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sweeperbravo
May 18, 2012

AUNT GWEN'S COLD SHAPE (!)

PhazonLink posted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope

Yes, I want a perfect fit for my shoes. Please shower me with radiation.

Oh, hey, that was a brief scene in the book IT. I thought Stephen King was kind of just making something up there. I'll never doubt you again, big man.

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PhazonLink
Jul 17, 2010

longview posted:

The fact that we have understood the dangers of radioactivity for the better part of half a century and I still meet people who don't understand what electromagnetic radiation is is something that should surely be obsolete.

It also pisses me off when I'm told either that "well we don't know conclusively do we" or just plain "no, cell phone radiation causes all sorts of problems and I get a headache from using one". It just demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the science involved. I have also literally had a family member tell me that she didn't want a cell phone tower near where she lived because of radiation. Coverage was poor enough that they could only use the phones in one spot, and they were all glued to their phones anyway.
I have never met anyone dumb enough to think wi-fi emissions are a health risk but I'm told it often comes up in school boards.

Here's something that's either obsolete or never existed in the first place: the general population appreciating science.

The best thing about cell towers are when you get people saying they feel like crap or have problem ______ and the tower isn't on yet or even built.

eddiewalker
Apr 28, 2004

Arrrr ye landlubber

PhazonLink posted:

The best thing about cell towers are when you get people saying they feel like crap or have problem ______ and the tower isn't on yet or even built.

Last year they built a cell tower in my neighborhood and all the leaves on my oak tree immediately turned brown and fell off.

old bean factory
Nov 18, 2006

Will ya close the fucking doors?!

Pham Nuwen posted:

I was just pointing out that the radiation from cell phones and wifi is incredibly harmless compared to actual ionizing radiation. All the cell phone will do is potentially warm your body very very slightly when in use.

I was just thinking that when I was a good 50 meters away from my apartment building, and my phone picked up my wifi router through a bunch of concrete. "Huh, a lot of people are getting radiation right now because of me, cool!"

The only problem I have with cell phones, is that the ear piece gets warm after a decent conversation. That must be the radiation.

MadScientistWorking
Jun 23, 2010

"I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

longview posted:

As mentioned, they are still in use for deep space probes -- and are the only reason we can still talk to the Voyager probes, -- this is a problem, since should the rocket launching the probes need to be terminated, it would spray fairly poisonous and radioactive substances (remember: lower half-life = more nuclear energy) over a pretty wide area. Hopefully the area would be large enough that individual casualties are not an issue, but the environmental concerns are huge with launching RTGs.
You've been breathing in fairly poisonous radiation since the day you were born its not going to be that drastic of a worry.
EDIT:
Never mind I forgot Plutonium is a Calcium substitute.

MadScientistWorking has a new favorite as of 20:30 on Jul 16, 2013

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

longview posted:

As mentioned, they are still in use for deep space probes -- and are the only reason we can still talk to the Voyager probes, -- this is a problem, since should the rocket launching the probes need to be terminated, it would spray fairly poisonous and radioactive substances (remember: lower half-life = more nuclear energy) over a pretty wide area. Hopefully the area would be large enough that individual casualties are not an issue, but the environmental concerns are huge with launching RTGs.

Not really, no.

Lower half-life means it's less radioactive, not more. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. They use it as counterweights for control surfaces on aircraft because it's nice and dense. Airplane crashes and burns up and it's a complete non-issue. Because the half-life is 4.5 *billion* years.

For a radiothermal generator on a space probe, you use a *shorter* half-life, because you need it to generate enough heat as it decays to produce a useful voltage across a thermocouple. So we typically use plutonium-238, with a half-life of about 90 years. A number of RTGs have reentered the atmosphere, and not a single one of these have caused any damage at all. Apollo 13's is sitting on the ocean bottom, there's been no measurable increase in radiation in the area. Several early and/or Soviet RTGs burned up on re-entry, increasing the background radiation of the earth by an utterly insignificant amount.

