Jacque Fresco-The Great Depression

We have heard in the media that we are seeing unemployment that is reminiscent of the great depression. The homeless population is growing. The people are coming out of a long, deep coma and realizing that the system isn't perfect. You can work hard all your life, have a savings account, retirement account, college savings for the children, a mortgage that you are chipping away at month by month and suddenly....one day...you are told by the company that you have given your lifeblood to that they need to downsize. The shareholders are expecting a certain return and to reach that goal...well, you've got to go. How can this happen? You did everything that you were told and expected to do. What happened to the American dream? We are entering a great depression of own. When our descendants learn about this moment in history, will they feel pride or disgust at their ancestors? The decisions should be easy. Let's leave a better world for them.

Jacque Fresco talks a little about what he experienced during the great depression.

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Jacque Fresco-Looking for Justice

Many people today are afraid of technology for one reason. Technology will put them out of their job. A friend of mine said that we were going to have to get rid of the technology so that people could have jobs. That was a new idea to me. I had always thought that humans would keep moving forward. We do move forward when it comes to the new phones, TV's, cars, computers, and other gadgets. We are not moving forward in the ways that matter like increasing the quality of life, ending hunger, homelessness, healthcare, education, and the list can go on and on. We are not moving forward with new ideas for society that would take us a step forward into the future. The way the world is going now is there going to be a future? I told my friend once that I wished I could have been born five hundred years in the future or even more so I could experience space travel (the sci-fi fan in me). How enlightened people would be in that time. She was quiet a moment and asked me a very simple question that left me speechless. "Why do think we will have moved forward? What makes you think we wouldn't have moved backward like in the movie Idiocracy (If you haven't seen this movie, you should)?" I still have no answer months later. That is a frightening thought to me.

In this video, Jacque Fresco explores job security, peace, conditioning in children, and the fallacy of justice. As usual, he is the voice of reason.

www.thevenusproject.com

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The Venus Project-Scarcity, Justice, Transition, Resource Based Economy

{EAV_BLOG_VER:6297a0b4420eb5b9} A friend of mine brought up the price of gold the other day. People have been selling and buying gold like it was the California gold rush. I thought about it for a few minutes and I told her that I did not understand why people put so much worth into gold. It isn't a metal that is really used for anything except decorative purposes. You can't eat it or drink it. You can't make blankets or brush your teeth with it. She said that people would trade it for food. I was quiet for a moment again and asked her why someone who had food would trade it for gold. Wouldn't they trade it for blankets, clean water, shelter, or clothes? Wouldn't the people with the blankets, clean water, shelter or clothes trade for food? What would you do with gold? That's what I would do and I think I have some common sense. If I can't work on my car and the man down the street needed his clothes mended and we both were able to perform these tasks, wouldn't that make more sense than giving him my gold earrings (if I had any)? In the end, what does gold really offer?

Scarcity. Bigotry. Inequality. What do these values promote? How can we change these values? Who makes the wealthy rich? Why should they owe society anything? How does our economy create fairness and equality?How does our economy promote the health of our environment and the people who dwell on it? Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows answer these questions in the next of our videos.

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The Venus Project-Research Center

When I first heard the name The Venus Project, I wondered if it was named after the planet Venus. I have come a long way from that first thought and feel fortunate that I learned about Jacque Fresco's project. Jacob and I have a goal...to visit Venus, Florida and see first hand his ideas. We live in North Carolina which isn't too far away. The only snag is how difficult it is for Jacob to travel. Hopefully, we will be able to overcome some of those obstacles and take the tour.
Here is a short video narrated by Jacque and Roxanne that not only describes but shows how Jacque's cities could look on the research center's land.

The research center of The Venus Project is the 21.5 acre design center in still pristine south-central Florida, where the future is always taking shape. The actual buildings and conference center are supplemented by models, illustrations, blueprints, posters, books and video presentations. These are the first steps that have been completed to help one see, feel, and touch the proposed future. Tour seminars are held here in Venus, Florida on scheduled Saturdays. During the tour, Jacque Fresco will speak for many hours explaining the direction of The Venus Project, walk you around the grounds, show and describe the models, present a brief video and take any questions you may have. http://thevenusproject.com/en/get-involved/tours

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The Venus Project-Space

I have to admit that I am a sci-fi fan/geek. I love Star Trek and Star Wars. I remember when Star War came out. I was six year old. My parents took us to the drive-in to see it. I was grounded and had to turn around in the seat because I wasn't allow to see it. Little did anyone realize I could see it in the back windshield. That night my love affair with space began. Even today, my son and I have a Star Wars marathon every year. Star Trek is the basic staple in my viewing diet. I read Arthur C. Clarke, Gene Roddenberry, Isaac Asimov, Ron Hubbard, and any other sci-fi writer I can get my hands on. I love the idea of a whole universe out there that defies complete explanation and our feeble attempt to explore its wonders. I am in awe of Stephen Hawking. To have those ideas in your mind would be an incredible gift. I read his book, A Brief History of Time, not to mention seeing Stephen Hawking's Universe. I must mention Michio Kaku who is another genius that must be listed here. His book Physics of the Impossible is a must read for any serious sci-fi fan.

