Junking Earth’s Orbit

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How many times did I tell you to stop leaving your toys all over the floor!? Sorry, I meant orbit:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/ISRO_Creates_World_Record_PSLV_Takes_Off_With_104_Satellites_999.html^

First of all, congratulations to India for launching 104 satellites in one shot. Congratulations also to the various organizations that will advance science through the various experiments on board them satellites. However…

I have said it in the past^ as well. We’re being careless with our orbital activities. It’s not only our forests and seas that we’re spoiling, but also our lovely planet’s orbital space. And like the environment down here, there’s only one up there and once we’ve ruined it, it’ll take a long time to fix.

Sure, there’s a lot more space up there, even if we only consider close Earth orbit. But if we keep launching our tech-junk with little foresight one day we might get hit by the nasty Kessler syndrome^, and then we’ll see decades of technological progress thrown out the window, not to mention it’ll be very difficult for anything to leave Earth until we clean the mess up. At least it’ll be some measure of defense against alien immigrants?

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Creatures of the Plastic World

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It’s quite well known by now that our oceans are slowly turning into a toxic stew of plastic with sauce of life-threatening industrial residues. I recently read about why birds are attracted to plastic residue:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/1109/Why-seabirds-find-plastic-debris-so-yummy^

It’s actually quite similar to why fish tend to find plastic so yummy as well:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36435288^

Apparently, if we keep dumping our junk in the ocean at this rate, we’re well on track to have more plastic than fish in our oceans by 2050:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/19/more-plastic-than-fish-in-the-sea-by-2050-warns-ellen-macarthur^

This reminds me of something the genius comedian George Carlin has said: “that’s why the Earth has created us. It wanted plastic for itself”. Here’s a full 9 minutes of George Carlin awesomeness (I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, for example I think we could treat our environment with more care, for our own sake, but for the most part, he’s spot on!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNknQCUBWG4^

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Interaction and the Spectrum of Love

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Existence is enriched through interaction. Any interaction, no matter how insignificant, gives birth to a relationship. A consciousness that exists by itself, in an empty Universe, cannot interact with anything, cannot experience any relationship. Such a situation may perhaps be worse than non-existence (*).

Interaction is richer between species that have more in common, peaking when it involves members of the same species. There can be little argument that the most constructive (beneficial, pleasant) type of interaction is love. The nature, meaning and purpose of love has been debated by scientists, philosophers, mystics and all in between. Its overriding power has remained difficult to explain, even though many disciplines seem to think they have the right answer.

Legalizing love

Most healthy humans yearn for love. In spite of this, in a large part of the world, few people venture to have a conversation about love or use “I love you” outside relationships with family or intimate partners. This is a widespread social problem. The results of this schism can be seen everywhere.

Many people today face isolation, unhappiness and depression. Without the emotional nourishment of love, it is very easy for entire social groups to become ideological prey to intellectual viruses such as consumerism, racism and nationalism.

But the culture of “I love you” is returning. Families are starting to realize that saying this to their children results in a happier family life and more emotionally secure offspring. Friends are rediscovering the value of sharing this honest feeling towards each other. It is important for people to raise their awareness of how love makes them feel, so that they more actively share and spread this emotion.

The spectrum of love

Throughout life we encounter countless avatars of love. There is the love for family, for friends and even the love of one’s so-called enemies, which stop being enemies when empathy and love work as they should. Every interaction becomes a relationship and any relationship can be one of love. What is life if not an exploration of all the ways love can be felt?

It is certainly true of us humans that we are all of the same family. Even though the formation of our society has its roots in the necessary creation of survival-related advantages, we have outgrown these necessities. Especially during this age of post-scarcity, there are very few reasons why we should keep falling prey to our survival instinct and give into fear and hate. Our society is transforming from a stage of mere mutual interest towards one of brotherhood and sisterhood.

As our consciousness refines, we will continue to expand the borders of what we perceive as “family”. One day, we will reach a stage when we will perceive every single thing in this Universe, regardless of our current definition of life, as part of the same family simply by virtue of existing. Stars, humans, atoms and blades of grass, we are all children of existence.

The great attractor

Some people see love as a sort of force. It is. Any relationship that is predominantly loving is a relationship where the two sides will grow closer together. There probably are scientific reasons for this behavior in life forms. We know that complex intelligence can live and express love more fully. It is interesting that the Universe has given birth to such a constructive outcome. Even when rationalized as “an instinct for procreation”, love maintains its quality of being able to build towards more love.

The more interactions one has, the more of the spectrum of love one experiences. The Universe can thus be seen as a sort of museum of love, a collection of nearly infinite ways of experiencing and enriching the feeling. Through evolution, there is little doubt that this process will soar to unfathomable heights of conscious emotion.

