An EU-style organization—you’ll have to be more specific than that. Every region has a bunch of multinational orgs like the UN. Africa has the Union of African States, Asia has ASEAN, SAARC, BIMSTEC, etc. Maybe you would prefer a prediction like ‘at least 10 nations in Asia/Africa/South America will create a new common currency and switch to it’?
http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1717 & http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1718
I agree that it’s perfectly possible (surely right now) to sell a sous-vide cooker for $200; I question that there is demand enough, and really have no idea about the business environment. Cynicism tells me that there is no enormous revolution in American cuisine in the offing to the point where effectively half the middle-class has a sous-vide cooker, though. I mean come on.
I think it would have been more fair to make my predictions 1. “A state will not try to secede” and “A state will not succeed at seceding”.
Other than that, it’s interesting to see how uncertain I am that some of my predictions are the result of my own thinking rather than emotional effects from people I’ve been reading.
(3) What I had in mind for an EU-style organization was dropping restrictions on trade and travel. At this point, I’m not as optimistic, but that feels more like mood than new information. I don’t know whether dropping restrictions on trade requires a common currency.
(4) Computer-fabbed custom-fitted shoes are a lot easier than AI. If you don’t think that’s at all likely within 10 years, does this affect any predictions you might have for AI? Your answer is about there not being a market for them—I’d say that the market isn’t perceived. Either way, I don’t get the impression that that tech is ready to do it yet.
It might make more sense for a computer to measure the feet and make the pieces, but have human beings put the shoes together. :-/
I’m also assuming shoes would be mailed rather than being shoes on demand—shoes on demand would be another jump in technology.
Thinking about it a little more, the footprint in stores could be pretty small—just the measuring device. I’m not sure how much support from store staff it would be apt to need at the beginning.
This sort of development is also dependent on how much capital is available, and I’m not feeling optimistic about that.
(5) The conveyor belt for new aspects of food (perhaps unsurprisingly) seems to be more efficient for prepared food and ingredients than for cooking methods. I still haven’t had sous vide food myself, but everything I’ve heard about it makes it sound wonderful. I think there will be a sudden shift with sous vide food becoming available in mid-range restaurants followed by a lot of people wanting to cook it.
ETA: The website didn’t just format the numbers into pretty paragraphing, it “corrected” the numbers.
For 3, a monetary union isn’t necessary; look at the US & Mexico & Canada, thanks to NAFTA. Certainly helps, though. I don’t really see any areas which might do this sort of thing. Open borders and no trade barriers is a very Western 1st World sort of thing to do, and the obvious candidates like Japan don’t really have an incentive to do so. (Japan has no land borders, so having passport checks doesn’t really increase the cost of flying or boating to it.)
For 4: I think custom-fitting is already possible, and has been since the early laser scanners came out in the… ’80s? But like the sous-vide, I’m not confident in their uptake. (It’s kind of like jetpacks and flying cars and pneumatic postal systems. We have them; we just don’t use them.)
ETA: The website didn’t just format the numbers into pretty paragraphing, it “corrected” the numbers.
This is part of standard markdown; you can number each item ‘1.’ if you want! If you want a number item you can escape it with a backslash, or you can do like I did and insert a paragraph after the bullet (newline, and then indent the paragraph by 4-5 spaces).
Damn, on 3 I didn’t say what I meant. The genuinely big deal is freedom to relocate and work.
Do you have a source for computerized custom-fitting of shoes? The big deal isn’t just the fitting, though, it’s reasonably-priced manufacture.
Afaik, jet-packs can be made, but carrying enough fuel for significant travel isn’t feasible.
As for flying cars, it finally occurred to people that there were weather and pilot safety issue.
I don’t see those sorts of considerations applying to sous vide or computerized custom shoes.
The futuristic prediction which seems to be not happening because people just don’t want it is video which shows your face while you’re talking on the phone.
Someone I know has a foot problem. Her orthopedist recommended having a scan done to produce inserts to adjust the shape of her regular shoes, and said if that didn’t work, then entirely custom shoes could be made. So computerized custom-fit shoes do exist, but they’re considered a medical item which makes them expensive.
