The blog about the future
Experience a glimpse of the year 2145A message to the future
When a company called Seconduse was removing a lintel from the wall, they discovered a hidden note, left by some guy in the early seventies containing a delightful message for it’s future discoverer!
This is what the note said:
I like the message –of course- because I’m from Belgium and I like the way he talks about his religious beliefs without adding some note of violence or aggression… Even as an atheist I am happy to take his advice!
You might remember even governments leave hints for future generations, hoping that they might learn more about our current ways of being, our current advancements and hassles.
As a kid I used to love filling boxes with all that mattered to me; family pictures, my “superfavorite” toys, today’s newspaper etc. and then burying it somewhere in a forest, hoping somewhere in the future they would find it, and perhaps revive me from the hair samples I left inside.
Sometimes I wonder if everything I write remains on ‘the internet’ forever… Would WordPress ever delete my blog if I never did it?
Would the people in the year 2145 read this and laugh at the ludicrous ideas posted on this site? Will there still be an internet? Will there even be humans? … oooohhh
If we look at some predicting video’s of the 50’s, they thought we would be enjoying flying cars and alien technology by now.
Sidenote: this ‘preservative’ urge of a lot of humans is actually why we know so much about our entire history. So everybody, keep taking pictures, write diaries, … who knows it might matter some day.
Out-of-this-world digital art by Chris Cold
In this article, posted on one of my favourite sites PSD-tuts, they interview digital painter Chris Cold.
His work immediately submerged me in that warm fuzzy sci-fi fantasy feeling of exploring other worlds and even dimensions. Future colonies, deep-space wars, destroyed remains of used-to-be civilizations,… You name it, he’s got it all covered in his portfolio!
Sometimes his style evolves to a more Medieval Lord-Of-The-Rings-like theme. It’s also powerful imagery, but the futuristic setting wins my heart over and over again.
Enjoy some of his –in my opinion- finer futuristic work! You can find more on his Deviant-Art page.
Sometimes I wonder why we don’t see work of people like him on art-programs… Isn’t art supposed to make you wonder, dream,… even fear?
Is our generation the stepping-stone to the age of the machines? Is Arthur C. Clarke right?
I believe the man pictured above needs no introduction for people who love science-fiction or dreaming of the future.
For the people who don’t know Arthur C. Clarke; he is the writer of some very famous science-fiction novels amongst which there is 2001: a space odyssey.
In 1964 BBC Horizon documented him and his extraordinary accurate visions of the future. He was given a few minutes to tell his remarkable story.
Watch Part 1, Part 2 of the documentary on Youtube.
Not only does he perfectly predict things like the internet, “social media” and other unimaginably detailed things which are now part of our everyday lives, but he does predict some creepy, yet beautiful things at the same time… What if he’s right? Just as with all the rest?
He claims mankind as we know it (“meatbags” as Bender from Futurama would put it) will soon evolve dramatically or even disappear.
He believes we will grow to exist in machines, super powerful and virtually immortal, carrying the human mind for eternity.
He insists we should embrace this technological step. Enjoy this mysterious documentary and if it should come this far… Don’t forget to make a back-ups, ok?
Sadly, Mr. Clarke, one of the 20th centuries’ great minds passed away in 2005.
The shield
We should always be thankful to have our protective atmosphere which literally shields us from the violent space.
In this beautiful time-lapse video over Norway you can see just how heavily our planet is constantly being attacked. Not only by our sun, but if you look carefully you can see a few big asteroids closing in on us…
Luckily they are always vaporized before striking the earth, but it makes a man think; We should be lucky to be alive!
After so many millions of years, constantly being bombarded by things that could easily wipe out humanity.
Put on some calm music, empty your mind and enjoy the video!
The SSC Ultimate Aero 2; The most futuristic actual car?
When you speak of “The fastest car in the world” The first thing which comes to mind is usually the Bugatti Veyron. That used to be correct. However…
The newborn of Shelby Super Cars (SSC) was revealed recently. The Ultimate Aero 2 promises a whopping 440 Km/h (which is 273 mph)! Making it officially the fastest car in the world.
Next step: The flying car? (we are about 10 years overdue by now) The shape, the huge black windows and minimalistic colours remind me of a simple spaceship, that’s for sure. It’s not as innovating in its design as the Audi-D7 concept I talked about earlier
Check out the amazing gallery below.
Pricetag? 696.000 Euros. I’ll take 2 please.
One GIANT leap for mankind
I’ve never really had any heroes. It takes a lot for me to look up to someone just for his accomplishments. U.S. Air Force Colonel Joseph Kittinger is my personal hero.
This man, the first space pioneer, tested the American spacesuit in 1960, using a helium balloon to reach the edge of space. But when he realized, after 3 hours of uninterrupted rising up to 102,800 feet (30Km!) height, that something was wrong with the suit…
This man looked down on the earth, the way astronauts see it… And jumped! That’s just… wow! Watch the video footage of the jump here.