Can you imagine how far humans could go if money were no object? If you have seen Star Trek, you will notice that society on Earth no longer uses currency. People desire to learn, explore and study for the benefit of humankind. Everyone benefits from the advancement of science, art and literature. They can't understand the concept of a society ruled by money and greed.

With that introduction, I would like to post a short video where Jacque Fresco explains how man would explore, study and learn more about the final frontier.

Space stations provide the advantages of a gravity-free research environment. They can be entirely automated and self-contained to permit maintenance and self-repair without human intervention. These space stations would be able to monitor the earth's resources, as well as facilitate further research in the fields of meteorology and astronomy, work that is often difficult on Earth due to atmospheric interference.
http://thevenusproject.com




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The Venus Project-Energy

We have access to renewable sources of energy. Geothermal, tidal, solar, and wind to name the obvious. I ask myself often why we don't use these sources. What sense does it make to keep destroying Earth for energy sources that are dirty, polluting and expensive? Money and greed. I read that money was the factor for keeping us from change. The initial investment would cost the people too much. Maybe it is because there wouldn't be a way to drive prices up and make huge profits when the wind, tide and sun are abundant.
Here is a video on energy explained by Jacque Fresco.

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The Venus Project-Houses

Houses. Our home, haven, a little slice of heaven. Here is a video where Jacque Fresco describes homes that have been designed intelligently.

The Venus Project recommends that the present state and aims of architecture be redefined to fit the evolving needs of individuals in this new, emergent culture. The architecture and individual dwellings of future cities will evolve on an entirely different basis from today's houses. With the intelligent application of humane technologies, we will be able to provide and allow for a wide array of unique individual homes. Their structural elements will be flexible and coherently arranged to best serve individual preference. These pre-fabricated, modular homes, embodying a high degree of flexibility inconceivable in times past, could be built anyplace one might imagine, amidst forests, atop mountains, or on remote islands. All of these dwellings can be designed as self-contained residences with their own thermal generators and heat concentrators. Photovoltaic arrays would be built into the skin of the building and into the windows themselves. "Thermopanes" would be used to tint out the bright sunlight by variable patterns of shading. All these features could be selected by the occupant to supply more than enough of the energy required to operate the entire household. Homes could be prefabricated of a new type of pre-stressed, reinforced concrete with a flexible ceramic external coating that would be relatively maintenance free, fireproof, and impervious to the weather. Their thin shell construction can be mass-produced in a matter of hours. With this type of construction, there would be minimal damage from earthquakes and hurricanes.

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This Is What Transition Looks Like

How exciting! The idea of using technology in cities is not a science fiction dream. It is becoming a reality! It may seem like a tiny step in the ocean of problems humans have but it a step in the right direction. People should not be afraid of technology but embrace it as one of the ways to achieving a better quality of life. This can be accomplished with the addition of a resource-based economy. One step at a time.

September 30, 2011

Smart cities get their own operating system

By Katia MoskvitchTechnology reporter, BBC News

Smart cities with devices chatting to each other may dot the planet in the near future

Continue reading the main story

Cities could soon be looking after their citizens all by themselves thanks to an operating system designed for the metropolis.

The Urban OS works just like a PC operating system but keeps buildings, traffic and services running smoothly.

The software takes in data from sensors dotted around the city to keep an eye on what is happening.

In the event of a fire the Urban OS might manage traffic lights so fire trucks can reach the blaze swiftly.

The idea is for the Urban OS to gather data from sensors buried in buildings and many other places to keep an eye on what is happening in an urban area.

The sensors monitor everything from large scale events such as traffic flows across the entire city down to more local phenomena such as temperature sensors inside individual rooms.

The OS completely bypasses humans to manage communication between sensors and devices such as traffic lights, air conditioning or water pumps that influence the quality of city life.

Channelling all the data coming from these sensors and services into a over-arching control system had lots of benefits, said Steve Lewis, head of Living PlanIT- the company behind Urban OS.

Urban OS should mean buildings get managed better and gathering the data from lots of sources gives a broader view of key city services such as traffic flows, energy use and water levels.

