The world is awash in news, some worthy and others mildly entertaining, still others, well, trashy. Reading a newspaper used to take about half an hour; now, reading the news is more like trying to walk the GTA in a day, or eat every course of food at the Mandarin buffet--at some point, you've got to skip over a lot.
Today, there are many many stories of interest, but for our purposes here, I chose a few that were interesting, intriguing, and even somewhat weird. Here they are:
1. Jurassic 2025?
The new Jurassic Park movie is about to hit theatres; but the veritable Jurassic Park is about to come to life in 2025? According to an article at Kurzweilai.net, we are closer to "de-extinction" than many of us realize. One method is called CRISPR, which is simply altering the genetic sequence of living organisms' genomes to take on the genomes matching their extinct relatives. And with the breakthroughs in biotechnology and genetics, many claim that we are a decade away from extinct organisms being brought back to life. Of course this raises some series ethical concerns, such as the impact of such beasts on various ecosystems, which nations would house such creatures, and who would pay for the damage caused by them. One question that was not mentioned in the article, was what if such beasts were given over to corrupt governments? Suddenly a Star Wars scenario of armies going into battle on Mammoths and T-Rexs is no longer science fiction.
2. New GPS Technology:
There is new GPS software that can locate areas within centimetres, and could also power virtual reality, and create highly accurate drone delivery systems in which packages can be positioned on a specific spot on someone's back porch. The centimetre-accurate GPS-based positioning system will also allow for highly accurate collision-avoidance on vehicles. What comes to mind for me is these technologies are becoming so accurate and so powerful, yet placed on devices that are growing smaller, where will this technology be in 10 years? But what about the ability of humans to simply navigate terrain without such technologies? Do we know how to find our ways around without GPS? Do we know how to intuitively find short-cuts or quickly grasp our surroundings without checking our phones? And what if during an emergency the kill switch is pulled on all devices? How will we navigate our surroundings then? The technology is promising, but there is an underlying threat as well.
3. Pope Drives A Hyundai?
Remember when Hyundais were the butt of all car jokes? Remember the Pony (I still wonder who was in the room of execs when that name was decided upon...)? Well, Hyundai has become, as we all know, one of the great come-back stories in automobile history; and now we find that Pope Francis himself has turned in the bullet-proof Mercedes for a non-bullet proof Hyundai Santa Fe. Apparently, according to the story, Francis is seeking a vehicle that will speak to his humility and socialist leanings. But I see something else here--a deeper meaning perhaps to the choice, for there are many different brands of vehicle he could have chosen to represent him. A quick look at Wikipedia reveals this interesting choice: Santa Fe is the capital city of New Mexico, and means "Holy Faith" in Spanish. But it gets more interesting here: "The city's full name when founded was La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís ("The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi"). So here is Pope Francis driving a vehicle named after, well, the Great Saint Francis (of Assisi) himself.
We are living in very strange times, from highly precise GPS systems that will now be able to tell us the exact location of a de-extinct T-Rex, to the Pope driving a Hyundai. It's all very weird indeed, but one thing we can be certain of--the unpredictable...
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