There was a big oops incident with a Soviet recon satellite which broke up and reentered over Canada, maybe that's what you're thinking of. But that wasn't an RTG, it was a nuclear reactor with 50 kilograms of U235 and a few months' operation of fission fragments. That scattered over 50,000 square miles of Canada and was a mess to clean up, but RTGs aren't fission reactors, and are specifically designed to survive reentry intact.

Geoj
May 28, 2008

BITTER POOR PERSON

Phanatic posted:

There was a big oops incident with a Soviet recon satellite which broke up and reentered over Canada, maybe that's what you're thinking of. But that wasn't an RTG, it was a nuclear reactor with 50 kilograms of U235 and a few months' operation of fission fragments. That scattered over 50,000 square miles of Canada and was a mess to clean up, but RTGs aren't fission reactors, and are specifically designed to survive reentry intact.

More disturbingly, there are a fair number (~30) of these floating around in high orbit. Soviet RORSATs were all powered by liquid metal cooled reactors, which upon reaching the end of their useful lifespans were ejected into a higher orbit that will eventually decay and re-enter the atmosphere.

Axeman Jim
Nov 21, 2010

The Canadians replied that they would rather ride a moose.

PhazonLink posted:

The best thing about cell towers are when you get people saying they feel like crap or have problem ______ and the tower isn't on yet or even built.

I can verify this. I worked answering complaints for a Local Authority in the UK. There was a cell tower on top of the Council's main building, and a woman wrote in complaining that the emissions from the tower had interfered with her crystal healing business and made her go broke and have migranes. She also said that she could "feel the radiation pumping into her mind". A quick call to facilities revealed that the tower had been switched off for two years after the Council lost the contract with the phone company. I suggested she see a doctor about her headaches.

My mum has decided that Wi-Fi is witchcraft and won't allow wireless internet in her house. She also installed copper strips under the new wallpaper, under the carpet, and across the ceiling in her bedroom in an attempt to turn it into a Faraday Cage where THE EVIL WON'T GET TO HER.

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

Axeman Jim posted:

new wallpaper

They still make wallpaper?

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.

Geoj posted:

More disturbingly, there are a fair number (~30) of these floating around in high orbit. Soviet RORSATs were all powered by liquid metal cooled reactors, which upon reaching the end of their useful lifespans were ejected into a higher orbit that will eventually decay and re-enter the atmosphere.

900 kilometer orbit takes a really long time to decay, though, this isn't Skylab we're talking about. I mean, hundreds of years is a good order of magnitude estimate, by that time most of the fission fragments won't be a concern. The worrying ones are the ones that didn't make it to that parking orbit.

Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.

eddiewalker posted:

Last year they built a cell tower in my neighborhood and all the leaves on my oak tree immediately turned brown and fell off.

The same thing happened in my area, and all the bees disappeared around the same time. :ohdear:

bongwizzard
May 19, 2005

Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"
Grimey Drawer

longview posted:


Here's something that's either obsolete or never existed in the first place: the general population appreciating science.

The same science that said thalidomide was totally safe?

Exit Strategy
Dec 10, 2010

by sebmojo

Fozaldo posted:

Speaking of these why has it taken so long for cordless charging to come about? Induction has been understood for a very long time so what is so hard about using a coil to induce a current in another coil in a phone to charge a battery?

Wait, you don't have a contact charger? I'm running a Nexus 4 and a cheap Qi plate I got off Amazon.

Anarchist Mae
Nov 5, 2009

by Reene
Lipstick Apathy

bunnielab posted:

The same science that said thalidomide was totally safe?

Technically yes, in reality no, that was a stupid thing to say.

Space Gopher
Jul 31, 2006

BLITHERING IDIOT AND HARDCORE DURIAN APOLOGIST. LET ME TELL YOU WHY THIS SHIT DON'T STINK EVEN THOUGH WE ALL KNOW IT DOES BECAUSE I'M SUPER CULTURED.

DNova posted:

It makes me wonder what we do today that in 50 years will seem too stupidly absurd to be true.

"You had oceans of oil, perfect raw material for any organic chemicals you wanted to cook up, and you burned it? Even though you knew about the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?"

bongwizzard
May 19, 2005

Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"
Grimey Drawer

Measly Twerp posted:

Technically yes, in reality no, that was a stupid thing to say.