The futuristic prediction which seems to be not happening because people just don’t want it is video which shows your face while you’re talking on the phone.
That one’s already happened. My new iPhone does video calls, and so does Skype on any computer with a webcam. That wasn’t driven by demand, though, it was more that the technology all became ubiquitous for other purposes and it was easy to stitch it together to provide videophone functionality, even if it isn’t actually used very much.
Do you have a source for computerized custom-fitting of shoes? The big deal isn’t just the fitting, though, it’s reasonably-priced manufacture.
IIRC, I read it a long time ago in a mouldering paperback of Alvin Toffler’s The Third Wave. (Or was it Future Shock?) But even without having read about clothes in particular, I have read about 3D models of statues etc. being generated through rotating the object while shining a laser on it; thus obviously one can generate a human model (I think CGI already does this), and fit clothes on that model. I would be deeply shocked if no one has ever used laser modeling to fit garments of some kind.
I don’t see those sorts of considerations applying to sous vide or computerized custom shoes.
Considerations like expense and minimal benefit don’t apply? Mm, well, as Marx said, nous verrons. Figuring out whose perception of reality is clearer is one of the points of recording predictions.
I think what user-specific clothing and shoes currently lacks is sufficiently advanced robotics. If you are doing the obvious, cutting out bits of material and attaching them together you have quite a few problems. You are having to manipulate non-standard sized bits of flexible material. The production line deals with many of the same sized and shaped bits of material so you can change molds/tools dependent upon the size of the shoe.
The knitting machine above removes that consideration as it produces the finished garment in one piece.
The hard part of computerized custom shoes might be designing the shoes rather than measuring the foot. Also note that the shoe has to fit while you’re walking, though that seems like just adding difficulty rather than a whole new problem.
I should have been more precise about the difference I see between flying cars and sous vide cooking. Flying cars include infrastructure and group effects in a way that sous vide cookers do not.
http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1713 & http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1714
http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1715
An EU-style organization—you’ll have to be more specific than that. Every region has a bunch of multinational orgs like the UN. Africa has the Union of African States, Asia has ASEAN, SAARC, BIMSTEC, etc. Maybe you would prefer a prediction like ‘at least 10 nations in Asia/Africa/South America will create a new common currency and switch to it’?
http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1716 I agree that this one is wishful thinking on your part. :)
http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1717 & http://predictionbook.com/predictions/1718 I agree that it’s perfectly possible (surely right now) to sell a sous-vide cooker for $200; I question that there is demand enough, and really have no idea about the business environment. Cynicism tells me that there is no enormous revolution in American cuisine in the offing to the point where effectively half the middle-class has a sous-vide cooker, though. I mean come on.
http://predictionbook.com/predictions/452 for his re-election
Thanks, mostly.
I think it would have been more fair to make my predictions 1. “A state will not try to secede” and “A state will not succeed at seceding”.
Other than that, it’s interesting to see how uncertain I am that some of my predictions are the result of my own thinking rather than emotional effects from people I’ve been reading.
(3) What I had in mind for an EU-style organization was dropping restrictions on trade and travel. At this point, I’m not as optimistic, but that feels more like mood than new information. I don’t know whether dropping restrictions on trade requires a common currency.
(4) Computer-fabbed custom-fitted shoes are a lot easier than AI. If you don’t think that’s at all likely within 10 years, does this affect any predictions you might have for AI? Your answer is about there not being a market for them—I’d say that the market isn’t perceived. Either way, I don’t get the impression that that tech is ready to do it yet.
It might make more sense for a computer to measure the feet and make the pieces, but have human beings put the shoes together. :-/
I’m also assuming shoes would be mailed rather than being shoes on demand—shoes on demand would be another jump in technology.
Thinking about it a little more, the footprint in stores could be pretty small—just the measuring device. I’m not sure how much support from store staff it would be apt to need at the beginning.
This sort of development is also dependent on how much capital is available, and I’m not feeling optimistic about that.
