Futurist

There are 390 posts filed in Futurist (this is page 14 of 39).

First Measles Death in US Since 2003 Highlights the Unknown Vulnerables – Phenomena: Germination

For the first time in 12 years, an American resident has died from measles. The victim was taking immunosuppressive drugs which made her vulnerable.

Last week, the CDC reported on a man who contracted measles after passing through an airport gate a full 46 minutes after an infected child passed through the same gate. Learn more about why measles is a scary disease here at Buzzfeed.

Shocking news today out of Washington state: For the first time since 2003, a resident of the United States has died of measles. If you wondered, based on my last post, what happens when measles infects unvaccinated people and travels with them in an untrackable manner, this is the answer: It sickens and kills people who are vulnerable for reasons over which they have no control.

Source: First Measles Death in US Since 2003 Highlights the Unknown Vulnerables – Phenomena: Germination

Drones not yet cleared for takeoff

An Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) or "drone"

An Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) or “drone”


After having had such fun with the Structure Sensor I borrowed through the N.C. State Libraries Technology Lending program, I suggested that they consider lending quadcopters like the DJI Phantom 3. Drones like the Phantom 3 are so cutting-edge that they are far ahead of Federal Aviation Administration regulations, so much so that many common-sense uses of drones (or as the FAA calls them, “unmanned aircraft systems” or UAS) are currently banned outright.

Like other university libraries, N.C. State Libraries would love to lend out drones but the present legal limbo with the FAA prevents that from happening. You see, what many people don’t realize is that the FAA is in charge of the nation’s airspace from the ground up. Not just 500 feet and above but starting at the ground. Public property, private property, it doesn’t matter. If you fly anything, anywhere, the FAA makes the rules.
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Scanning 3D objects with the Structure sensor

This is a 3D rendering of me

This is a 3D rendering of me


As an employee of a company located on N.C. State’s Centennial Campus, I have access to the tech lending program of the N.C. State libraries. One of the more interesting devices I found there two weeks ago was a 3D scanner kit consisting of an iPad Air and an Occipital Structure 3D Sensor device. Not knowing much about it I thought I would take it home for a week and see what it could do.

The sensor integrates with the iPad by using the iPad’s built-in camera in conjunction with the Structure sensor. The sensor paints the scene in front of it with infrared grid points. The sensor then detects how this grid is bent by the object in the field and, together with the iPad’s sensitive accelerometers, computes the dimensions of the object. All of this happens in seconds and it’s quite amazing to watch!
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Cheap Thoughts: variable-current EV charging

I’ve been mostly happy with our Siemens Level 2 EV charger. It’s simple to use with only two buttons, which I rarely need to press. Still, there is one feature the Siemens does not offer that I wish it had: the ability to adjust the current used based on my electricity rate plan’s Time of Use schedule.

Duke Energy offers a Time of Use – Demand (TOU-D) electric plan (which I’ve discussed in-depth before), meaning an electric customer gets socked with high fees based on how much electricity gets used at the same time.
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Death dream

i-told-you-i-was-sick

I don’t normally post about my dreams but this one has been on my mind. An entry from my dream journal, dated 16 July 2013:

I dreamt that I had 1,346 more days to live. I would die of an expensive disease like cancer, one that would stretch the limits of my health insurance. It was all matter-of-fact. According to the calculator on timeanddate.com, 1,346 days from now is Thursday, 23 March 2017. Of course, I am not ready to die and almost certainly won’t be ready on 23 March 2017. Even so, it makes me consider how I might choose to spend these days if I know I only have x number left.

To add some detail, I was told in my dream by someone in authority that this was how many days I had left to live. It was simply explained to me that this was how it was going to be. This was my fate. And it did seem matter-of-fact, as if this was the plan I had agreed to all along. I recall not being particularly excited or concerned about the news.

And the way the data was presented in days rather than a date really stuck with me. It is a very unusual way of conveying that information, perhaps so that I would better remember it.

Dreams don’t always come true. I know this. This dream had a very sober reality that I can’t ignore, though. It is an important message to me.

So if it’s wrong, we will all have a good laugh. I will go ahead and pen a future blog entry, scheduled to post on 24 March 2017. With good fortune perhaps I will mock it along with everyone else. In the meantime, though, I am going to take in as much as I can in the 696 days I might have left.

