Ocado’s grocery warehouses in the UK don’t have people in them filling your orders. They consist of thousands of mechanical boxes that move all over the hive – a grid in which each box contains a specific product – and pick up your items and then deliver them to the shipping services at the edges. A grocery order can be filled in 5 hours.
They even have special robots for packing special situations since you don’t want to put a heavy item like a gallon of milk into the same bag as all your soft chips.
Honestly, this is almost certainly what we’ll be doing very soon; and in 10 years we won’t be making trips to the grocery store. Since COVID, many of us are already using automated checkout. in-store shoppers, and web order with pick up.
One of the use cases we talked about with autonomous cars was that they could drive themselves to the store, be loaded up, and then drive back to your place.
“Prisencolinensinainciusol” is a song composed by the Italian singer Adriano Celentano, released as a single in 1972.
The song is intended to sound to its Italian audience as if it is sung in English – English with a “Bob Dylan-esque” American accent. The lyrics, however, are deliberately unintelligible gibberish with the exception of the words “all right”. Celentano’s intention with the song was not to create a humorous novelty song but to explore communication barriers. “Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did. So at a certain point, because I like American slang—which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian—I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn’t mean anything.”
Here’s 2 more examples of what American English sounds like to foreigners.
This young lady from Willow Creative made an incredible mechanical mask that allows its wearer to control its mouth by moving their chin. The mechanism also moves its upper lip, nose and ears, and its eyes light up and move thanks to an Arduino Nano and a pair of mini servo motors.
I love movies. When I travel, I often see if films were shot there and visit locations where films were shot. I also love movie props and the interesting furniture and sets. Did you know others have the same enjoyment?
Here’s some of the interesting resources if you’re interested your favorite movie locations and bits.
With bitcoin hitting all time highs and lows, it’s interesting to hear self-described pundits go on and on about the promises of crypto-currency. Surprisingly, one thing you don’t hear about is that the life of these currencies might be very limited now that quantum computers are becoming a reality.
Quantum computers are excellent at breaking mathematically difficult problems – which is the underlying technology for almost all of cryptography and block-chain algorithms. In October 2019, Google announced they have achieved quantum supremacy on a certain class of problems. So what does this mean for crypto-currencies?
Interestingly enough, the most vulnerable ones are the ones in the p2pk addresses. The coins in this address range were some of the earliest coins mined. The ones still in that range are largely considered to belong to people who have long since lost their keys. This means they could easily be mined by anyone with a sufficiently large quantum computer – and claim 2 million bitcoins worth almost 70 BILLION dollars (assuming bitcoin is worth the current market price of $35,000).
Not only that, if 25% of a currency is vulnerable to be quietly captured by a single investor with a quantum computer – it represents a tremendous amount of power to manipulate the currency.
So, unused p2pkh coins are safe, right? Not really. The moment you want to transfer coins from such a “safe” address, you reveal the public key, making the address vulnerable. From that moment until your transaction is “mined”, an attacker who possesses a quantum computer gets a window of opportunity to steal your coins. In such an attack, the adversary will first derive your private key from the public key and then initiate a competing transaction to their own address. They will try to get priority over the original transaction by offering a higher mining fee.
The time for mining a transaction is about 10 minutes, calculations show that a quantum computer would take about 30 minutes to break a Bitcoin key. So, as long as that is true, your bitcoin transaction is …probably… safe. But that won’t last forever. It is an almost certainty quantum computing will make crypto-currencies worthless at some point – maybe even in our lifetime at the rate quantum computing is making advances.
Computer scientists spend a lot of time thinking about the most optimal way of doing things. This guy stacks up 79 different kinds of ways of sorting things from smallest to largest and compares number of writes, compares, auxiliary array use, etc.
The Concert is a 1956 ballet by Jerome Robbins. It’s a spoof of the orchestral performance experience.
The ballet includes this piece titled “Mistake Waltz” in which some of the dancers are a bit out of sync. The above video shows a performance by the Pacific Northwest Ballet. Every error is completely intentional.
Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi, and what a perfect moment to mention an energetic young local lady from Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church near Seattle produced this short film Faith Prevails: The Miracle of Bolsena about the Eucharistic Miracle of Bolsena-Orvieto in 1263. She was inspired to make the film after she participated in a play about the event written by her local pastor. Over 1800 volunteer hours were logged from the 20+ individuals who participated as cast and crew.
The film follows the story of Fr. Peter of Prague, a priest doubtful of the Real Presence. After a pilgrimage to help his unbelief, he was celebrating Mass in the tiny Church of St. Christina when the consecrated Host began to bleed. It is said that this miracle, in conjunction with the visions of St. Juliana of Liège, caused Pope Urban IV to institute the Feast of Corpus Christi for the universal Catholic Church. The feast has been celebrated ever since and the corporal that held the host can still be seen on public display in the Duomo di Orvieto.
Chris has some really great videos adventuring around and living abroad in Japan – something I’ve considered and even had the opportunity to pursue. While I loved Japan the times I’ve visited, he does make some really solid points about the downsides in this video – a number of which I think are really good points about living abroad in general. Living/retiring abroad is something more and more retirees are trying out and professional streamers are doing as well. But it’s best to go into it with your eyes wide open and with a healthy understanding of the pros/cons before you make that life changing move.
So which points did I find most interesting?
