Some folks vision

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FF

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Cant say I think it will happen as fast as envisioned , but it will make the cruising lifestyle loads easier.


Auto repair shops will go away.
A gasoline engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has 20. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are only repaired by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor. Faulty electric motors are not repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with robots. Your electric motor malfunction light goes on, so you drive up to what looks like a Jiffy-auto wash, and your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee and out comes your car with a new electric motor!
Gas stations will go away. Parking meters will be replaced by meters that dispense electricity. Companies will install electrical recharging stations; in fact, they’ve already started. You can find them at select Dunkin' Donuts locations.
Most (the smart) major auto manufacturers have already designated money to start building new plants that only build electric cars.
Coal industries will go away. Gasoline/oil companies will go away. Drilling for oil will stop. So say goodbye to OPEC!
Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day and then they use and will sell it back to the grid. The grid stores it and dispenses it to industries that are high electricity users. Has anybody seen the Tesla roof?
A baby of today will only see personal cars in museums.
The FUTURE is approaching faster than most of us can handle.
In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. Who would have thought of that ever happening?
What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5-10 years and, most people don't see it coming.
Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later, you would never take pictures on film again? With today’s smart phones, who even has a camera these days?
Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a time, before it became way superior and became mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.
Forget the book, “Future Shock”, welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Software has disrupted and will continue to disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
UBER is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world!
Ask any taxi driver if they saw that coming.
Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.
Ask Hilton Hotels if they saw that coming.
Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world.
This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
In the USA, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM's Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for right now, the basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, (what a thought!) only omniscient specialists will remain.
Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, its 4 times more accurate than human nurses.
Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.
Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars are already here. In the next 2 years, the entire industry will start to be disrupted. You won't want to own a car anymore as you will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it you will only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.
This will change our cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars. We can transform former parking spaces into parks.
1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide including distracted or drunk driving. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles; with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles. That will save a million lives plus worldwide each year.
Most traditional car companies will doubtless become bankrupt. Traditional car companies will try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.
Look at what Volvo is doing right now; no more internal combustion engines in their vehicles starting this year with the 2019 models, using all electric or hybrid only, with the intent of phasing out hybrid models.
Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla and so they should be. Look at all the companies offering all electric vehicles. That was unheard of, only a few years ago.
Insurance companies will have massive trouble because, without accidents, the costs will become cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.
Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move farther away to live in a more beautiful or affordable neighborhood.
Electric cars will become mainstream about 2030. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity.
Cities will have much cleaner air as well. (Can we start in Los Angeles, please?)
Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean.
Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.
And it’s just getting ramped up.
Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that simply cannot continue - technology will take care of that strategy.
Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any Disease. There are dozens of phone apps out there right now for health purposes.


WELCOME TO TOMORROW – it actually arrived a few years ago.












pv
 
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That is an interesting projection. Although I don't think all, not even much of these changes will occur in my lifetime (about 20 years to go) the trend is obvious.

Will it happen fast enough to save the planet or at least keep it from being a miserable place to live? I don't think so in the short term. I believe we will see continuing effects of global warming for the next 50 years. By then these technological changes will start to ameliorate global warming and finally reduce it in 100 years, but it will be a rough 100 years.

Also I don't believe that energy will ever be incredibly cheap but it will be clean. Solar panels are not like computer chips. For the same square millimeter of chip area we now get thousands more transistors on it than 20 years ago. That is not the case with solar panels which are now about 18% efficient and will never go over 100%, so a 5 times reduction in solar panel costs is all that is theoretically possible. Wind power is even more constrained technologically because propellers have a theoretical limit to efficiency as well.

But hey maybe cold fusion is real!!

It certainly will affect our cruising lifestyle, but I don't see cheap, clean energy making a difference for long range cruising. There is just so much panel area on a boat and as noted above the theoretical efficiency limit is about 5 times. Maybe a cheap way to store energy will be developed so it can be used to power our boats cleanly, but I don't see hydrogen or Li batteries being it.

Now if they could shrink that cold fusion reactor to the size of a bread box........

David
 
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And we will all be in cars that fly. What ever happened to Popular Mechanics?

There are no panaceas. Solar works great on my boat, no use whatsoever at my home. After all those (sheep?) mindless governments mandated the end of incandescent light bulbs and all have to be fluorescent Now. LEDs blew right through that and the mercury-containing fluorescent bulbs are in the landfill. Wind farms are great until the wind stops or there are so many of them they change the micro-climate around their installations and change the wind patterns. The giant "Site C" dam in BC that has devastated miles of productive farmland and changed the climate due to huge amounts of evaporation from it. My electric car is still at the mercy of a very few level three chargers which take 30 minutes for a meaningful charge vs. 6 hours at a level 2. That's sure convenient and means its no use for anything but commuting, which I don't do. And guess how often the chargers are vacant?