Because you never knows when you might die. Or do you?

Google View

Sitting in the dentist’s chair, enduring the agony of another teeth cleaning yesterday, I thought of the perfect use for the Google Fiber system coming to Raleigh.

I was being forced to watch Time Warner Cable’s News14 channel in front of me and thinking about how TWC’s local news model works. It didn’t take many minutes of watching the video (thankfully without audio, as the suction hose was often going) to realize how boilerplate it is. The TWC guys have an establishing shot, then zoom in on something dumb like police lights reflecting off the stolen car, then move on to another thing. It was obvious that the video doesn’t really tell the story – in fact, it is repetitive and dull. I could choose not to look up between rinses and feel like I didn’t really miss anything.
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Google Fiber: Kansas City offers Charlotte ‘Digital Divide’ lessons | The Charlotte Observer The Charlotte Observer

CharO talks about Google Fiber and the Digital Divide

In a past job in Kansas City, Julie Porter was part of an intense, door-to-door campaign to get residents in economically challenged, mostly minority neighborhoods to sign up for Google’s high-speed Internet service.

Community organizers didn’t want residents in these areas to face an even wider Digital Divide.

Now the head of a Charlotte housing agency, Porter has urged local leaders here to get an early start encouraging residents to embrace broadband service, long before Google Fiber makes its planned Charlotte debut.

“It was just very, very challenging,” said Porter, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership, of the Kansas City situation. “I wanted to make sure that Charlotte didn’t have the same experience.”

via Google Fiber: Kansas City offers Charlotte ‘Digital Divide’ lessons | The Charlotte Observer The Charlotte Observer.

Historic moment: Saudi Arabia sees End of Oil Age coming and opens valves on the carbon bubble – EnergyPost.eu

This is a fascinating read about the oil market that took me a while to really get, but it finally makes sense.

Tl;dr The Saudis are selling all the oil they can now because they’re worried that oil is quickly becoming obsolete. They’d rather sell at a drastic discount than be left with oceans of oil but no buyers.

Most analysts believe Saudi Arabia refuses to cut production because it wants to shake out its higher-cost competitors or because it wants to punish Iran and Russia. There may be some truth in those theories, writes Elias Hinckley, strategic advisor and head of the energy practice with international law firm Sullivan and Worcester, but they miss the deeper motivation of the Saudis. Saudi Arabia, he says, sees the end of the Oil Age on the horizon and understands that a great deal of global fossil fuel reserves will have to stay underground to avoid catastrophic global warming. “That’s why it has opened the valves on the carbon asset bubble.”

via Historic moment: Saudi Arabia sees End of Oil Age coming and opens valves on the carbon bubble – EnergyPost.eu.

Wilson’s official statement on today’s FCC ruling

Here is Wilson’s official statement on today’s FCC ruling.

CITY OF WILSON APPLAUDS FCC CHAIRMAN WHEELER AND THE COMMISSION FOR ITS LEADERSHIP IN DECIDING IN FAVOR OF LOCAL BROADBAND CHOICE

Wilson, N.C. — The City of Wilson applauds FCC Chairman Wheeler and the Commission for their leadership today in approving the City’s petition to preempt a North Carolina state law that restricts municipal Gigabit broadband deployment. Today’s historic decision now enables Wilson and other North Carolina municipalities to provide the Gigabit broadband infrastructure and services that North Carolina and America need in order to remain competitive in our emerging knowledge-based global economy.
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The FCC rules against state limits on city-run Internet – The Washington Post

Wilson’s petition to the FCC was just granted and I couldn’t be happier. North Carolina’s “Level Playing Field” law, written by Time Warner Cable, is now null and void. Now communities across the state can build themselves their own digital future with a community broadband service.

I would be dancing in the street if the street wasn’t a slushy mess right now!

For years, cities around the country have been trying to build their own, local competitors to Verizon, Charter and other major Internet providers. Such government-run Internet service would be faster and cheaper than private alternatives, they argued. But in roughly 20 states, those efforts have been stymied by state laws.

Now, the nation’s top telecom regulators want to change that. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commissions voted 3-2 to override laws preventing Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wilson, N.C. from expanding the high-speed Internet service the cities already offer to some residents.

via The FCC rules against state limits on city-run Internet – The Washington Post.