...Sudamericanismos makes no sense anymore.
I will start another project soon.
This blog will cease to exist when the new blog starts.
So... wait a while to check it out!
All the best!
E.
Saturday 21 December 2019
Saturday 29 December 2018
In 1983, Isaac Asimov predicted the world of 2019. Here's what he got right (and wrong).
Isaac Asimov was one the world's most celebrated and prolific science fiction writers, having written or edited more than 500 books over his four-decade career.
Some of those predictions came true, such as our ability to use what he called sight-sound communication to contact anyone on Earth. But others — a machine that can convert yeast, algae and water into foods like "mock-turkey," for instance — never manifested.
In 1983, the Toronto Star invited Asimov to predict the answer to a specific question: "What will the world look like in 2019?"
Asimov wrote that it was pointless to imagine the future of society if the United States and the Soviet Union were to engage in nuclear war, so he assumed that wouldn't happen. He then broke down his predictions under two main themes: computerization and space utilization.
Computerization
Asimov was more or less correct in many of his predictions on the future of computerization, even if some of his forecasts were a bit broad and obvious, including:
"Computerization will undoubtedly continue onward inevitably."
The "mobile computerized object" will "penetrate the home," and the increasing complexity of society will make it impossible to live without this technology.
Computers will disrupt work habits and replace old jobs with ones that are radically different.
Robotics will kill "routine clerical and assembly-line jobs."
Society will need a "vast change in the nature of education must take place, and entire populations must be made "computer-literate" and must be taught to deal with a "high-tech" world."
This education transition will be difficult for many, especially as world population grows at unprecedented rates.
Still, Asimov was wrong, or at least slightly off, on a few predictions about the future of computerization.
For instance, he predicted that technology will revolutionize education (correct), but that traditional schooling will become outdated as kids become able to learn everything they need to know from computers at home. That might technically be possible, but it also assumes that kids wouldn't spend all that time using technology to, say, play Fortnite.
Space Utilization
"We will enter space to stay," Asimov claimed in his essay.
And he was mostly right: The International Space Station has been continuously occupied for more than 18 years.
But Asimov was a bit optimistic about future societies' space endeavors, predicting that humans would be "back on the moon in force" with mining operations, factories that "use of the special properties of space," observatories and even a solar power station that would beam microwaves back to Earth.
Asimov also thought we'd be on our way to establishing human settlements on the moon.
"By 2019, the first space settlement should be on the drawing boards; and may perhaps be under actual construction," he wrote. "It would be the first of many in which human beings could live by the tens of thousands, and in which they could build small societies of all kinds, lending humanity a further twist of variety."
Source: https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/isaac-asimov-future-predictions-from-1983?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4
Some of those predictions came true, such as our ability to use what he called sight-sound communication to contact anyone on Earth. But others — a machine that can convert yeast, algae and water into foods like "mock-turkey," for instance — never manifested.
In 1983, the Toronto Star invited Asimov to predict the answer to a specific question: "What will the world look like in 2019?"
Asimov wrote that it was pointless to imagine the future of society if the United States and the Soviet Union were to engage in nuclear war, so he assumed that wouldn't happen. He then broke down his predictions under two main themes: computerization and space utilization.
Computerization
Asimov was more or less correct in many of his predictions on the future of computerization, even if some of his forecasts were a bit broad and obvious, including:
"Computerization will undoubtedly continue onward inevitably."
The "mobile computerized object" will "penetrate the home," and the increasing complexity of society will make it impossible to live without this technology.
Computers will disrupt work habits and replace old jobs with ones that are radically different.
Robotics will kill "routine clerical and assembly-line jobs."
Society will need a "vast change in the nature of education must take place, and entire populations must be made "computer-literate" and must be taught to deal with a "high-tech" world."
This education transition will be difficult for many, especially as world population grows at unprecedented rates.
Still, Asimov was wrong, or at least slightly off, on a few predictions about the future of computerization.
For instance, he predicted that technology will revolutionize education (correct), but that traditional schooling will become outdated as kids become able to learn everything they need to know from computers at home. That might technically be possible, but it also assumes that kids wouldn't spend all that time using technology to, say, play Fortnite.
Space Utilization
"We will enter space to stay," Asimov claimed in his essay.
And he was mostly right: The International Space Station has been continuously occupied for more than 18 years.
But Asimov was a bit optimistic about future societies' space endeavors, predicting that humans would be "back on the moon in force" with mining operations, factories that "use of the special properties of space," observatories and even a solar power station that would beam microwaves back to Earth.
Asimov also thought we'd be on our way to establishing human settlements on the moon.
"By 2019, the first space settlement should be on the drawing boards; and may perhaps be under actual construction," he wrote. "It would be the first of many in which human beings could live by the tens of thousands, and in which they could build small societies of all kinds, lending humanity a further twist of variety."
Source: https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/isaac-asimov-future-predictions-from-1983?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4
Necessary Bio: Dmitri Mendeleev
RUSSIAN SCIENTIST
WRITTEN BY: Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
LAST UPDATED: Dec 11, 2018 See Article History
Alternative Titles: Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev
Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian in full Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev, (born January 27 (February 8, New Style), 1834, Tobolsk, Siberia, Russian Empire—died January 20 (February 2), 1907, St. Petersburg, Russia), Russian chemist who developed the periodic classification of the elements. Mendeleev found that, when all the known chemical elements were arranged in order of increasing atomic weight, the resulting table displayed a recurring pattern, or periodicity, of properties within groups of elements. In his version of the periodic table of 1871, he left gaps in places where he believed unknown elements would find their place. He even predicted the likely properties of three of the potential elements. The subsequent proof of many of his predictions within his lifetime brought fame to Mendeleev as the founder of the periodic law.
Source:
Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
Article Title:
Dmitri Mendeleev
Website Name:
Encyclopædia Britannica
Publisher:
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc.
Date Published:
December 11, 2018
URL:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dmitri-Mendeleev
Access Date:
December 29, 2018
Austria Bio
Alternative Titles: Österreich, Republic of Austria, Republik Österreich
Austria, largely mountainous landlocked country of south-central Europe. Together with Switzerland, it forms what has been characterized as the neutral core of Europe, notwithstanding Austria’s full membership since 1995 in the supranational European Union (EU).
A great part of Austria’s prominence can be attributed to its geographic position. It is at the center of European traffic between east and west along the great Danubian trade route and between north and south through the magnificent Alpine passes, thus embedding the country within a variety of political and economic systems. In the decades following the collapse in 1918 of Austria-Hungary, the multinational empire of which it had been the heart, this small country experienced more than a quarter century of social and economic turbulence and a Nazi dictatorship. Yet the establishment of permanent neutrality in 1955, associated with the withdrawal of the Allied troops that had occupied the country since the end of World War II, enabled Austria to develop into a stable and socially progressive nation with a flourishing cultural life reminiscent of its earlier days of international musical glory. Its social and economic institutions too have been characterized by new forms and a spirit of cooperation, and, although political and social problems remain, they have not erupted with the intensity evidenced in other countries of the Continent. The capital of Austria is historic Vienna (Wien), the former seat of the Holy Roman Empire and a city renowned for its architecture.
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