October 15, 2005

• Yes, indeed, very cool. Once it's able to handle a wash-and-dry cycle, you'll see a new fashion trend.
• That is very, very awesome!
• But will it cook me pancakes in the morning? That's the real question here, isn't it?
• Another Phillip K. Dick prediction coming true.
• Guess I'll hold off on buying that flat-screen TV for another year or three.
• If they make my toilet paper sing and dance, I'm checking out of this planet.
• Sorry to be the Luddite here, but I'm not quite so overjoyed by this. The idea of more moving pictures and lurid advertising attacking me wherever I go is nauseating. Last month I flue Jetblue across the country, and every seat had an imbedded TV. I was able to -- and quickly did -- turn mine off, with the hope of enjoying a book. However, everyone around me had the TVs on, and whenever I looked down at my book, I could see flickering images out of the corner of my eye. Upon looking up, all I saw where the blank-stares of passengers fixated on 'Animal Planet' and 'Essence of Emeril'. I find it disturbing that my son will grow up with this all around him.
• Sorry, Zanshin, it's the 21st century. Please proceed to the processing plant to be chipped and surgically upgraded to a Combine.
• I recall a very big, flash-based presentation of this technology, a couple years back. Showing many applications, like interactive flyers and newspapers that helped teens get in touch with friends and finding some bar on a real-time map. All nice and cozy, except for a couple things that bothered me: more plastic garbage? More flyers, brochures and such, inflating advertising costs and adding to non-degradable waste problems? The other, from a practical, end-user viewpoint: all these translucent paper-thin screens were shown being unrolled or extruded from devices. Don't know, scrolls don't look to good to me... and wobbly screens that can get folded and get blown in the wind seem like something only a tourist would get caught using.
• Another win for the crowts! Personally I like the smart cars better. But when will something be built that will last a lifetime?
• Bitchin'est wallpaper ever, homies. After arduously painting my entire apartment this last week or so, I thought, "Why, oh why do they not have some thin material you could put on your walls and illuminate with whatever damn colour/texture/image whenever you like, como los screensavers?" Apparently I am loved.
• this smells like BULLS**T! how will it be controlled, how will it be powered...etc etc? personally, i agree with zanshin (z, baby...the solution is to always, ALWAYS carry a screwdriver)...i refuse to shop at grocery stores that have monitors installed at the check-outs, i don't go to bars or restaurants that have tvs in them, and when the busses here in LA started installing them (WANNA KNOW WHAT YOUR HOROSCOPE IS?!? NO?? TOO BAD!!!), i bought a car. (well, that was the tvs...and the lady with one eye who kept touching my hair, and that dude who couldn't stop throwing up for like an hour and half, and all the nice young men in this town who like to remind me that i'm a homosexual at the top of their lungs, and etc and etc) seriously...had enough TV? try THIS and if that doesn't work on this new scourge try *snicker, cackle* THIS!
• (i mean, really, you should have to make an appointment to take the bus...the worst thing about public transportation is that they let the public ride....the rabble.)
• hmmm... z-baby, I like the ring of that...
• all the nice young men in this town who like to remind me that i'm a homosexual Well...if you wouldn't go around all forgetting it all the time...how many times do we have to tell you to knock off the opening beers with your teeth thing? And the 4X4ing?
• so will shirts have short movies on them?
• This popped up in another place, a long time ago: If (when!) affordable clothing items like t-shirts start having built-in properties that enable them to act like video screens, what would you have playing in them? A favorite response I recall: a T-shirt with a video loop of an open-surgery chest, with a living, beating heart. That would be nice.
• You know what would be really cool? Programmable (and REprogrammable, natch) tattoos. Smart ink. I would be the happiest man alive.
• £30/m. sq.? That's unpossible! If that is true, and that includes programming and power, the revolution may very well be televised after all...
• what about touch screens on your arm to check your email or something?
• Oh, man! I so want one of those TV stoppers. I hate sports bars with 6 TV's blaring. It would be funny as hell to keep turning off the noise.
• Grandma, what are you doing in sports bars?
• My new benchmark of when my science fiction future has arrived: Tomorrow is here when II can wipe my butt with Cathy Lee Giffords screaming face then flush her with the rest of the morning talk show hosts. Celebrity toilet paper. I'm going to love it!
• Heh heh-- squidranch said "siemens."
• MCT..there's a funny gag in the '300 big ones' episode of futurama with a talking tatoo... and bluey...they're much more fun in the circuit city store...the last time i did it some guy thought we were having another blackout and MJ...4x4ing? what? is that like a 16-way?
• This got posted on Metafilter the same day that I finished reading The Diamond Age. What book should I read next so that we can get something from it invented? Taking bids here. ...in practice, I can see this being used well or used badly. Much like, well, most other technology.
• omg...i LOVE the diamond age!
• Try Oryx & Crake. Mmmmhhhh, ChickieNobs... : ) Of course, the moving wallpaper 'Dreamgirls' in Count Zero are just what MoneyJane wants for her walls; they would be quite a nice thing to have, too...
• Oh yes, I read O&C last year. (Right around Christmas! How cheerful!) They announced the "cultured meat" thing several months later, though. :) I quite liked The Diamond Age - more than I thought I would at first (come on, who can resist an army of six-year-old girls who can take down armed insurgents?) - but still heart Snow Crash a bit more.