There is an interesting parallel between love and another primordial process. It’s the same process that has given birth to every atom in our bodies: nuclear fusion. The light that allows us to live is the result of hydrogen atoms joining together to form helium atoms inside the Sun. Earth exists because another star, long before the Sun, has spread the atoms it created inside across this region of the Universe. Fusion, like love, is a constructive process.

Interactions nourished by love are of a healing nature. Friendship for example is a relationship of love that can endure many hardships and provides a solid life pillar to those involved. Let us also consider the love towards one self, for it is extremely powerful. This reflected interaction can be so powerful that it can become a drug. The addiction to self-love can lead to serious psychological problems such as narcissism or megalomania.

It is important that we, as a society, offer enough love to each other so that we do not fall into the trap of self-love. Instead, it is best to see self-love as just another facet of the emotion, therefore not allowing self-love to suffocate the love of everything else around us. This is especially important as everything around us is also part of the same family. Losing sight of this deprives one of the opportunities to fully explore love.

Look around you, see who looks like they need some love. Don’t limit yourself to your family or friends. Work outwards. Get that loving vibe flowing to your coworkers, dare to reach out to the newest person in your life, somebody you just met.

Look around you, see who radiates love. Embrace it, absorb it, learn from it. Love can be a skill and like any skill it can be perfected through practice and observation. So get into the business of radiating love because love breeds love. And to also be a bit pragmatic, it’s important to mention that this emotion opens doors that no amount of money or power can open.

In closing, I’ll share something I wrote about love on the 1st of January 2014:

I shall build my life for the sole purpose of expressing Love NOW; not tomorrow, not next month, but NOW. My mind will become the antenna that picks up the Love that surrounds me, and my soul will be the sun that shines it through my body. I shall not keep this Love hostage in myself. I will beam it across the Universe and bestow it on family, teachers, friends, those who like me AND those who don’t. I shall love Man, Animal, Plant, Stone and Star, for Love is the almighty, transcending force that brings meaning to our existence. And when the NOW becomes an eternal monument to Love, I WILL BE HAPPY, for my life now truly lives.

 

This article is the second part of The “Art of Peace” Trilogy^.

 

(*)^ Perhaps this is why in several spiritual traditions, the godhead is said to create companions for itself or forget itself and split into myriad other beings in order to rediscover itself (hopefully having some fun in the process).

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Amazon Is Well on Track to Become a Fully Robotized Retailer

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Amazon’s latest forays into robotics have left me thoroughly impressed. Take a look at this awesome presentation of one of the company’s most modern order fulfillment centers:

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/06/technology/amazon-warehouse-robots/^

Now combine this with the company’s obvious direction of turning into a delivery behemoth. Amazon is rather coy about this aspect, but why else would it be buying up planes^ and making airport^ investments^? This is only the beginning I believe. I see the company making use of robotic planes and a massive fleet of self-driving trucks in the near future.

I don’t really think that delivery via aerial drones will make it past the marketing gimmick stage. At most, it will perhaps become some sort of exclusive service – expensive and inefficient, at least for the customer. In any case, Amazon is well positioned to become a “full stack retailer” – a seller that controls the entire distribution chain. And there are signs that “retailer” is not enough.

Given the company’s (mostly) successful ventures with producing television and electronics, I wouldn’t be surprised if it begins buying up farms in becoming a full stack grocer as well. Then, I would expect Amazon to bring its robotics expertise into automated farming. There already have been plenty of experiments in that field.

Last but not least, check out this fully automated experimental grocery shop where there are no human employees (to see at least):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrmMk1Myrxc^

To be honest though, I’m not so sure if I like this last one. This fully robotic retail world might rob some people of even the little human interaction they get when they go into a shop. We might be taking some things a bit too far. But then again, shops might soon entirely cease to exist. I’m quite sure Amazon’s vision of the future is to remove all “wasted” shelf space and move everything online. And for those who wish to actually see the groceries they’ll buy, there’ll probably be a virtual reality shop in some years.

I am also slightly worried about the privacy aspects of some of the company’s ventures. Not only about these shops where electronic eyes watch everybody, but also cloud services such as Alexa^ that create and memorize accurate snapshots of the customer’s preferences and even personality. It’s a well-known strategy to bait people into accepting various losses of rights under the guise of introducing “much-needed features”. But let’s wish for the best and have faith in society’s ability to self-regulate and evolve.