I think having total faith that "this time we 100% have it right" is pretty stupid.

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.

bunnielab posted:

I think having total faith that "this time we 100% have it right" is pretty stupid.

Tell me about your alternative medicine clinic. :allears:


Edit: To add some meaningful dialog, I'm not saying that I blindly follow everything I hear, but that goes in all directions. If I see a news article about XYZ is causing caner, or ZYX is no longer causing cancer, I always take it with a grain of salt, but the beauty of knowing the scientific process is that I can look these things up for myself and determine if I should believe it. Did this study follow proper protocol? Are the journalists conflating facts/assuming causation instead of just correlation? (spoiler alert: yes, they always are.)

Being a cynical bastard and saying this like "well, scientists were wrong about x-rays, and thalidomide*, and smoking, so therefore they must be wrong about everything, all the time" is pretty stupid.

DrBouvenstein has a new favorite as of 21:12 on Jul 17, 2013

mactheknife
Jul 20, 2004

THE JOLLY CANDY-LIKE BUTTON

DNova posted:

They still make wallpaper?

Post the very best in obsolete home decor

sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

mactheknife posted:

Post the very best in obsolete home decor

Not exactly decor, but you made me think of these, which we actually had in my childhood home. Who knows what this is? Answer in the spoiler.



Speaking Tubes! Before electronic intercoms, you spoke through copper plumbing. The one in my house was, uh, half-duplex (requiring only one pipe), while the one in the photo is full-duplex (speak into one, listen from the other). On the left, there's an insert attached to a lever. That's a whistle. You could just blow into it to get someone's attention inside, then push it aside to speak into it once they answered.

bongwizzard
May 19, 2005

Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"
Grimey Drawer

DrBouvenstein posted:

Tell me about your alternative medicine clinic. :allears:


Edit: To add some meaningful dialog, I'm not saying that I blindly follow everything I hear, but that goes in all directions. If I see a news article about XYZ is causing caner, or ZYX is no longer causing cancer, I always take it with a grain of salt, but the beauty of knowing the scientific process is that I can look these things up for myself and determine if I should believe it. Did this study follow proper protocol? Are the journalists conflating facts/assuming causation instead of just correlation? (spoiler alert: yes, they always are.)

Being a cynical bastard and saying this like "well, scientists were wrong about x-rays, and thalidomide*, and smoking, so therefore they must be wrong about everything, all the time" is pretty stupid.

I guess my point is that even science is a matter of faith and that maybe being somewhat suspicious of a ubiquitous technology that arrived on the scene very quickly isnt totaly tinfoil hat territory. I think this does apply to medicine more so that most things. We are pretty complex sacks of goo and I think in the drive to do some good and help people there is a real danger of becoming too exuberant.

I mean, I am a traditionalist so the only drugs I take are aspirin, tums, Benadryl, and opium derivatives. Usually with red wine and a nice jazz album.

Douche Wolf 89
Dec 9, 2010

🍉🐺8️⃣9️⃣

bunnielab posted:

I guess my point is that even science is a matter of faith and that maybe being somewhat suspicious of a ubiquitous technology that arrived on the scene very quickly isnt totaly tinfoil hat territory. I think this does apply to medicine more so that most things. We are pretty complex sacks of goo and I think in the drive to do some good and help people there is a real danger of becoming too exuberant.

I mean, I am a traditionalist so the only drugs I take are aspirin, tums, Benadryl, and opium derivatives. Usually with red wine and a nice jazz album.

Okay? You don't think that already exists in the form of test trials, research and ethics boards? And we're not mysterious, "complex sacks of goo"; we're a series of interworking systems that we actually understand pretty well now. For instance, thanks to medical science, we know mixing aspirin and alcohol can cause stomach problems.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


bunnielab posted:

I mean, I am a traditionalist so the only drugs I take are aspirin, tums, Benadryl, and opium derivatives. Usually with red wine and a nice jazz album.

