Have you ever wanted to warm up your bed from your car? This week Rob and Christen talk about all the things Rob’s smart house can do. It turns out that one of technologies in Rob’s smart house is a Switch Bot which he uses as an automated Finglonger.
We revisit future-past homes of the twentieth century. Part of the 1933 World’s Fair was the House of Tomorrow. This home featured an automatic garage door opener, a dish washer, and a hangar for a small airplane. All state of the art for their time! Today, most of us may not be flying to the grocery store, but garage door openers and dishwashers have certainly become mainstream.
For you viewing pleasure, we include below a variety of videos below that feature visions of futuristic homes. We both find the binary gendering of imagined home convinces quaint.
(Christen wants to punch the narrator in the throat.)
Christen recommends a short story from the Levar Burton podcast, where he features, “Mother of Invention”. A story by Nnedi Okorafor, told in 2 episodes. There’s a third episode which is a wonderful interview with the author.
Rob speculates that is grandfather might not be impressed with his smart house, but what will future smart houses look like? Will they shockingly different from our homes today?
Things that blew our minds this week
Christen finds a proof-of-concept research project that shows mycelium can be grown into fabric and made into a wearable device that can detect stimulus from the wearer. Mycelium are biological sensors in nature and possibly on our clothes!
Rob shares his hypothesis that social media algorithms, like those examined in The Social Dilemma, may also have played a part in the insurrection of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. You can watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix.
The featured image at the top of this page is Monsanto’s House of the Future in Disneyland. Credit: Thomas Hawk on Flickr