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Taking People out of Their Boxes

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Here’s a touching, beautiful video about how to understand and appreciate a multicultural society:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD8tjhVO1Tc^

Even though this is a commercial for a Danish TV channel, it is simply too good not to share. I wish that the spirit of this message will spread far and wide and those that see only the bad parts of multiculturalism will connect to its positive aspects. There is endless potential in the richness of diversity.

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Quantum Supersampling

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It’s been quite some time since the last major breakthrough in computer graphics. For the past few decades, graphics quality has been steadily improving, but this has been mainly due advances in semiconductor technology and secondly due to software evolution. Little has changed when it comes to the way images can be efficiently rendered. Ray-tracing^ has been around for a while but it is too computationally-intensive to match rasterisation^.

At long last, an evolutionary leap might soon be upon us thanks to quantum computing. There are myriad applications for this emerging branch of technology, but one of the most interesting I’ve learned about lately is this fascinating proposal called quantum super-sampling. It’s a process combining ray-tracing with quantum computation. Here’s a (long) video presentation describing the process, by the author himself:

https://vimeo.com/180284417^

Eric Johnston is quite well known in the computer graphics world. Seeing such a proposal from him fills me with enthusiasm. It might take a decade or more for this technology to become mainstream, but when it happens – when, not if – we will witness a major improvement in graphics rendering, possibly leading to real-life quality video games and experiences.

Combined with the instant transfer of information that is made possible by quantum entanglement, this might mean that a powerful central server could render realistic graphics for a very large number of people. Perhaps us becoming capable of projecting universes might be proof that this Universe is a projection?

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About the Recent Changes on Mentatul

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How time flies. It’s been almost a year and a half since I launched^ Mentatul. So far, this proved itself to be a very beautiful adventure. The website started as a source for objective analysis of important contemporary issues combined with an assortment of subjective musings on art topics (so far, only music). Soon, I added the Recommendations^ category, where I share with readers various interesting or inspiring links that I stumble upon during my online journey.

However, like any long-term writing commitment, the project evolved. My urge for writing kept seeking new ways through which to express itself. About 9 months after the launch, in September 2016, I wrote the first satire^ article. Afterwards, in November I added two^ new^ categories based on real life adventures that I was fortunate to experience. I began 2017 by adding two^ more^ categories. Here’s a short description of all these recent changes.

Satire

I believe that sometimes laughter is the best way to highlight or even handle a problem. I find it very entertaining to write satire. The idea for the first article in the category – about Musk escaping to Mars^ – hit me so hard I just couldn’t resist publishing it. Every now and then some funky thought goes through my head and it’s so good to be able to laugh about it together with you.

Travel Log

I’ve been writing travel logs in Romanian for more than a decade but I haven’t published anything. A fascinating day in Scotland^ convinced me otherwise. Even though I published a satire article before the first travel log, this is the category that really opened the door for these recent changes on the website.

Life Fragments

Since I already started writing about some of my life via travel logs, I decided to share some funny or interesting things that happened during my days. The storyteller in me needed the exercise long before I launched my literature website (Michael Axonn^).

One of the “secret” goals I had with Mentatul was to diminish the strength of my inner critic. I’ve more than succeeded in doing this. Branching my writing into these new areas has been one of the things that helped a lot. Even though Mentatul now has two “log” categories, I still don’t consider this website to be a “blog” (it’s a writing project), but I won’t be insulted if you do :).

Parenting

I’ve always been fascinated by how much parenting can differ between cultures. It’s also one of the most polarizing topics ever. Now that I am a parent, it’s the perfect time to join the millions of writers that have spoken their mind about that which is the world’s most important responsibility – educating the next generation so that we may survive as a species. I actually started with an article that can be seen as “anti-advice”^.

Futurology

This category has been a long time coming. There’s sometimes a sea of ideas swirling in my head – I’m sure many readers know exactly how this feels. I actually had plans to launch individual websites with proposals and solutions surrounding topics such as the Internet of Things^ and Mixed Reality^. Alas, having a day job makes this quite difficult so, ultimately, I turned to Mentatul to publish all my ideas.

In all futurology articles, I invite readers to become participants and share their awesome ideas on various topics. Don’t worry about contributing amazing solutions with huge potential – unless you actually have the capital and tools to turn them into reality (patent applications or actual products). Otherwise, I think it’s better to bring these ideas out in the open, with your name next to them. I would actually be extremely happy if anybody is inspired by an idea of mine and turns it into something beautiful, credit or not.

It’s still just the beginning

Mentatul is not even two years old. But in this short time, I already see how the website has started to develop its “personality”. I don’t expect to see so many new categories added in such a short time again, but I might surprise myself.

