What is Digg?116 Comments
- technonoob, on 10/12/2007, -9/+80Revised Top 5 List
#1 Brain wave keyboards and mice
#2 XXX rated hologram TV
#3 Automated anything but especially cars
#4 Fricking sharks with laser beams
#5 Implantable telephones and computers - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Numbers 3, 4, and 5 in the article are pretty much based on ***** science.
Technoboob's list is more realistic.
For the record: electrolysis uses more energy than it produces. That's why we don't have "water cars". - knightblade2oo4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15We need a freezer that cools food as fast as a microwave heats food.
- jgreene777, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14merreborn... EVERYTHING uses more energy than it produces. that's the problem.
- m1th, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Then why are you on Digg? Go watch some TV.
- m85476585, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Number 1 already exists! When power usage is low they pump water from a lake to a reservoir uphill. When more power is needed they let water flow down through hydro turbines.
- weaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I don't know how we've gotten on this far without lightsabres. Those are pretty much going to be a necessity.
- Tanpreet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9where's the cure for cancer? but im not sure if that is considered an invention but still, we need it.
- chickenlegs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7in the original article, #1 sounded like a battery, wasn't specific enough
- Manzabar, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10*heh* Technonoob's revised list is more interesting than the linked article.
- jgreene777, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10get away from the keyboard and monitor for a while and you might find an actual PERSON to do XXX things with... the other things will seem less important after you get that taken care of.
- RobotCitizen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This is a stupid article supposed to be insightful? Any numnutz can list a bunch of scifi staples and say "hey, somebody ought to make that!" Yeah, no ***** somebody ought to make that. How about offering a little more insight into how it might be done? Or offer a little insight on the current state of the research? I can just as well say, hey, we need FTL spaceships! And a time machine!
This article is mental masturbation. - Norseman, on 10/12/2007, -5/+101, 3, and 4 are ***** retarded.
1. A way to store electricity. (It's called a capacitor or rechargeable battery, *****)
3. A way to tap all the free energy in subspace. (There is no free energy in subspace. What, did you learn all the science you know by watching SciFi movies?)
4. A way to utilize the magnetic fields of the planet and/or universe, in order to overcome gravity. (This is ludicrous, we've already got rockets and planes and we'll probably have a space elevator soon, we don't need to rely on pseudoscientific *****)
Marked as ***** lame. - SugarRay, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6We totally need sharks with laser beams.
- Ilyanep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4umm...what?! Who are you working for?
- mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The article is stupid I do not even know where to start.
- jmazzarelli, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5ONE A way to store electricity.
... What is needed is a buffer - a temporary storage medium ...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=capacitor - wthulhu, on 08/29/2009, -0/+4Anyone want to explain to me why we would need both #1 and #3?
Seems like you could swap 'a way to store electricity' with 'infinite free energy' and add teleportation or something. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5YAWN. Somebody fancies themself a scientist. And most certainly isn't. Oh and gravity is a cold hard fact of life . Get used to it.
- JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7My top five...
#1 Ability to genetically engineer humans to eliminate all inherited disease, aging (as much as possible), and propensity towards xenophobia, violence, and irrational thought.
#2 Consciousness uploading
#3 Space elevator, or some other way to get massive payloads into orbit cheaply
#4 Some way for individual buildings / homes / vehicles to generate their own electricity cheaply and independently
#5 Free (or next to it) worldwide ultra-high bandwidth wireless communication infrastructure - rebrane, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Basically, we need to figure out some loopholes in the laws of thermodynamics. If you want some more interesting ideas on cool inventions, read any sci-fi story ever written.
- FishyJoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5You don't actually have to invent anything. If you can get a broad enough patents passed you are set. Someone else will do the hard work of actually building and marketing it. Then you swoop in and sue them for infringing your patent. How else do you think these patent *leeching* holding companies work?
- robbh66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I wouldn't so much call these as inventions as groundbreaking discoveries.
Still need em, though. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Re-revised list:
1. Mr Fusion
2. W.O.P.R.
3. Replicants
4. Landmaster
5. Talking bombs - rasterbator, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6I would?
- ekrub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3We already have a "fast" freezer: the Chill Wizzard! Awesome gadget!
Also: http://www.coopercooler.com/index_1.html - sencha5, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8Rebrad wins the macramé owl! Everyone who's modding him down, take note: it's all fact. The original MacOS was taken from Xerox (if I'm correct, Apple simply licensed the architecture from Xerox and pays a fee to the real developers), and the iPod's backbone was scooped up from a 3rd party that was originally pitching Sony on an MP3 player concept. Yes, they have a stable OS, their industrial design is best in class, and their ad department inspires a brand identity stronger than any other consumer electronic. But just like DOS, they used someone else's work to build the OS. I'm certainly not a Mac hater, but just take a deep breath in and remember that it's okay that Apple isn't perfect.
- jrsims, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3
...Didn't Tesla invent most of these things a long time ago? - jayf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Well with less pesticides in our food as usggested by the replicator invention we might be able to reduce the occurances of cancer in some people.
- aroedl, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I just read the article again from the top. It is really rediculous. Like a typical whiny mac fanboy thinking up problems, but not solutions.
Yeah, mod me down. - jasqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You were going good till 5.
- aroedl, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5"Anyone care to summarize?(I'm lazy)" - and blind... :-)
- A way to store electricity. (Oh really?)
- A way to gain a much greater efficiency in our automotive engines. (Unbelievable!)
- A way to tap all the free energy in subspace. (blah)
- A way to utilize the magnetic fields of the planet and/or universe, in order to overcome gravity. (!)