Where do you stand on strychnine-based tonics, found in the U.S.pharmacopeia as late as 1925? See also the many exciting uses, both internal and external, for "Oleum Terebinthinae (Ol. Tereb.), Oil of Turpentine".

bongwizzard
May 19, 2005

Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"
Grimey Drawer

Douche Wolf 89 posted:

Okay? You don't think that already exists in the form of test trials, research and ethics boards? And we're not mysterious, "complex sacks of goo"; we're a series of interworking systems that we actually understand pretty well now. For instance, thanks to medical science, we know mixing aspirin and alcohol can cause stomach problems.

Sure, but I bet the guys who came up with the four humors theory thought they had it in the bag too. It is nothing but hubris to think that we are any different and are not going to be laughed at by the scientists of 75 years from now.

djssniper
Jan 10, 2003


bunnielab posted:

The same science that said thalidomide was totally safe?

No drug is totally safe, Thalidomide was as you say a disaster, but how do you test on pregnant women? No Pharma in the UK would put a pregnant woman through clinical trials, however it does have redeeming qualities in other areas, which is what Pharma does... drug fails in a specific area they either redevelop it or rebrand it for other areas it can be effective. Of the Millions that goes into researching a whole branch of drugs, a very low percentage make it through trials to production.. that's why treatments cost so much until they go 'generic'.

...of SCIENCE!
Apr 26, 2008

by Fluffdaddy
If you spent any effort at all you'd know that the thalidomide thing was the result of a business pushing a drug through before it was ready and a manufacturing error producing the wrong, dangerous form of the compound. It's not like some shadowy cabal of men in white labcoats arbitrarily declared it to be safe based on their gut feeling


For gently caress's sake, you live in the information age. You have nobody but yourself to blame for not knowing about poo poo.

bongwizzard
May 19, 2005

Then one day I meet a man,
He came to me and said,
"Hard work good and hard work fine,
but first take care of head"
Grimey Drawer

...of SCIENCE! posted:

If you spent any effort at all you'd know that the thalidomide thing was the result of a business pushing a drug through before it was ready and a manufacturing error producing the wrong, dangerous form of the compound. It's not like some shadowy cabal of men in white labcoats arbitrarily declared it to be safe based on their gut feeling


For gently caress's sake, you live in the information age. You have nobody but yourself to blame for not knowing about poo poo.

Calm your flippers. I think it is funny in a thread that celebrates dumb and dead end tech and amazingly bad ideas that a "now we have it all figured out" mindset would be so ardently defended.

Kugyou no Tenshi
Nov 8, 2005

We can't keep the crowd waiting, can we?

bunnielab posted:

Calm your flippers. I think it is funny in a thread that celebrates dumb and dead end tech and amazingly bad ideas that a "now we have it all figured out" mindset would be so ardently defended.

No, people aren't defending the strawman you made up. They're calling you out on your blatant anti-intellectualism which is based primarily, if not entirely, on things that often can't even be called "science". Four humors? Seriously? But please, do go on about how not knowing everything means that everyone's just taking it on faith. Or don't. That'd be nice too.

Brother Jonathan
Jun 23, 2008
Stop posting about science, get back to technology. Besides, you folks seem to agree that science is useful, but just disagree on how much we should trust the latest discoveries.

Speaking of which, I found a book from the 1950s on household cleaning, and it has a section on asbestos:

"Asbestos is used as a covering for stove and furnace pipes, as a fireproofing material for buildings, for lamp wicks and gas logs, glassworkers' gloves and firemen's clothing. Theaters are safeguarded against fire by asbestos curtains and even asbestos rugs. The homemaker uses it for mats on the stove, ironing board covers and sometimes, mixed with cotton, in dish towels."

It also has a chapter on the miracle chemical DDT.

Platystemon
Feb 13, 2012

as a person who never leaves my house i've done pretty well for myself.

Brother Jonathan posted:

It also has a chapter on the miracle chemical DDT.

To be fair, DDT is unrivalled when it comes to killing bugs.

