We are nearing the day when no one forgets, unless they want to.
Did you forget anything recently?
Your keys maybe. Or someone’s name.
You’re in good company. A typical person forgets about 4 things a day. Most are minor lapses but then there are the big ones: a third of us have forgotten a partner’s birthday, and 1 in 5 Dads has forgotten to pick up the kids from school.
A couple years ago, I experienced one of the big ones. I forgot to call my Dad on his birthday. We live in different countries so that call is really important. He expected me to call. And I didn’t. …
For 10,000 years we’ve been changing the world for this guy, now we’re starting to change it back
An alien spaceship enters the solar system and heads for Earth. The captain hushes the excited crew and turns to the science officer.
“Well?”
“Good news, captain, we’re picking up signs of life, and long-range scans indicate the planet has been transformed by one lifeform in particular.”
“Excellent. Make contact.”
A short time later, a cow grazing a field somewhere in Iowa lifts its head to see a small drone dancing in the air and squawking gibberish.
It’s a silly little story, but it reveals a fundamental truth about our world.
A visitor arriving here for the first time would see that 1/3 of the land on our planet is not occupied by people — but by livestock. …
Singapore becomes the first country to approve lab-grown meat
After years of discussions with Singapore regulators, the US company Eat Just has been given the green light to sell its lab-grown chicken in restaurants and stores.
This is the first time cultured meat has been cleared for sale to customers anywhere in the world, and could mark the start of a revolution in how we produce and consume our food.
“We’re going to start out with a single restaurant and then scale out to five, 10, 15 and then eventually into retail,” Eat Just CEO Josh Tetrick said. …
Dominos and F45 are, and it’s not because they’re providing better pizza or fitness
The gym is tucked away in a dingy downtown mall known for its all-night bars and prostitutes. Pointed in the right direction by a mall security guard, I walked down a long corridor made sticky by spilled beer. I gave a wide berth to a couple drunks who trailed a fug of cigarette smoke and started wondering if I should be somewhere else on an early Saturday morning.
Things didn’t improve when I finally reached the gym. It was small and squarish with no mirrors and little equipment.
It didn’t look like much but this is F45, the fitness phenomenon that’s exploded to over 1,700 outlets in just eight years. And they did this at the same time the big chains like Gold’s and 24 Hour Fitness are going bankrupt. …
A stranger arrives with the truth about our past, and a warning for what lies ahead
The black torus dropped out of hyperspace into the emptiness beyond Saturn and started scanning the solar system. The ultrawave flickered over the gas giants and their icy moons before moving quickly inward to the rock worlds and finally to the water planet, where it paused.
Back on the torus, a small bubble emerged from its surface and kept growing until it formed a perfect black sphere which then detached and moved away. …
We were promised 10 million self-driving cars by the end of this year. Guess what happened?
We’re nearing the end of 2020 and all those fully automated self-driving cars promised by Toyota, Nissan and Elon Musk are finally here.
According to Business Insider, you should have already seen some of the 10 million automated cars on American roads today.
What, you haven’t seen any? That’s strange, let me check how many are actually out there.
Okay, here it is. The exact number of fully automated vehicles on the road today is:
Zero.
That’s right, despite all the rosy predictions from the car companies and media, we will end the year without a single fully automated vehicle.
We did get kind of close. …
SpaceX has overtaken the world’s biggest airlines, and it’s just the beginning
Something interesting happened on our way to space.
The rocket company SpaceX quietly became more valuable than the five biggest airlines in the world, combined.
SpaceX is now valued at $46 billion while the total market capitalization of Delta, American, Lufthansa, United and Air France is just $42 billion.
The airlines blame the pandemic and say this is temporary. But the shift to remote work isn’t temporary. Nor are the rockets that can take us anywhere in the world in a fraction of the time that it takes an airplane.
Travel has changed forever.
Here are the 4 reasons why the rocket is replacing the plane. …
I thought running was more popular than ever, but the numbers don’t lie. We’re older, slower, and giving up on races.
I love everything about running — the searching for new routes on Google Earth; the cool, quiet mornings just before sunrise; even the shattered exhaustion a long way from the end because that’s when the world finally disappears and all you see is the trail.
And it looks like the world agrees.
Races are sold out months ahead of time and it seems like people are jogging on the spot at every third traffic light.
Just the other morning at my favorite local hill, dozens of trail runners were impatiently waiting to enter the trail.
What was the problem? Park wardens were enforcing social distancing and only letting a few runners in at a time. …
Technology is racing ahead, and people are falling behind
Something strange happened on the way to the moon.
The technology kept getting better. And the people started getting worse.
To see what I mean, let’s begin with Buzz Aldrin. This was his background before leaving for the moon in 1969:
- 2,200 hours flying fighter jets
- engineering degree from West Point
- doctorate in science from MIT
- 6 years of rigorous training at NASA
Now let’s look at Yusaku Maezawa, who will be the next person visiting the moon in 2023:
- graduated from high school
- played drums in a punk rock band
- made billions selling shoes and handbags online
And then there’s this. …
After rupturing a disc and resigning myself to years of disability, a smart trainer helped me live normally again
I did something amazing recently.
I bent over a barbell, and I picked it up.
(That’s not amazing, say normal people everywhere).
But it is for me. Because for the longest time I couldn’t tie my shoes or pick up my son — not without risking hours of pain lying still and staring at the ceiling.
That’s what a ruptured disc does to you. It takes someone who quickly picks up a dropped phone, and turns them into a human broomstick who stares helplessly at the ground.
It’s my fault
It started some years earlier. It was after last call and I was leaving Singapore’s famous but now-closed Elvis Bar — the only place in the country where you could dance on the bar. …