For now, my focus will go into perfecting what is. I wish to write well and to offer a beautiful experience to those that visit. I hope that your stay here is enjoyable and, of course, I thank you for being here^.

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Catholic Church Releases “PopEye” Digital Guardian Angel

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Less than a month after introducing the SalveAtion Digital Assistant^ to the world, the Catholic Church is at it again. Wishing to expand its virtual economy, the Church has identified several key areas for improvement. Enter PopEye, a faithful’s most faithful guardian angel, designed to keep track of the user’s sins or lack thereof.

In case you haven’t been following the news, SalveAtion – launched three weeks ago – allows Catholics to purchase various Church services using a virtual currency called the innoCent. The currency can be gained by the faithful when they listen and share sermons or convert their friends to Catholicism. innoCents can also be purchased for real money. However, Vatican’s Business Intelligence division has noticed that shortly after SalveAtion went out of beta, purchases of innoCents took a nosedive. This is where PopEye comes in.

Here’s what father Luigi Banuti, archcoder of the application told us: “We sought ways through which to boost innoCent spending. Sin redemption was an obvious choice. When a sin is recorded it will be stored in the user’s Digital Purgatory database until it is redeemed via SalveAtion, our other application. To keep our subjects interested, PopEye will offer increasingly large rewards the more days a person has been sinless.”

We asked Luigi how will PopEye realize that a sin has been committed: “We have enlisted the help of machines for this most noble work, but there will be supervision by mystic volunteers. PopEye will be a faithful’s ever-watchful angel. It will use the smartphone’s camera and microphone to send us information that will help our subjects attain a sinless life.”

When asked about the privacy implications of all this, Luigi declared that true faithful have nothing to hide. Interestingly enough, the application has been growing in popularity. Christians seem to be happy to have their lives beamed directly to God’s representatives on Earth.

Even more interesting is the tiny press conference held just hours after PopEye launched. During the event, which has escaped the attention of only but the most inquisitive of journalists, the Vatican has announced a sweeping partnership with the Interpol and law enforcement organizations in many Catholic countries.

For its benefit, the Church will get access to criminal records and minor offenses (speeding tickets, parking violations, etc.) for all of its subjects, ready for easy conversion into sins that can later be redeemed via innoCents using the SalveAtion app. As part of the deal, law enforcement agencies will be provided with information that can help sinners be delivered sooner and more effectively than ever.

Vatican’s newly established Digital Deliverance department has provided us with the list of rewards that sinless faithful can expect to get the longer they last without committing a sin.

  • 1 day, “Sinner No More”, 2 daily innoCents.
  • 3 days, “Careful Faithful”, 4 daily innoCents.
  • 10 days, “Sinless Decathlon”, 10 daily innoCents.
  • 50 days, “Devotee”, 15 daily innoCents.
  • 100 days, “Watchful Faithful”, 20 daily innoCents.
  • 300 days, “Ardent Follower”, 40 daily innoCents.
  • 1000 days, “Micro Saint”, 100 daily innoCents.
  • 4000 days, “Most Faithful”, 150 daily innoCents.
  • 10000 days, “Mini Saint”, 200 daily innoCents.

Clarification: officials were adamant that we should emphasize the “Pope” in PopEye and capitalize the “E” so that this most sacred software work is not confused with the cartoon character. We’re not so sure if this is such a good idea since some readers might spell it as “pop eye” or “pope ye” rather than “pope eye”.

 

 

 

This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.

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Kitchen 3.0

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The age of interconnected devices and gadgets is slowly dawning. This category of communications-capable electronics has been labeled “the Internet of Things” – somewhat of a misnomer now-a-days when it is obvious that the security threat of any machine reachable from the Internet is enormous. Perhaps quantum cryptography will one day address this issue. Until then, home owners will probably be safer by using offline “smart home controllers” with manually-upgradeable firmware in what will be an Intranet of Things.

Irrespective of the name, this new wave of electronics is still barely in its infancy. Any company worth its salt has to prepare for how business will change in the coming decades. And there’s nothing more disruptive than what is basically the rise of the first mainstream generation of highly task-optimized robots. Indeed, a smart refrigerator is basically a robot focused on a certain task.

While the first robots accessible to everybody will still function very much like our current appliances, their smarts will open up a myriad opportunities for ground-breaking innovation. Because the kitchen contains a large amount of appliances, let’s explore how all these can be interconnected in order to provide an evolutionary leap when compared to today’s emerging Kitchen 2.0 where we do have smart devices but they are working by themselves rather than in cooperation.