It absolutely should not have been used agriculturally, but it’s a godsend in the fight against malaria.

ol qwerty bastard
Dec 13, 2005

If you want something done, do it yourself!
Speaking of old books, and household cleaning, I came across a book from 1970 about what life might be like in the distant future of the year 2000. I wish I'd scanned some of the pages because it speculated that, for example, everything in the home would be waterproof and the housewife would do all her cleaning by just spraying a garden hose around.

joat mon
Oct 15, 2009

I am the master of my lamp;
I am the captain of my tub.

ol qwerty bastard posted:

Speaking of old books, and household cleaning, I came across a book from 1970 about what life might be like in the distant future of the year 2000. I wish I'd scanned some of the pages because it speculated that, for example, everything in the home would be waterproof and the housewife would do all her cleaning by just spraying a garden hose around.


Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)

A fascinating article. Among other things, coal illegal, Atomic power too inefficent, so natural gas+solar for power plants, disposable houses, etc.


(note the family helicopter in the upper right)

joat mon has a new favorite as of 06:52 on Jul 18, 2013

Lazlo Nibble
Jan 9, 2004

It was Weasleby, by God! At last I had the miserable blighter precisely where I wanted him!
Hurricanes diverted by pouring oil on the ocean and burning it! Telegraph offices forced to upgrade to fax technology by increasing competition from mail rockets! The Zworykin-Von Neumann automaton improved to handle the fifty variables needed to predict the weather up to 24 hours in advance!

He was right that by 2000 we wouldn't be able to send a man to the moon, though. He just didn't expect it'd be because we already did it a few times and got bored with it.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle


He even predicted modern fast food.

"You'll eat food from sawdust!"

E: "Discarded paper 'linen' and rayon underwear are brought to chemical factories and converted into candy." :science:

E2: Oh god, an "inches deep lake" on the roof to cool your house. Imagine the mosquito problem!

KozmoNaut has a new favorite as of 08:33 on Jul 18, 2013

ol qwerty bastard
Dec 13, 2005

If you want something done, do it yourself!

joat mon posted:


Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)

A fascinating article. Among other things, coal illegal, Atomic power too inefficent, so natural gas+solar for power plants, disposable houses, etc.


(note the family helicopter in the upper right)

Hah, that's it! Could have sworn it was 1970 for some reason, but I guess 1950 makes a lot more sense.

cyberbug
Sep 30, 2004

The name is Carl Seltz...
insurance inspector.

Brother Jonathan posted:

"Asbestos is used as a covering for stove and furnace pipes, as a fireproofing material for buildings, for lamp wicks and gas logs, glassworkers' gloves and firemen's clothing. Theaters are safeguarded against fire by asbestos curtains and even asbestos rugs. The homemaker uses it for mats on the stove, ironing board covers and sometimes, mixed with cotton, in dish towels."

"Asbestos. We couldn't live the way we do without it."

BogDew
Jun 14, 2006

E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli

Groke
Jul 27, 2007
New Adventures In Mom Strength

KozmoNaut posted:

We still use those (same format, different design/coloring) in Denmark, they've been in use for at least 40 years now. Mostly because they just work.

In fact, I've got one right here on my desk at work, for 10 trips between Helsingør and Aarhus. It's a strip of cardboard worth ~$550 and you don't want to cut two squares by accident. No refunds.

There is an electronic replacement, similar to the Oyster card. Unfortunately, due to a characteristic Danish insistence on doing everything custom-made our own way (see the posts on the IC4 debacle earlier in the thread), there have been massive issues with it, including such basic ergonomic failures as the check-in and check-out spots being almost indistinguishable from each other. It's so bad that they've had to delay the phasing out of the old punch card system by two years.

Hah. I wonder if they used the same subcontractors as the Oslo transit authority used for their electronic ticket system?

Talk about failed technology.

Flexus.