- A way to gently transmute energy and atoms into more complex matter. (blah - he wants a Star Trek-like replicator) - retral, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I'd love to be the one who comes up with one of these, you'd be set for life.
- joeydoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"merreborn... EVERYTHING uses more energy than it produces. that's the problem."
What about the Sun? - codethis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i think this guy likes alternate energy sources
- JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I hope your internet traffic doesn't go through AT&T's routers.... lol
- ryllharu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A regular CO2 fire extinguisher works just as well, if you feel like wasting a fire extinguisher to cool down something.
We've also got this amazing invention, on store shelves soon:
http://www.tempratech.com/chill1.html - pingviini, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3No, when I read it, he was clearly talking to ME.
I'm set for life!?!? - aroedl, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4What a useless article. We need this and that.
- Kickboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2He totally forgot THE most needed invention:
A silent vacuum cleaner. Seriously. Those things really piss me off. - tjl2015, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There in lies the problem. To do these things you need a revolutionary advance in our understanding of physics. An invention is something you can strive for, something you can plan. It's something you already know is physically possible, you're just searching for a precise way to do it. If this list was created in 1800, you might see, "we need a means of quickly communicating across long distances." This, however, was not something you could simply go invent. If someone tries to invent this in 1800, they probably would start tinkering with large metal speakerphones or tubes. It was only after the work of Maxwell and others, exploring the principles of electromagnetism, that we could invent something like the telegraph or radio.
These revolutions in physics are entirely unpredictable. A new field of physics undergoing great exploration now is string theory. It might do some of the things described in the article, it might not. It's a crap shoot, no way to know. It could allow inventions that we can't even conceive of, or it could have no practical applications at all. This story is written as a plan of action. You can't actually go and invent any of these things. We can only keep studying the world, developing our physics and other sciences, and seeing where it leads us. - JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4#6 Death to jasqwerty
- rebrad, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4The first sentence in the article is " There have been precious few real inventions or discoveries in our history, if you think about it. Fire. The wheel. The lever. The inclined plane. The screw. The steam engine. The turbine. Electricity. Radio. Video. The Macintosh" Is the article off topic or is mentioning XXX holo machines off topic?
- nailbunny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21. machine that purifies water, is powered by malarial mosquitoes it attracts and eats
2. unhackable voting machine
3. global missile shield
4. paint that converts your house to a solar panel
5. transmorgafier - goffy59, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2LOL THE MACINTOSH? hahaah thats an invention. What a ***** stupid website. ***** ***** website. Computers have been around kids. God thats the ***** stupid.
- darthrsg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A new way is coming, probably sooner than you think.
- burke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree, KnightBlade... Oven is to Microwave as Freezer is to ???
- WaterDragon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1about storage of electricity....maybe some other diggers can comment on this, please
---anyone who really knows chemistry, physics, etc?
Is there an endothermic chemical reaction known, that requires/absorbs an enormous amount of heat, but is easily reversible? 'Cause if there is, the electricity, converted to heat, can cause the reaction, and is stored in the end product of the endothermic reaction.
Reversing the reaction, makes an exothermic reaction, releasing all the heat that was stored, and it is then converted back to electricity.
(it's too bad we dont' have a kind of exothermic reverse-nuclear fusion or fission reaction, which would take up and store that enormous amount of energy, back into fissionable material, etc. like putting the explosion back into the bomb....then the energy stored is released again when we need it) - tjl2015, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This guy should spend less time watching Star Trek and more time reading about actual science. He's basically looking for ways to solve the energy crisis, stop pollution/global warming, and end world hunger. We don't need some bullcrap "zero point energy" to do this. In fact, we're already on our way there. We need:
1. Viable nuclear fusion. We're working on, we've been working on it, and we'll be working on it for a long time. If we figure it out, we have a practically limitless energy source, pollution free.
2. Cheap hydrogen fuel cells or high-density ultra capacitors. This merely serves as a source of PORTABLE energy. Buildings, industrial processes, heating and air conditioning can all be done off an electrical grid from a fusion plant. However, you still need a portable source of power to move people and goods.
Once you have a source of power like nuclear fusion, many world problems cease to be so grave. People need food and water. Water-simple, desalinization. Desalinization exists, it just requires a lot of energy. Food - also simple. We have plenty of land on the planet, but most of it is unarable desert. Fusion=Desalination=Irrigation=Crops=FOOD. True, this method cannot produce an infinite amount of food, but with slowing birthrates we can expect the world population to max out at 9-12 billion, from 2050 to 2070, depending on a variety of factors.
Also, fusion is much more useful for space travel then this guy's LCD-trip-magnetic-force-thingy. Once you have fusion, you can basically colonize any planet or asteroid you want, as long as it's not uninhabitable because of heat, like Venus. Water is abundant in the solar system. Electrolyze water, you get oxygen to breathe and hydrogen for a reactor. You can grow crops anywhere as long as you have water and an energy source for some heat lamps. Hydrogen+Oxygen makes excellent rocket fuel to take you wherever you want to go. You can use the energy from a fusion reactor to purify and forge metals for industrial processes and base construction, metals found in abundance on asteroids.
If you want to do all the things this author talks about, support nuclear fusion. It already powers all life on Earth (via the sun), we just need to learn to harness it on a more human scale. Please, if you want to help humanity, DUE NOT DEDICATE YOUR LIFE TO CREATING ONE OF THESE INVENTIONS! You'll probably go crazy and end up like this guy:
http://www.timecube.com/
You might as well spend you're time pursuing the ancient dream of perpetual motion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_energy_device - retral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah. Because I'm selfless like that. -.- You know what I meant..
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