Poppycock and horsefeathers. Get off my lawn!

As far as global warming/global cooling/climate change/pollution, whatever the current buzzword is, plant a tree! Or a rosebush (perhaps not a cactus, although reading my stuff one might wonder if I'm surrounded by cacti).
 
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Greetings,
Mr. FF. Interesting predictions yet you dismiss computer climate models?

Wifey B: You point out just one of the many other changes that will be seen as FF's changes occur. While technology will do so much to enhance transportation, there will be new issues and other challenges not fully anticipated yet. The human element will remain and continue to screw things up. I think one place we're more frequently losing the battle right now is in diseases. And while the changes in transportation may help the environment, we're losing it badly day to day and experiencing fires, hurricanes, tsunami's that are terribly destructive. One resource that remains limited is money and Puerto Rico remains an excellent example. The knowledge and technology exists to rebuild the island better than it's ever been. It could be a model and glowing example of our capabilities. Yet, it remains a horrible example of us allowing things to deteriorate and then when a storm hits doing shockingly little to rebuild. The infrastructure of most countries is in rather sad condition. Old and decaying. More and more cities, water unfit to drink. Roads collapsing. Subway systems in danger. Sewage systems overburdened. Our farming is so sophisticated and production per acre amazing, yet our illnesses from food borne bacteria, from listeria and salmonella, are up.

I love the computer age and technology. It's a world I love being part of. However, a shockingly large percentage of the population isn't part of it other than peripheral ways. It hasn't enhanced their lives and that's a shame.

So, we'll advance and I look toward it with enthusiasm. But our lives will still be complex and for every advancement, there will be new challenges. :)
 
Greetings,
I was just yankin' ole' FF's chain. Just funnin'.

I've been on a vintage science fiction reading kick for the past few weeks. Stuff written back in the 30's and 40's. What was "science fiction" then is, in a lot of cases, fact now.

Even more recently...Remember the "communicators" on Star Trek (1966-1969):


th



Looks an awful lot like a (now) old flip phone.



Nope. Mr. X we don't all have flying cars in our garages but I can see a time when a lot of the technologies Mr. FF mentions will be common place and even being supplanted by yet newer technology. I would like nothing better to hop on the boat, rig for some serious Gulf Stream trolling and tell the boat "Chub Key please". Fishin', nappin and dinner in the oven...



The ONE thing I am fearful of, and you can tell me to put on my tinfoil hat, is AI becoming self aware.



Alas, as Ms. WB alludes to, these will be first world problems.
 
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My grandparents saw the first cars arrive in their town and lived to see space shuttles fly.

I can remember being called in from playing outside to watch the moon landing. Things are speeding along for sure.

Oh, and Ilford still makes film and papers. They weren't arrogant like Kodak, who went all in with digital and figured they were so big and important that the whole industry would follow their lead. I actually dumped all my Kodak products, went with Ilford film & papers, and started making my own developer and fixer from scratch when Kodak went digital.

Now I'm hybrid...at the bottom of the learning curve using a digital camera to make digital enlarged negatives for hand coated platinum/palladium contact prints; a process that hasn't changed since the 1800's.
 
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Greetings,
Mr. MM. One very (IMO) significant thing that your post brings up is the loss of old "technology" and the skills needed to service it.

More than a few years ago, I bought a battery at K Mart for my 1971 VW van. As the "technician" was installing the new battery he asked "How about a free electrical systems check?" I said sure. Oh my. He told me all the diodes in my generator were shot. Hmmmm.....
 
Greetings,
Mr. MM. One very (IMO) significant thing that your post brings up is the loss of old "technology" and the skills needed to service it..

Oddly enough, digital printers in the last 10 years have improved so much that they've started a resurgence in old contact printing processes. Everybody expected the raw photo chemical supply houses to close, but they're selling more now than ever.

In 'the old days' if you wanted an 11x14 platinum print, you had to use an 11x14 camera. Now I can use my Fujifilm X-T2 digital camera (a wee little thing bursting with potential) and make an 11x14 digitally enlarged negative on the printer.

So, at least in this case, new technology makes historical processes more accessible.
 
"Mr. FF. Interesting predictions yet you dismiss computer climate models?"

These predictions are someones thoughts on what might happen.

The CC folks demand their computer version of reality can never be challenged , "setteled science " (an oxymoron if there ever was one ) no discussions allowed. Garbage in Garbage out.

Big difference!

Interesting the French protesters were able to get the latest gas tax increase rolled back.
Bad news for folks that prefer elections to arson & violence.

I fear now much of Euroland will follow the French model and prefer violence to elections to drain their swamps.

