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posted by martyb on Monday August 22 2016, @04:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the amazing-and-inspiring dept.

Alma Thomas was born during the horse and buggy days of the end of the 19th century, and raised under Jim Crow laws. By the end of her life, in 1978, she had been the first black woman to be given a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with works inspired by the possibilities of space travel.

"Today not only can our great sciences send astronauts to and from the Moon to photograph its surface and bring back samples of rocks and other materials, but through the medium of colour television all can see and experience the thrill of these adventures. These phenomena set my creativity in motion."

(Alma Thomas, an incandescent pioneer, New York Times, Aug 4 2016)

If you look at our current time and technologies, after a little thought, what makes you feel amazed about, and hopeful, curious for, the future?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:17AM (#391453)

    Damned paywall, launch it into space

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:31AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:31AM (#391459)

      How are you planning to nuke the paywall from orbit if you launch it into space? Sharks, lasers, Major Lazer, Vampire Weekend.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:22PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:22PM (#391776)

        I say we launch it to space and make the greys pay for it!

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:21AM (#391454)

    There hasn't been a moon landing since 1972, and color television is an obsolete technology replaced by the internet.

    The information superhighway led us to the worst example of balkanization in history. The long tail produces alienation to the degree where every person is an island connected to others only through one of a myriad of isolated social bullshitting sites. Data networks span the globe. Things are connected to other things to an unprecedented degree. And yet people interact less than ever before, choosing to associate only with others who share their beliefs, and are increasingly intolerant of differences in opinion.

    The future is dim.

    P.S. Fuck anyone who disagrees with me, because I'm right, you're wrong, and I don't give a shit about you!

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Monday August 22 2016, @04:51AM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Monday August 22 2016, @04:51AM (#391466)

    My teacher, Mr Barnes, gave us 3 days notice a black kid would be joining our class and we should be nice to him. He joined, I said "Hey nigger, how you doing?". He caught me after school and beat the ever loving shit out of me. I had no idea why, my parents and their friends always call black people niggers.

    1969, I was 11. Recorded the moon landing from TV onto a reel to reel tape deck an uncle gave me.

    1979, I bought a TRS-80 hoping to save money I was spending at video arcades. Learned BASIC, then Z-80 assembly. In fact, I was driving to a Radio Shack sponsored BASIC class when the DJ broke in to tell us John Lennon had been shot. I remember it was a rainy day.

    1980, was a certified welder and in school for electrical engineering. Told my girlfriend at the time I'd get on that space station either because I could weld, or I could fix circuits.

    1981, I was an electronics tech, some black dude did cleanup (but he wasn't a janitor). Called him boy once (called everyone boy at the time), he said next time I called him boy he'd beat the shit out of me. Had no clue why, but I never called him boy again (Wilbur, from Loral Instrumentation night shift, you reading this?)

    2013. Mom died. Dad had helped create a church that had a black pastor (he actually formed 3 churches that I know of). Tony gave the eulogy for mom.

    2016. Here I am. Dad's hanging in there. I don't call black people boy. I don't expect to help build a space station. Hoping to survive before an H1-B takes my job, hoping I can afford my generic meds before some pharma-bro decides profits before people.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:18AM (#391470)

      2011. A black man yelled at me as I was minding my own business walking down the street, "Hey white boy! Hey white boy!"

      The man ran over to walk beside me and asked, "You wanna buy some dope?"

      I was 31. Not a boy. But I happen to be white. I declined the offer of dope.

      Racism lives. White men are the boys now. Thank the Obama voters for racism.

      • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:24AM (#391493)

        Note to the fool who moderated the "white boy" anecdote Troll.

        That event really happened. If you feel the need to moderate Reality as Troll, then you are delusional.

        Let me tell you something else that really happened.

        When I went to vote at my neighborhood polling place in 2008, a black woman declared, "I'm just here to vote for Obama."

        Because of Obama, that's what elections have become: you vote for what you are.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:04AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:04AM (#391529)

          There some kind of automatic downmod for Obama comments now? Let me check. I didn't vote for Obama. Not even once.

        • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:35AM

          by Snotnose (1623) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:35AM (#391972)

          Note to the fool who moderated the "white boy" anecdote Troll.

          Maybe if you didn't post as AC people wouldn't tend to think of you as a troll. I've had some unflattering downvotes, but every damned one of them had my name attached to them.

          --
          Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Monday August 22 2016, @05:53AM

      by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 22 2016, @05:53AM (#391475) Journal

      ¡Oh! Those memories... imagine Streisand...

      Can it be that it was all so simple then?
      Or has time re-written every line?