The purpose behind any post in this Futurology^ category is to launch a wild, boundless speculation regarding what the future holds regarding a certain concept. To get things going, here are some of the things I imagine we’ll find in the kitchens of the near future (coming decades). Feel free to submit your own ideas in the comments below. With your approval I may integrate these in the article, giving proper credit.

  • Among its kitchen brethren, the refrigerator is going to see some of the largest changes to the way it operates. First of all, it will be able to manage its own contents and automatically order things its owners usually consume. Secondly, it will become smaller due to the increased efficiency in food delivery.
  • The way goods arrive in our household will fundamentally change, paving the way for new companies to establish themselves or creating new opportunities for profit for existing companies, such as Walmart which, 7 months after this article was published, has started experimenting with deliveries directly to the refrigerator^. Almost all perishable goods will be delivered by robots, most likely by self-driving trucks. We can’t exclude aerial drones that land packages on the rooftop of buildings. However, this is far less energy efficient and current experiments with this technology are either marketing gimmicks or attempts to create a segment for very fast but also very expensive shipping.
  • After delivery, a property’s own small transport robots will take the goods and store them in a Central Refrigerator. From there, the products will be distributed upon request to individual household refrigerators.
  • There will be no need for a refrigerator to have more than a day’s quantity of milk because more milk will be just 1 to 5 minutes away. Apartment buildings will have a Central Refrigerator somewhere in the basement, so quite close to family refrigerators. Product delivery will be slightly longer for areas with villas (due to the Central Refrigerator being located in a separate building somewhere close by).
  • All food orders will go to the Central Refrigerator. This will, in turn, bulk orders together and get the best offers from various warehouses in the area. Such a system will also save power due to having more efficient storage and much less heat leakage – the main door of this large refrigerator will almost never open because small delivery robots will go in and out through isolating access hatches.
  • Cooking a meal will often be as easy as pressing a button. People will be able to download recipe-programs for their kitchen. A recipe will therefore consist of a list of items that the refrigerator has to order and a set of instructions for various kitchen appliances. Some ingredients such as flour, sugar, oil, will be available to purchase in packages with the exact dosage required for the recipe, reducing waste and making it easier for Kitchen 3.0 to prepare the recipe.
  • Kitchen appliances will be integrated in one single block inside which ingredients can be transported from one section to another using various robotic arms. I’ll call this the Kitchen Block. Products that don’t require refrigeration will be brought from a larger storage compartment, either inside the home or a common storage location used by more families.
  • Baking a cake for example will consist of the mixer requesting items from various storage locations. The mixer will also be able to assign tasks to other sections of the Kitchen Block, such as asking the oven to toast some nuts before sending the cake batter to it.
  • All appliances will therefore be a part of a single unit, able to give instructions to each other. This will be done using preferably open source protocols and open standards, which is probably the only way for the manufacturers of various robots to be able to allow these machines to work with each other.
  • There will still be plenty of room for people to cook by themselves if they so wish, but more and more citizens will become recipe downloaders and/or developers. Creating a recipe program will probably not be so difficult, since in the coming decades computers will be operable using natural language. This transition is already taking place.
  • Despite the recipes being programs, they will be human-readable, making it very hard for an attacker to hack Kitchen 3.0. Combined with a strict security policy based on user approval and only minimal communication with the Central Refrigerator and similar “Master” robots, Kitchen 3.0 has good security prospects.
  • On the topic of Master robots, does every home really need something as complex as a Kitchen Block? Perhaps it should belong together with the Central Refrigerator, serving more than one household. This way, costs will be kept down and cooking will be more efficient. Then, Kitchen 3.0 could be split into a central section and a trimmed down “thin client” located inside each family’s home.

The Futurology Disclaimer: I do not claim that my ideas are original. I’m sure these suggestions are just scratching the surface of what can be achieved, but hopefully they’ve scratched enough to get anybody inspired to come up with more. I’m also sure many of these ideas are already being worked on by several organizations. If any of the ideas listed by anybody on this page are original and will benefit any organization, I expect credit to be given where it’s due.

Version history:

2017-02-16 – 1.0 – Written.
2017-09-23 – 1.0.1 – Added a link about Walmart experimenting with deliveries directly to the refrigerator.
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60 Seconds Documentaries

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Because the attention span of the average Internet denizen has decreased a lot, especially during these times of information overload, new ways of presenting information are always welcome. Enter 60 seconds documentaries.

I linked a few, starting with this very funny goat yoga event:

https://www.facebook.com/60SecDocs/videos/vb.1536789006633925/1698720017107489/?type=2&theater^

Chainsaw artist:

https://www.facebook.com/60SecDocs/videos/1701354346844056^

Camel decoration:

https://www.facebook.com/60SecDocs/videos/1687482744897883^

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