For example, in 1925, the average Tyson chicken lived approximately 112 days, weighed around 2.5 pounds at the time of slaughter, and had consumed about 4.7 pounds of grain per pound of its body weight. In 2010, the same chicken lived just 45 days, was slaughtered at an average weight of 5.63 pounds, and consumed just 1.92 pounds of grain per pound. Simply put, the animals live less than half as long, eat half as much and are more than double the size they were 100 years ago.
Category: Future
Read about Adedeji Olowe’s take about the future, futurism, and other technologies that could transform the everyday lives for better and sometimes for worse.
The Rise of the Bionic Men
I’ve always been fascinated by science fiction, bionic men and even much more by the real science miracles; each day I watch determined scientists and engineers make our wild and sometimes horrific dreams come true.
The advancement in prosthetics is growing in leap and bonds. Many being tested are now getting connected to our neural bus – quite a few can be controlled by thoughts.
So this is where it gets interesting. Each year we get to hear about better and more versatile prosthetics. I assume that at a random time in a not so far future, we would get to a point where these man-made attachments would be as good as any natural appendage.
What happens the day after? Would we stop making them better? Absolutely not! The day after would have prosthetics better than the real-life organs.
Take artificial eyes for example – scientists are using different methods to build. Some have even gotten FDA and CE approvals. Soon they would be mainstream and then some dude would offer an artificial eye that could see infrared and ultraviolet, overlay your sight with additional information streamed over the internet – like when I see a colleague and then a visual tag pops with his name and number on my vision.
Like a Google Glass on steroids.
Or a cochlear implant that could hear sound beyond the normal human range. Or an artificial leg that can’t break or you won’t get tired running because it has hydraulics that could give a range boost. Down the line I imagine people would willingly start giving up their limbs, eyes, ears, etc. to have the artificial ones. I recently started wearing glasses but in the future, I could pop my eyes out and put in something snazzy from Samsung that can see in the dark, overlay navigation map for me or even deliver some delirious porn.
Would it stop there?
One day, mark my words, someone would deliver a complete bionic body and we would all port our consciousness to it. That’s it.
The future is bionic. The future is exciting.
But then let me be gone before we get there.
Online Banking is Fractured
It all happened in Nigeria.
I’m a customer. A brand new customer.
I just got a new account because my old bank was pissing the day light out of me. Or maybe I just got a new job that requires that I open my salary account at a bank my workplace sold its soul to.
Enough rambling.
My account has been opened but I don’t want to come to the bank. Why should I? I’m not confirmed yet so I could kiss consumer loan a sweet 6 months good bye. I’m not in the mood to queue up. The tellers are tacky and I desperately yearn for the days when customer service officer was a pretty girl not the ones that could make a Boko Haram cower in fear when she opens her mouth to spew gunshots.
Ok. I need something, anything, that wouldn’t make me ever to come to a banking hall again. I mean, I could get my account officer to bring the mortgage forms to me over a lunch at Yellow Chilli. Some good things come with having a nice job.
I was nicely told I need a suite of e-banking services. Ahem! That’s OK. And what are those?
A separate form for internet banking. OK.
Another for SMS alert.
Another for Email alert.
And yet another for mobile banking.
Now, I’m almost losing my temper.
Why not a single online sign-on and one profile to rule them all? I mean, I see same emails on my browser, in the damned BB my company gave me, on my sexy iPhone, and even with SMS! Same username and password, life is good!
Apparently, most banks coupled these applications together from a basket of vendors. They don’t talk to each other. They don’t share profiles. They don’t even know about each other’s existence. I be damned!
When the banks get it right, let me know. As for me, I’m off to play golf.
Galaxy S4 is Awesome. Yawn!
The S4 is the new kid on the block and it’s an absolutely fondle mobile. Think about it, it’s got every thingamajig on earth. 5-inch super amoled screen, a zippy new Samsung Exynos 5 or Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. The only thing it doesn’t do now is brew coffee.
It is amazing how quickly we have arrived at a point where a new phone doesn’t awesomely shock us anymore. The specs are converging, the laws of hand-held mechanics are getting to a point of breach.
Can someone remember when people drool over PC config (memory, hard disk, sound)? Those times have gone – nobody cares. Nobody ever comes around to check out the sexy new laptop you slugging around. Even the tablet life is reaching that point.
So, I guess by the time Galaxy reaches the S6, it wouldn’t make news anymore. unless maybe it could make coffee but then every Chinese knockoff would be making coffee too.
Scientists Network Rat Brain. Coming to a Moron Near You
Surprising news this morning. Some mad scientists have been able to network two rats’ brains together. Awesome!
I guess it is a matter of years before that feature is available to the next moron near you. Or maybe if our leaders’ brains can be networked with decent leaders in other countries where things work. Fat chance.
Oh, by the way, the implications are far reaching. Imagine I need to solve a problem, I could tap into a network brain (Amazon Neural Mesh, say) and have the thoughts done and downloaded to my gray mush.
In fact, I could go on holiday while all my critical thoughts are handled by some badass brain somewhere.
Or if I’m out of job, I could rent my brain out for free. But considering some of the evil thoughts I run through every time, I doubt the quality of my output.
Wait, what if a brain freezes?
You think I made this up? Read it here..