(5) The conveyor belt for new aspects of food (perhaps unsurprisingly) seems to be more efficient for prepared food and ingredients than for cooking methods. I still haven’t had sous vide food myself, but everything I’ve heard about it makes it sound wonderful. I think there will be a sudden shift with sous vide food becoming available in mid-range restaurants followed by a lot of people wanting to cook it.
ETA: The website didn’t just format the numbers into pretty paragraphing, it “corrected” the numbers.
For 3, a monetary union isn’t necessary; look at the US & Mexico & Canada, thanks to NAFTA. Certainly helps, though. I don’t really see any areas which might do this sort of thing. Open borders and no trade barriers is a very Western 1st World sort of thing to do, and the obvious candidates like Japan don’t really have an incentive to do so. (Japan has no land borders, so having passport checks doesn’t really increase the cost of flying or boating to it.)
For 4: I think custom-fitting is already possible, and has been since the early laser scanners came out in the… ’80s? But like the sous-vide, I’m not confident in their uptake. (It’s kind of like jetpacks and flying cars and pneumatic postal systems. We have them; we just don’t use them.)
This is part of standard markdown; you can number each item ‘1.’ if you want! If you want a number item you can escape it with a backslash, or you can do like I did and insert a paragraph after the bullet (newline, and then indent the paragraph by 4-5 spaces).
Damn, on 3 I didn’t say what I meant. The genuinely big deal is freedom to relocate and work.
Do you have a source for computerized custom-fitting of shoes? The big deal isn’t just the fitting, though, it’s reasonably-priced manufacture.
Afaik, jet-packs can be made, but carrying enough fuel for significant travel isn’t feasible.
As for flying cars, it finally occurred to people that there were weather and pilot safety issue.
I don’t see those sorts of considerations applying to sous vide or computerized custom shoes.
The futuristic prediction which seems to be not happening because people just don’t want it is video which shows your face while you’re talking on the phone.
Someone I know has a foot problem. Her orthopedist recommended having a scan done to produce inserts to adjust the shape of her regular shoes, and said if that didn’t work, then entirely custom shoes could be made. So computerized custom-fit shoes do exist, but they’re considered a medical item which makes them expensive.
That sounds to me as though the inserts are customized, but the custom shoes would be made by humans.
That one’s already happened. My new iPhone does video calls, and so does Skype on any computer with a webcam. That wasn’t driven by demand, though, it was more that the technology all became ubiquitous for other purposes and it was easy to stitch it together to provide videophone functionality, even if it isn’t actually used very much.
IIRC, I read it a long time ago in a mouldering paperback of Alvin Toffler’s The Third Wave. (Or was it Future Shock?) But even without having read about clothes in particular, I have read about 3D models of statues etc. being generated through rotating the object while shining a laser on it; thus obviously one can generate a human model (I think CGI already does this), and fit clothes on that model. I would be deeply shocked if no one has ever used laser modeling to fit garments of some kind.
Considerations like expense and minimal benefit don’t apply? Mm, well, as Marx said, nous verrons. Figuring out whose perception of reality is clearer is one of the points of recording predictions.
You don’t have to be shocked. Here is one.
I think what user-specific clothing and shoes currently lacks is sufficiently advanced robotics. If you are doing the obvious, cutting out bits of material and attaching them together you have quite a few problems. You are having to manipulate non-standard sized bits of flexible material. The production line deals with many of the same sized and shaped bits of material so you can change molds/tools dependent upon the size of the shoe.
The knitting machine above removes that consideration as it produces the finished garment in one piece.
I found this pdf on customized shoe production from 2001 (requires login) while trying to find some videos of shoe manufacturing to confirm my ideas. I don’t have time to look into it, but seems relevant to the discussion.
The hard part of computerized custom shoes might be designing the shoes rather than measuring the foot. Also note that the shoe has to fit while you’re walking, though that seems like just adding difficulty rather than a whole new problem.
I should have been more precise about the difference I see between flying cars and sous vide cooking. Flying cars include infrastructure and group effects in a way that sous vide cookers do not.