      I remember watching Apollo 11 launch on TV, but maybe it was some other launch. I was a bit younger than you, so I perhaps misremember exactly what I saw on TV that morning, but I suspect it was Apollo 11.

      I also started on a TRS-80 (model II) but really learned programming on a VIC 20, 6502 assembly and then on to other, bigger stuff, like an HP 250 minicomputer, then an HP 832, Unix V, SCO Unix (before they became evil), Netware but by the time Windows NT came to dominate the server market I was very much onto other stuff.

      Mem'ries, may be beautiful and yet
      What's too painful to remember
      We simply choose to forget

      Cheers! To life and health!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:06AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:06AM (#391479)

        Yep, Doctor Who rewrote Neil Armstrong's famous quote to include a subliminal alien message, and made Dick Nixon a flaming homophobe. History will never be the same. The times they are a changing.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:52AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @04:52AM (#391467)

    Things are bad. Measurably so.

    Our civilisation depends on minerals - not just for energy, but other types as well, such as phosphates for agriculture.

    We're slowly running out. So, that's bad. Starvation is bad.

    Climate change would be much easier to handle, if we had limitless energy with which to address the challenges, but we're running out. Renewables don't look like they'll handle the kind of output we need, and nuclear is a constant fight against religion.

    So climate change will at least complicate life a lot, when we need all the help we can get. That's bad.

    The world's population is growing, and people are getting antsier than before. China's waving its dick - stupidly so, but they can do a lot of damage on their way down (they have their own internal issues to deal with as well). The Middle East is overpopulated, dependent on diminishing resources, and full of various classes of fanatics.

    Global unrest is bad. So, that's bad.

    There's a huge selection of other problems as well, but you can probably figure those out with some time and half an eye on news media.

    We need a new structure to handle new challenges. A big, ugly, blood-stained reset might get us that.

    Oh, wait, this was supposed to be uplifting, right? Right. Asteroid mining generational colony ship galactic destiny... right. Sorted.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:03AM (#391489)

      We're slowly running out. So, that's bad. Starvation is bad.

      Yeah, phosphates, leaching off into outer space, stolen by rogue space pirate smugglers. I mean, otherwise, where are they going, and all we need to do is poop some more out, eh, guano? My god, there are some stupid people on SN!@Q

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:29AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:29AM (#391494)

        All farms must now include a bat loop.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @05:09PM (#391728)

        No, phosphates, leaching out into the oceans in runoff, contributing to ecological problems in the oceans while not staying put on farmland.

        Tough to get them back from the ocean. Not impossible, but tough.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:12PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:12PM (#391821)

        If guano-covered asteroids exist, would they count as islands for the purposes of the Guano Islands Act?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:56AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @06:56AM (#391487)

    I'm actually pretty optimistic about the technological advances on the horizon.

    We have robotics on the verge of taking over most of the tedious labor. We are at an unprecedented age in regards to scientific discovery. We have so many avenues for improving human life across the board.

    What I am wary of is improvement in spite of government than because of it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:13AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @07:13AM (#391491)

      Home labs of the near future will be able to do more advanced chemistry and biology feats deemed unacceptable to governments and ethics boards. Anyone who shows an interest in these topics will become surveillance priorities.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:04AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:04AM (#391505)

        Oh, they already had cases in the late 90s/00s of people doing rudimentary gene sequencing in home labs getting raided under terrorism/drug production guises. And then the whole 3D printing of firearms, etc.

        It will definitely be interesting times when the people renegotiate the contract between the government and the governed.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:38AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:38AM (#391539)

    Pathetic attempt from quietus to "make space relevant again". What, you suddenly crawl out of your hole and happen to post two space-related articles just during the moment when more and more people can see through the scam?

    Back to your hole, vermin. Quick.

    To the rest of you monkeys: time to wake up.

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 22 2016, @11:05AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday August 22 2016, @11:05AM (#391556) Journal

    Alma Thomas, an incandescent pioneer

    Incandescent? She must have been really hot, then. ;-)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:47PM (#391612)

      And they don't make'em like they used to. God damn nanny state.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Bobs on Monday August 22 2016, @11:50AM

    by Bobs (1462) on Monday August 22 2016, @11:50AM (#391572)
    • Ubiquitous, even-cheaper solar
    • 3 D Printing combined with reliable nano-tech
    • Gene tech for human health.
    • SpaceX and a real push to reduce the cost of space travel and get humans living off Earth.

      I think these will all be transformative to human civ.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:22AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:22AM (#391984)

      Drones, graphene and 3-D printing would be my three.

      • (Score: 2) by Bobs on Friday August 26 2016, @12:46PM

        by Bobs (1462) on Friday August 26 2016, @12:46PM (#393453)

        You are right, graphene looks awesome.