 01963 for a now lost time capsule. It is full of optimistic predictions of what the next century will bring from an era of happy futurism.
A nice piece of time art.
It’s a clock that is dead, until you break its glass case. Then it begins ticking. You are now committed to whatever. The artist, Alex-vf, says “it helps you make up your mind.” Here is the official description (via Seth).
The “Birth Clock” is a fragile glass object containing a digital clock that is not working; it is designed to help you to come to a decision when you’re stuck at a specific point in life. Smash the glass, and the clock will start to work, leaving you with the broken object as a reminder of your dramatic decision.
The good folks over at Paleo Future published this great nugget from the 01922 Ogden Standard predicting what the world might be like in 10,000 years (click image above for a large version). While they seem to have nailed a few things that have already come about like solar power, chemical re-breathers, and strong clear plastics, we are still clearly working on the anti-gravity floating cities. Perhaps most disturbing is this illustration of a flying person in the year 11,922, where the author failed to grasp the inevitable advancements in hair loss treatment:
The strangest part is the reasoning around why we might live in cloud cities Lando Calrissian style. The author seems to think that while humans could easily adapt to the lower atmospheric pressure, that (what we now know are very hardy) microbes would not, and we would therefore no longer have to worry about disease. The other interesting assertion as to why we might live above the clouds is that “Sunlight, as we know, is most beneficial to humans beings, and having a 100 percent of it all the time we naturally shall be far better off.”
Forbes.com has an excellent special on and about time… They were even nice enough to publish one of my answers to their “What is Time” question in the article by Elizabeth Evans.
California is more than 99% likely to face an earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or greater over the next thirty years, according to a new model which this week produced the first ever statewide forecast.
Associated Press reports:
New calculations reveal there is a 99.7 percent chance a magnitude 6.7 quake or larger will strike in the next 30 years. The odds of such an event are higher in Southern California than Northern California, 97 percent versus 93 percent.
The last time a jolt this size rattled California was the 1994 Northridge disaster, which killed 72 people, injured more than 9,000 and caused $25 billion in damage.
[…]
The analysis is the first comprehensive effort by the USGS [United States Geological Survey], Southern California Earthquake Center and California Geological Survey to calculate earthquake probabilities for the entire state using newly available data. Previous quake probabilities focused on specific regions and used various methodologies that made it difficult to compare.~Alicia Chang, “Big Quake to Rock Calif. by 2037“, Discovery News, 14 April 02008.
Adds a USGS press release:
The official earthquake forecasts, known as the “Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF),” were developed by a multidisciplinary group of scientists and engineers, known as the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities. Building on previous studies, the Working Group updated and developed the first-ever statewide, comprehensive model of California.
[…]
The probability of a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake over the next 30 years striking the greater Los Angeles area is 67%, and in the San Francisco Bay Area it is 63%, similar to previous Bay Area estimates. For the entire California region, the fault with the highest probability of generating at least one magnitude 6.7 quake or larger is the southern San Andreas (59% in the next 30 years).
[…]
The new model does not estimate the likelihood of shaking (seismic hazard) that would be caused by quakes. Even areas in the state with a low probability of fault rupture could experience shaking and damage from distant, powerful quakes. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is incorporating the UCERF into its official estimate of California’s seismic hazard, which in turn will be used to update building codes. Other subsequent studies will add information on the vulnerability of manmade structures to estimate expected losses, which is called “seismic risk.” In these ways, the UCERF will help to increase public safety and community resilience to earthquake hazards.~U.S. Geological Survey, “New Study Shows Odds High for Big California Quakes“, 14 April 02008.
An important challenge lies in figuring out what individuals can or should do, if anything, with this kind of probabilistic overview. Connecting the insights of a long view to the decisions of everyday life is really quite difficult (compared to many things that government agencies do, thirty years is decidedly long-term).
We were impressed by last year’s Bay Area Red Cross campaign for earthquake preparedness, which included the temporary installation of a stunning billboard showing San Francisco’s Market Street in ruins. This is one way of mediating risk in an accessible, experiential form, that may have a real impact on what people think about.