The system can help with monitoring patients at hospitals

"If you were using an anatomy analogy, the city has a network like the nervous system, talking to a whole bunch of sensors gathering the data and causing actions," said Mr Lewis.

"We distribute that nervous system into the parts of the body - the buildings, the streets and other things.

Having one platform managing the entire urban landscape of a city means significant cost savings, implementation consistency, quality and manageability, he added.

"And it's got local computing capacity to allow a building or an automotive platform to interact with people where they are, managing the energy, water, waste, transportation, logistics and human interaction in those areas."

Continue reading the main story

“

Urban apps

The underlying technology for the Urban OS has been developed by McLaren Electronic Systems - the same company that creates sensors for Formula One cars. The Urban OS was unveiled at the Machine-2-Machine conference in Rotterdam.

To support the myriad of different devices in a city the firm has developed an extensive set of application services that will run Urban OS, dubbed PlaceApps - the urban environment equivalent of apps on a smartphone.

Independent developers will also be able to build their own apps to get at data and provide certain services around a city.

Mr Lewis said that eventually applications on smartphones could hook into the Urban OS to remotely control household appliances and energy systems, or safety equipment to monitor the wellbeing of elderly people.

It could also prove useful in the event of a fire in a building, he said.

Sensors would spot the fire and then the building would use its intelligence to direct people inside to a safe stairwell, perhaps by making lights flicker or alarms get louder in the direction of the exit.

"That's dealt with by the building itself, with the devices very locally talking to each other to figure out what's the best solution for the current dilemma, and then providing directions and orchestrating themselves," said Mr Lewis.

'Magical actions'

Living PlanIT is working with Cisco and Deutsche Telekom on different parts of the system.

Urban OS might help people escape during a fire

Markus Breitbach of the Machine to Machine Competence Center at Deutsche Telekom said that his firm was helping to bring all the parts of the Urban OS together.

"Everybody's talking about 50 billion connected devices, which effectively means huge amounts of data being collected, but nobody is really caring about managing it and bringing it into a context - and Urban OS can do just that," he said.

"If there's a fire alarm on the fifth floor and the elevator is going to the next floor, the light will switch on - but in addition the traffic lights will be switched accordingly to turn the traffic in the right direction so that fire workers can get through.

"And this is what Urban OS is providing, this kind of solution to analyse mass data, enter it in a context and perform magical actions."

A test bed for the Urban OS is currently being built in Portugal. For its work in developing smart cities, Living PlanIT was selected as one of the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers of 2012.

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That's dealt with by the building itself, with the devices very locally talking to each other to figure out what's the best solution for the current dilemma”

Steve LewisCEO, Living PlanIT

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A Conversation with Jacque Fresco

A wonderful and intelligent conversation with Jacque Fresco. A must see! He explains a resource-based economy clearly, what is wrong with our current system and steps we need to take to make the change.


A Conversation with Jacque Fresco from Joel on Vimeo.

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The Venus Project - Cities

The Venus Project is very close to my heart. The ideas are incredible and feasible. What makes them impossible right now is greed and societies inability to change age old concepts and beliefs. I want to post as many Venus Project clips, articles and book lists that I can. I would like to focus and help spread the word that we must evolve as a civilization.

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Monkey's Have More Writing Talent Than I Do!

We've heard the old saying...if you put so many monkeys in a room with typewriters, how long would it be before they recreated the works of Shakespeare? A programmer is close to finding out. I guess my question would be why was this important to know. Aren't there more pressing questions right now in the world? Well, here is the article if you are interested.

26 September 2011 Last updated at 07:31 ET

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Virtual monkeys write 

Shakespeare

Continue reading the main story

A few million virtual monkeys are close to re-creating the complete works of Shakespeare by randomly mashing keys on virtual typewriters.

A running total of how well they are doing shows that the re-creation is 99.990% complete.

The first single work to be completed was the poem A Lover's Complaint.

Practical experiments show monkeys have poor keyboard skills

Set up by US programmer Jesse Anderson the project co-ordinates the virtual monkeys sitting on Amazon's EC2 cloud computing system via a home PC.

Mr Anderson said he started the project as a way to get to know the Hadoop programming tool better and to put Amazon's web services to the test.

It is also a practical test of the thought experiment that wonders whether an infinite number of monkeys pounding on an infinite number of typewriters would be able to produce Shakespeare's works by accident.

Mr Anderson's virtual monkeys are small computer programs uploaded to Amazon servers. These coded apes regularly pump out random sequences of text.

Each sequence is nine characters long and each is checked to see if that string of characters appears anywhere in the works of Shakespeare. If not, it is discarded. If it does match then progress has been made towards re-creating the works of the Bard.

To get a sense of the scale of the project, there are about 5.5 trillion different combinations of any nine characters from the English alphabet.