Reason #4 – Starting with limited independence
When you first start out, and until you’re reasonably fluent in the language of where you are moving, you are going to need a LOT of help to get even basic things done. All the devices/appliances interfaces, interacting with services/medical/cell phone contracts/insurance/store clerks will also be in foreign language. I remember the first time I wanted to mail a package home, navigating the post office required I meet up with a local friend who knew how to fill out the page of overseas shipping forms. Figuring out the air conditioner took multiple attempts and using a translate app to help. Some countries are at least partly bilingual (like Japan), but expect to run into brick walls in which you absolutely need to have local help to navigate doing certain things. Using web translation and translation apps can really help (I remember the days when everyone carried a phrase book!), but are still bad enough to rarely provide everything you need. After doing things at least once, you can usually do things on your own; but the first time you do something may require help. If you have a good local friend, that’s a great start to help you navigate.
Reason #8 – Health care – especially mental health
Even when medical care is socialized, it doesn’t mean you should expect the same kind of care. Diagnosis of issues is hard enough – and a language barrier might make it harder. What might be a simple stomach issue might cause you to get a wrong treatment – even up to an unnecessary invasive procedure. Standards of treatment and expected treatment options, even for common problems, may also be very different than you expect. If you have chronic or highly likely conditions (family history/etc), the way that a country treats them will be essential for you to check out.
Nowhere is this more evident than with mental health. Many countries lag in mental health coverage and care – to the point it may well be even a taboo subject. Chris notes the experiences of many people he’s known: if you have mental health issues, it may be ok, but it also can be exacerbated by the experiences of living abroad. You are losing your family/friend circles that often provided stability and support as well as adding the daily stress of cultural and language barriers. Again, treatment options may be very limited if mental health issues are not taken seriously in that country.
Reason #7 – Dating/marriage
If you plan to date/marry a local, it is best to be at least minimally informed of the societal norms for a relationship in your new country – and how they differ from yours. While each person is an individual with their own tastes/desires from a partner, ALL of us carry unspoken expectations into relationships – many of which come from our cultural backgrounds. The role of romance, what constitutes fidelity/cheating (yes, there are VERY different ideas of what counts as cheating in different countries), expectations in involvement of family and parents, expectations around money and earning, age expectations to get married + having children, if there are expected gender roles they might expect you to fill. It’s an excellent idea to know which areas are usually aligned, and which are very mis-aligned, so you can have open and honest discussions about your expectations.
Which really is just another way to say #11…
Reason #11 – Cultural Norms
Hopefully, one of the reasons you are going to live in another place is because you want to experience another culture. This inherently means that they do things differently. Part of that is a result of where one lives geographically (It’s ridiculous to have hawaiian shirts, flip-flops, and board shorts if you’re living in Siberia) and the historical culture of the area. That’s both an adventure, and a sticking point. Despite our western proclivities for rugged individualism and forging through adversity to get what you want, you’re going to have to adapt or you’ll find yourself constantly fighting the society as a whole. This goes from simple points of daily etiquette to such things as your very lifestyle.
Examples? Apartments in Japan are not sound proofed enough to have big, blaring music systems, loud TV sets, and apartment parties – which is why everyone goes out with friends. The latest 90″ HDTV with streaming internet movies/sports is pointless in a country where power goes off regularly or broadband internet is non-existent. Having big, overstuffed cloth furniture is great in New York, it mildews and rots in hot tropical climates. Your favorite shampoos and care products may not be available. If you take medications/need treatment, you may need to take the version of that medication that’s available in the country you’re living. Governments, legal systems, or their officials may have drastically different laws about property, rights, and other legal matters.
Going further, not all countries have the same…senses of equality we have here. Some countries openly promote or suppress some religions. Treatment and even legal rights between genders may be quite different to outright medieval.
In short, stubbornly holding on to foods, lifestyle, and products from your home country are going to range from expensive/inconvenient to impossible. The reality I have heard from others is that if you’re not willing to live as the citizens of that country live – then you are almost certainly headed for unhappiness, frustration, or even spending more living there than back home.
Sleep No More isn’t a standard theatrical play. Instead, it’s a 3 hour immersive theatre experience by the punchdrunk theater group. The show is an adaptation of Macbeth re-set in a dimly-lit, 1930s-era establishment called the McKittrick Hotel. The hotel is actually a 5-story block of warehouses in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, transformed into the hotel-like performance space. The different rooms and floors have wild and unique themes, set designs, props, and music. The audience are given masks, told they cannot speak, and may freely move through the settings interacting with the props or observing the actors at their own pace. There is no program and actors move from room to room and floor to floor interacting with other actors and the sets on a repeating 1 hour loop cycle. They often run from room to room and may even push their way through audience members.
The action is deprived of nearly all spoken dialog and performed via interpretive dance, dialogless acting, yelling, and utilizing the set pieces in the different rooms. There’s lots of sensuality, mock fights that have actors acrobatically running up the sides of walls, actors are more than occasionally nude, bathed in fake blood, wearing strange costumes, or performing strange rituals and bizarre scenes. There are lots of hidden secrets and even 1-on-1 scenes in which an actor might select you and will perform a scene with you – often away from everyone else.
Most people say that it takes multiple visits before you can get a grip on everything that’s going on – and there are even guides on how to get the best experience. They encourage attendees that “Fortune favors the bold”; and encourage you to become participants in a way by placing yourself in the midst of the actors performing a scene. Some of the actors will acknowledge you being close to them and perform something with you like singing a song, giving you an item, or leading you to a private scene. Sadly, however, anonymity, pre-event drinking, and people taking the advice to be bold too far, have led to some problems with guests.
Still, if you’re interested in some experimental experiential theatre, this might be up your alley. It’s only in New York and books up far in advance – so reserve your spot well before your plans to go.