However, this new report suggests how a long-term orientation entails taking account of risks that may or may not be germane, or helpful, on a day-to-day basis. (Should the near certainty of a 6.7 California quake by 02037 be taken as an urgent cue to skedaddle? Perhaps not.) Whereas for institutions with systematic responsibilities, and leverage, such as those that respond to emergencies, or those that set and enforce building codes, this may be news they can use. The fostering of long-term responsibility implies different types of engagement for different audiences.
There’s a very good article in this month’s IEEE Spectrum about the engineering challenges of replacement parts for devices intended to survive much longer than industrial cycles of obsolescence. The economics of making sure parts are available in a timely and cost effective fashion and task of designing management processes that survive long enough are discussed in depth. From the article:
Obsolescence also isn’t limited to hardware. Obsolete software can be just as problematic, and frequently the two go hand in hand. For example, an obsolescence analysis of a GPS radio for a U.S. Army helicopter found that a hardware change that required revising even a single line of code would result in a $2.5 million expense before the helicopter could be deemed safe for flight.
My favorite example device is the B52 bomber. First produced in 1946, it’s not expected to be phased out till 2017. I guess this is equivalent to 10,000 “internet years”.
The great folks over at Predictify have made a special area in their site for Long Bets. This is a great place to experiment with predictions and even make short bets that may have long term consequences… Check it out at:
Due to the infinite wisdom of the US Legislators and President of 02005 we will again be experiencing “daylight savings” time a few weeks earlier this year. While I am pretty ambivalent about the daylight savings time concept, I do think the only thing sillier than changing our clocks twice a year, is randomly legislating new times to do so.
As most of us remember, changing time bases and calendrics caused all kinds (of mostly unneeded) fuss around the turn of the last millennium. And while it seems this new change was important enough to generate lobbying efforts from important cultural institutions such as the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, the National Association of Convenience Stores, and the National Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation Fighting Blindness, I am still pretty confused as to why we are again wreaking havoc on the all pre-programmed EPROMs of the world. This has been dubbed “The Year 2007 Problem.”
So this month all our pre-programmed digital watches, timed light switches and sprinkler systems will be running an hour off schedule. Hopefully no life critical medical device will actually go too awry, and we can all settle in and wait for the Y10k mayhem.
Our friend Scott Beale over at Squidlist has a write up on the winner of the History Channel’s City of the Future contest. The honors go to IwamotoScott Architecture’s Hydro-Net concept netting $10,000 for their win. While a lot of the ideas are pretty interesting the “hydrogen fueled hover cars” part sounds a little like Tomorrow Land to me. I assume everyone will be wearing white rayon uni-suits and lucite shoes as well.
I’ve Stumbledupon (quite literally) a interesting looking site called Predictify.
Predictify seems to be combining social networking, message board discussion, pay-per-post business models and Wikipedia-style collective wisdom into a harmonious online community of eager questioners and knowledgeable, astute predictors, all united to discuss deterministic questions about the future, share knowledge, and act on the results.
Because mob rule *totally* works on the internet.
With Predictify, registered users can read questions posed by questioners, pose their own questions, predict answers, and repeatedly smack down internet smart-alecks who try to use the site for betting, insider trading, and making off-color predictions about their dorm roommate’s luck with the opposite sex during the upcoming weekend.
Theoretically, predictors also get paid every time their predictions are correct. Questioners can pay a premium based on the number of responses which in turn entitle them to collect value tables for a given question, collect larger data sample sets and keep a running tally of private data if they so desire. The pot is shared out among the predictors who nailed the question most accurately and soonest, according to rank, expertise level, phase of the moon, etc etc.
The site includes live news feeds relevant to the question being discussed. Gimmicks like community points, reputation rankings, and “private prediction environments for you and your friends” trigger that social network addict’s instinct to refresh the page every thirteen seconds.
The truly dedicated Predictify player, if enough time and energy were invested, could find themselves joyously sucked into in an interdisciplinary morass of statistics, arcane behavioral controls, incompatible social networks, philosophical conundra, high level mathematics and a steadfastly erratic human element, which make the site reminiscent of the game Eschaton from David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest, in that play is aided by the ability to quickly master advanced game theory and do the metaphysical equivalent of pegging small objects with tennis balls with deadly accuracy.
Since this is what we do for fun around here at The Long Now, it sounds like a grand time to me.
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