At least the Euros haven't been at war with each other since 1945.
 
Watch the series Atlas Shrugged and the movie Idiocracy back to back (if you are in that frame of mind).

No suprises in store for Earth unless something mind boggling comes along.

We are good at changing how we do things, but not enough all at once.
 
Folks here deal daily with the trade-offs and complications involved in trying to manage batteries so that you don't have to run a generator 24/7. Yet the author of the above blithely dismisses all of those issues with the simple statement that homes will store more energy than they need. Without something far more efficient, and more easily managed, than the very best of the current battery technology -- it just ain't gonna happen!
 
Greetings,
Mr. d0. In a former life I was loosely involved with a battery research group so I was more current with battery development. Given there have been no major announcements of "new and improved" I fully agree with your assessment.



The potential good thing is "current" technology seldom stays "current". Improvements in storage capabilities ARE being made but in very small stages. I had very great hopes for fuel cells and I understand they are being used on an industrial scale but as to their long term effacity or success....


Not yet BUT, I'm sure it's coming...

mr_fusion_by_emmokapp.jpg
 
It is understandable why the vehicle world fears flywheel storage , a crash and 5-10 gallons worth of energy at 200,000 RPM is a liar for hires dream.

In a basement a bigger and heavier unit might keep an efficient home going ro 12 or 24 hours.


Cost might be an issue , but at least the service life would be decades.
 
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I would like nothing better to hop on the boat, rig for some serious Gulf Stream trolling and tell the boat "Chub Key please". Fishin', nappin and dinner in the oven...

This one is going to come true. The commercial shipping world is moving toward unmanned vessels as fast as they can. A few tentative steps have already been taken. Research vessel drones also already exist.

Imagine a world where the majority of cargo and passenger vessels are autonomous. It won't take long before recreational boats are just about forced to plug into that network. For our own safety, if for no other reason.

Think about it. An autonomous boat is far easier to program than an autonomous road vehicle. You're far less likely to run over a pedestrian, for one thing!
 
Basement? What's a basement? Don't got no "basement" things around here! :D

Wifey B: Storm shelter? :D We had basements in NC. Ours were all finished out though, not like big utility rooms. Ours were not completely underground though as the lots sloped so the basement was ground level in the back. So is it still a basement? :ermm:

I looked it up...partly or fully underground, so they were. But then they were ground level too. Too bad we didn't have an elevator with buttons to make it official whether they were 1 or B. :confused:
 
We always called that a walk-out basement.

I worked in a building where they called the first (ground) floor the basement. Apparently the owners found it worthwhile to push a bunch of dirt up against one side of the first floor so they could call it a basement. That made a 3-story building into a 2-story for zoning and insurance purposes.
 
For the same reason some buildings in Mexico are never completed, as it keeps them off the tax rolls.
 
"For the same reason some buildings in Mexico are never completed, as it keeps them off the tax rolls."

A friend on our street built his own house (yes to code) and never finished it to call for a CO.

He is retired from the local power company so was able to keep power to the property .

Demanding a CO before letting the power co. connect is the usual lever to get buildings to have a CO, and be taxed as completed.

After 14 years the town came out and handed him a CO , to get the higher taxes, along with a note to finish handrails ,soon.

A True CT Yankee!
 
It used to be a "thing" around here to see houses with no front steps. Just a door a few feet above grade. The story was the same, avoiding taxes by never finishing the house.

I think that's a thing of the past. They're much stricter with CE now.
 
Greetings,
Mr. dj. "I would also call him a crook!!" I agree. Somewhat akin to those taking advantage of social programs. Bilking the "system", as it were.


What this has to do with the OP is anyone's guess.
 
When a person who did not create "the system" uses the multiple flaws in the system , why is he at fault not the clowns that created the system.

Tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion is not.
 
When a person who did not create "the system" uses the multiple flaws in the system , why is he at fault not the clowns that created the system.

Tax avoidance is legal, tax evasion is not.
I agree, absolutely. When the legislature leaves holes in the law that are big enough to drive a truck through, the person who takes advantage of those holes is not a "crook." They are just being smart.


Now, the real thievery here is usually on the part of the legislators. You don't think those holes in the law are there by accident, do you? Most of the time they put them there on purpose, to benefit themselves and the donors who have bought and paid for them.


They are the "crooks" here. Not the average guy who sees the hole and decides to use it.
 
C'mon guys. The case described above is a guy who used his position with the power company to defraud the state/city/county of taxes. He also did not close out his building permit by requesting a final inspection and CO issuance as required by law.


I don't see how the law could be written any differently. He is a crook!!


David
 
Greetings,
How in the heck did we get from "the shape of things to come" to Mr. FF's crooked neighbors?????


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