This was the name of the wonderful new electronic ticketing system that had been under development since 2000 and was going to be phased in "shortly" when I moved to the greater Oslo area in 2005. (I commute from a suburban area outside the city limits, into the city centre.) In fact originally it was supposed to be fully deployed by 2005 but it was already delayed. But it was going to be worth the wait, as it was both user-friendly and convenient and would make it nearly impossible for cheaters to ride without paying. Your card can hold any of various types of tickets (single rides good for an hour or two depending on distance, day passes, week passes, month or year passes, etc.) and the clock on the ticket begins running when you activate the ticket by holding your card up to a reader conveniently located at every entrance to a subway station, or just inside the door of every bus or streetcar, etc. They had already gotten as far as installing these bad boys in the biggest subway stations:



These are individual gates with plexiglass doors that you have to pass through on your way into the subway; you unlock them by holding a valid card up to the reader. Or they were supposed to do that; they never really worked right, it turned out that having the gates closed by default would also be a security hazard in case of an emergency situation that required evacuation, on occasions where they did try running the gates they sometimes malfunctioned, people actually got caught in them. These days the actual glass doors have been removed so the gates only serve as readers/validation points for the cards and pose no impediment whatsoever to discount ninja passengers; they are unlikely to ever be put to the use originally intended (also because actually using them would require paying for human attendants to provide immediate override in case of aforementioned emergencies).

Technical difficulties plagued the development and deployment of the rest of the system also. Things were ready enough for some passengers to begin using electronic cards by 2008. Old-fashioned weekly and monthly pass tickets on paper were finally phased out completely in 2012, only seven years behind schedule and 600 million NOK (very roughly $100 million USD) over cost. Things have gradually gotten better, but only slowly. The automatic terminals here and there where you can load up your card with new tickets don't always work, and aren't exactly very accessible to many disabled people either; depending on where you live and how mobile you are, it can be pretty easy to get caught out in a situation where it's physically impossible for you to actually buy a ticket without first riding the subway downtown without a ticket. And get fined if you are caught out by a surprise control. (For a long time, the company also only had a grand total of two handheld card readers for their rentacops to use in those controls.)

In everyday use, still about 10% of the time the card reader where you're supposed to activate your card (or merely prove that you already have an activated ticket) is out of action (and the longer-distance buses, like the ones I mostly ride, only have a single reader on board). Also of course it's impossible to tell from looking at your card whether it holds either an active ticket or one ready to be activated, you have to hold it up to a reader (which does not happen to be malfunctioning) to see that. (And if you do not have an already-activated ticket but do have one waiting, doing so will activate it and start the clock running, as it were.) Malfunctions in the cards themselves is still not an uncommon thing either and there have been a few cases where people have been fined for not having a working card through no fault of their own, contested these fines, and won. (Note that this has happened more than once, i.e. the company has tried to fine people for this repeatedly even after losing identical cases in court already.)

The transit authority company has changed both its own name (and organization form) and the name of the ticket system itself during this time, probably to try to salvage some reputation points (not very successfully) and the massive savings promised have obviously evaporated in cost overruns and also because the new system doesn't actually do anything more than the old to prevent freeloading. The company was also planning to use the electronic trail generated by all passengers for the purpose of improved scheduling and whatnot, but it turned out they weren't actually allowed by law to require passengers to validate their tickets every time they step onto a vehicle so that benefit obviously evaporated as well.

This is certainly one case where sticking with the decades-old previous system would have been preferable.

Acute Grill
Dec 9, 2011

Chomp

joat mon posted:


Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)

A fascinating article. Among other things, coal illegal, Atomic power too inefficent, so natural gas+solar for power plants, disposable houses, etc.


(note the family helicopter in the upper right)

I imagine a lot of the more impractical ones of these are similar to the "why aren't they making this!?" photoshop product mock-ups like the transparent phone, outlet with retractable extension cord built in, and goo fridge where anybody with basic engineering knowledge (or often, common sense) could tell you that this is a terrible idea that's ludicrously dangerous, expensive, or physically impossible to science as we know it.

My favorites though are the ones that underestimate modern conveniences because they didn't/couldn't anticipate the internet or the popularity of personal computers.

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

joat mon posted:


Miracles You’ll See In The Next Fifty Years (Feb, 1950)

A fascinating article. Among other things, coal illegal, Atomic power too inefficent, so natural gas+solar for power plants, disposable houses, etc.


Just apply to sofa:

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DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.

KozmoNaut posted:

E2: Oh god, an "inches deep lake" on the roof to cool your house. Imagine the mosquito problem!

Solved by applying liberal amounts of DDT. :smug:

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