Benno Pieters' Blog

I believe that the Cottage Industry will return in Full Force! What is the Cottage Industry? In Medieval times, in the villages, people used to produce from their own homes. They had a small plot of land to grow vegetables, perhaps keep a cow, and had a few chickens. They were blacksmiths, or bakers, weavers, or cobblers and paid each other with pieces of silver. Some were beer brewers, which used to be very important because you could not always trust the water supply. Gold was used for larger items. In the Anglo-Saxon world, 1 troy ounce of gold, would buy a gentleman a hand-tailored suit. It still does. People were not really rich in those times, but they were quite happy. Here in the Netherlands, you can get a grasp of how that used to be at the Archeon Museum. Industrial Revolution Once the Industrial Revolution started, people flocked toward the cities because they could earn more. The Cottage Industry ceased to be effective as specialization and economies of scale started to set...

The brilliant Ray Kurzweil has made many predictions about technological developments. He bases his predictions on More's Law, which states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years while halving the cost. By interpreting what that means for technological developments and their capabilities, Ray Kurzweil has made many eerily accurate predictions. Some say that his prediction success is in the neighborhood of 80%.  One of his predictions is that humans and technology will merge for the benefit of each other, thereby creating a new sort of human species. What happens after that he can't predict. Originally he said it would take place around 2045, but now he has revised it to 2035. Around that time it will be possible to upload parts of the human brain en download them into that of others. Theoretically, you could learn to speak a language in an instant by downloading someone else's language skills. Or learn Kung Fu or Pencak Silat. Basically, you could ...