The “stratospheric jump” made him go faster than the speed of sound; breaking both speed and altitude record for any human to ever reach without a vehicle.
A true legend for he made the biggest leap for mankind and deserves a lot of respect! We need daring people like this today to go to Mars!
Check out this stunning photo as well (High-res)
Let’s not forget, you have a few nukes pointing at yourself right now
Remember a few months ago, Russia and the U.S. both agreed on reducing their “stock” of nuclear missiles.
Calming to know… However, based on the somewhat disturbing website nukeometer there are 6645 nuclear missiles within range of my hometown right now. Hmm.
Let’s say the U.S. and Russia actually cut 25% of the arsenal (man, I’m an optimist for even thinking that might happen!)… Would it matter?
And that’s only based on the known, public announced, nukes. How many humanity threatening devices do the Russians, the U.S., Pakistan, China, Iran, Egypt, … really have? I don’t think they even know for themselves.
The nice thing is; Based on this damn interesting article, the Russian ‘Tsar Bomb’ was the biggest, most badass, most destructive thing ever built by humans.
Check out the short video here:
That one was detonated on October 30th, 1961. Today is over 50 years later. You are not convincing me when you tell me research and development stopped on that very day. No sir! Who’s to say what “they” are capable of now?
To wrap things up: Here’s a fun site. Let’s calculate how much damage you can do by dropping a Tsar bomb on your home town!
I hope you enjoyed, but don’t worry. If it should happen; you won’t die immediately, it might take a few weeks or even months of agonizing, horrible pain.
Intelligent motion in robots
In my humble opinion; it is only a matter of time we create intelligent artificial “life”. I won’t discuss the possibilities or dangers of this fact in this post, but I would like to inform you of some incredible robotic engineering which shows just how close we actually are.
The last few days I’ve found some incredible updates for as well the BigDog as well as the new and very impressive LittleDog from Boston Dynamics. Little did I know they were also working on something called “PetMan”. A bipedal walking robot with very natural and fluent motion.
The amazing ability of these constructions to walk over terrains which seem too hard and dangerous for humans (ankle-breaking stuff) is so incredible and creepy at the same time, but sooner or later the technology will be all around us. Be it in real robots or paraplegics who were never able to run and are now better runners with more stability than us, regulars…
Just check the videos here:
- BigDog (compilation)
- LittleDog
- Petman
- The running robot (This guy is pretty good as well!)
Just imagine being chased by a superfast LittleDog with a gun on it’s back and razor sharp edges!
I hope you can still sleep.
But there’s more:
There’s also something called an Autonomous Quadrotor.
For those all of you who are thinking: “An autonomous whatwhich?”; this is a kind of robotic helicopter with 4 separate rotors (as shown in the image). Giving it ultimate flexibility and agility for in-air manoeuvring.
This is of course perfect for spy-planes and chasing/monitoring/attacking potential hazardous people.
Check the video to watch the incredible abilities a university has given it’s little Quadrotor. No window or tiny hole should be left unprotected in the year 2015.
Home Sweet Home
Before humans went into space, several animals were launched into space, including numerous monkeys.
The United States launched monkey flights primarily between 1948-1961 with one flight in 1969 and one in 1985. France launched two monkey space flights in 1967. The Soviet Union and Russia launched monkeys between 1983 and 1996. In total thirty-two monkeys flew in the space program; each had only one mission: so that scientists could investigate the biological effects of space travel before sending an actual human into space.
This advertisement by WWF is a nice swing at this concept. It shows one of these monkeys on it’s way home (finally). Keeping hopes up to see his family and the nice planet he remembered as his home… Alas he arrives at a barren uninhabitable land. Very well executed and a wonderful tune.
I hope it’s not a realistic view of the nearby future. Even though BP is doing a good job to establish it like that.
Incredible BMW design concept car
Every day new concept cars arise from imagination to render and eventually a test-model. Problem is, usually the renders looked way more awesome than the real deal.
But here’s a car that looks actually cooler in real than the concept renders. I know most people already know about this vehicle or have seen it on auto-salons or the internet, but I wouldn’t want to leave this badboy out of this website’s collection.
BMW’s “Efficient Dynamics”, pushing 356hp while maintaining about 62MPG.
The new BMW Vision EfficientDynamics combines superb driving performance with extremely low consumption. A hybrid drive system and a revolutionary design are among the highlights. The film reveals how a sustainable, but enjoyable future BMW will look like.
These Germans did it again! If you compare today’s cars with these of the early 60’s, I think we could be driving these babies for a somewhat “affordable” price around 2040.
Please enjoy these stunning pics:
You can watch an interesting presentation about this vehicle here.
