1 Happening now (until 2025)

Fresh, Handmade, and Printed

A burritoGabe set her tortilla on the printer bed and shut the door. Ready to build the burrito, several systems came online at once. The printer began to heat the tortilla while printing the artificial chicken from proteins and dehydrated chicken broth directly on the bread. Another system prepared the rice, force hydrating each kernel with a mixture designed to taste like cilantro and lime. The kidney beans were printed around the chicken once those protein pieces were completed and warming. The guacamole was a special selection, frozen in small dots and extruded through a tube from the freezer. The cheese, given Jenn's issues with dairy, was printed from a non-dairy material.

The Bourne Legacy

Bourne Legacy cover

Sometimes a great look at the future shows up in places you weren't looking. The Bourne Legacy, the sequel to the trilogy with Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye in the Avengers) taking the lead role, is a fast-paced look at posthumanism and one of the better futurist films I've watched in some time.

I'd mostly ignored Legacy, figuring it would eventually hit Netflix, but found it in the library on Blu-ray this week and picked it up. Finding some free time today, I started watching and was blown away as the back story came together piece by piece. Sometimes the best views of the future arrive in a medium other than science fiction.

Stop here if you don't want to read spoilers. But this is a great movie and worth checking out.

Future Babble

Future Babble coverWhy do we try to predict the future? According to Dan Gardner, it's because of our human need to protect ourselves that we are constantly attempting to recognize risk before the lions, tigers and bears descend upon us. In Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions are Next to Worthless and You Can Do Better, Gardner provides historical insights on the types of futurists able to make the most reliable predictions. Guess what? Those predictions don't come from experts in a field, they come from people with a wide range of knowledge looking at trends from different angles.

Your Drone is Ruining my Buzz

Camera droneJester slid the door open and headed for the pool. Nothing like baking in the sun to cure a hangover - if your shades are dark enough and the splif is big enough. His feet danced a bit on the hot concrete, but it still felt good when the rays hit his back.

Sucking in some smoke, he held it in his lungs an extra few seconds before coughing it out. The chemicals hadn't hit yet, but his body knew to relax - help was on the way.

Extremis - Iron Man becomes posthuman

ExtremisWarren Ellis introduced the Extremis concept to Iron man in a 6-issue story arc starting in January 2005. This arc changed Tony Stark from a cyborg to a posthuman by introducing nanotechnology into his body and altering his physiology to include direct connections with the Iron Man suit. Ellis introduced many concepts and characters that were used in the Iron Man movie trilogy, especially Iron Man 3.

If you're into superhero comics, this is a short arc you don't want to miss. It's available on Marvel Unlimited or through Amazon. In typical comic-book style, it takes some complex scientific breakthroughs and turn them into a magical elixir, yet it brings many of the reasons we research posthuman adaptation into perspective given Stark's need to deal with the story villains. And there are a few great conversations in which characters wax philosophical about their Frankensteinian need to create a future that might be more monster than they would like.

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