Mr Anderson's monkeys are generating random nine-character strings to try to produce all these strings and thereby find those that appear in Shakespeare's works.

Mr Anderson kicked off the project on 21 August using Amazon's cloud computers. Each day of virtual monkey keyboard mashing processing cost $19.20 (£12.40).

The project has been moved to a home PC to speed up text string generation and to cut the cost. To make the task even easier the text being sampled has had all the spaces and punctuation removed.

Mathematicians said the constraints Mr Anderson introduced to the project mean he will complete it in a reasonable amount of time.

"If he's running an evolutionary approach, holding on to successful guesses, then he'll get there," said Tim Harford, popular science writer and presenter of the BBC's radio show about numbers More or Less.

And without those constraints?

"Not a chance," said Dr Ian Stewart, emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick.

His calculations suggest it would take far, far longer than the age of the Universe for monkeys to completely randomly produce a flawless copy of the 3,695,990 or so characters in the works.

"Along the way there would be untold numbers of attempts with one character wrong; even more with two wrong, and so on." he said. "Almost all other books, being shorter, would appear (countless times) before Shakespeare did."

Earlier experiments have shown how difficult the task is. Wikipedia mentions a 2003 project that used computer programs to simulate a lot of monkeys randomly typing.

Monkeys: More interested in throwing faeces than writing sonnets




After the equivalent of billions and billions and billions of monkey years the simulated apes had only produced part of a line from Henry IV, Part 2.

Also in 2003, Paignton Zoo carried out a practical test by putting a keyboard connected to a PC into the cage of six crested macaques. After a month the monkeys had produced five pages of the letter "S" and had broken the keyboard.

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Video Games Used For Science!

I don't know about your children, but my son loves video games. I grew up playing pong, then Atari, then Colecovision, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Gameboy Advance (my son's),  PlayStation 2, X Box 360 ...I never completely stopped playing. Since Jacob loves to play, I have the excuse that video games are in the house so....
I know that there are people who think video games are a waste of time. This next article can be used to argue for gamers and their world. Maybe gamer powers can be used for good.

20 September 2011 Last updated at 08:33 ET

Online game Foldit helps anti-Aids drug quest

By Katia MoskvitchTechnology reporter, BBC News

Continue reading the main story

An online game has helped determine the structure of an enzyme that could pave the way for anti-Aids drugs.

The game, called Foldit, allows players to create new shapes of proteins by randomly folding digital molecules on their computer screens.

In the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, scientists write that they have been puzzled by the protein's structure for over a decade.

Retroviral proteases have a critical role in the development of an Aids virus

But it took the online community just a few days to produce the enzyme's model.Proteins are extremely complex organic compounds that everything is made of, and an enzyme is a particular type of protein.The enzyme the gamers were presented with is called M-PMV retroviral protease - an enzyme that plays a key role in the development of a virus similar to HIV.Scientists have been trying to determine its precise structure for years.

The result could be an important step forwards in the development of anti-Aids drugs.

Following simple rules, gamers playing Foldit had to turn and flip a digital 3D model of the enzyme on their computer screens, to try out all folding combinations that were possible.

They eventually obtained the optimum one - the state that needed the lowest energy to maintain.

Continue reading the main story

“

Biochemist Firas Khatib of the University of Washington - where Foldit was created in 2008 - said that the goal was to see if "human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed".

The researchers were so impressed with the result that they even included some participating gamers as co-authors of the study.

Complex structures

Even a small protein is able to fold in a huge variety of different ways, and it is always a challenge, even for computers, to figure out which of the many possible structures is the best one.

"Foldit attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans' puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins," states the game's website.

"Since proteins are part of so many diseases, they can also be part of the cure.

"Players can design brand new proteins that could help prevent or treat important diseases."

Protein folding had proved to be
 one of the more popular uses
 for distributed computing

To play, no previous knowledge of proteins, biochemistry or biology is required - all a user has to have is a computer and an internet connection.

Once a gamer downloads an easy-to-install plug-in, he or she can start competing with other players, rotating complex three dimensional molecular structures with a click of the mouse.

The goal is either to design an entirely new protein, or to predict a certain structure, so that once an online model is generated, scientists and biotech companies take over.

The latest breakthrough, according to the paper's authors, is the first time that online gamers have solved a longstanding scientific problem.

Seth Cooper, a co-creator of Foldit and its lead designer, said that games provide a framework "for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans".

"People have spatial reasoning, something computers are not yet good at," Dr Cooper said.

"These results show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before."

Results obtained by gamers playing Foldit have also helped scientists in Alzheimer's and cancer research.

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These results show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before”

Seth CooperFoldit

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