We all remember that ridiculous speech from “The Matrix”, about how the machine are using human beings as batteries. At the time, this was patently ridiculous; a human being didn’t generate that much electricity! And so what about the body heat! There was no practical way to turn that into electricity! Science does not work that way!
Well, it does now, thanks to scientists from Singapore. The device on your right, in addition to powering some heavy duty nightmares about robot squids and disappointing sequels, is a MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) device, that substantially improves how much electricity can be generated from body heat. Even better/worse, it was designed to be manufactured on a large scale on pre-existing factory lines, so instead of having to create new factories to turn out this wonder device, factories can just turn it out like any other microchip.
The applications are currently viewed as medical right now, as this thing can only put out microwatts of power. So they’re thinking of hooking it up to pacemakers, internal sensors, and other medical machines that only need small amounts of power. But at least they’re not researching how to make crushing robot tentacles . . . that would be the guys over at Festo we reported on earlier in the month.
Crap in a hat. We’re just going to move to the Earth’s core now, get the good real estate before all the preselected hippies show up.
[Physorg]
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It always bothered me that Morpheus said it was a “mental projection of your digital self.” Shouldn’t it be a “digital projection of your mental self,” as you are digitally projecting the way you see yourself… in your mind?
information is translated by your mind into reality, not the other way around
that whole Matrix plot point bugs the HELL out of me. machines use humans as energy, after the humans blot out sun. and where the hell does human energy come from, magic? no, it comes from sugar, which comes from meat which came from plants, or from just plants, which came from the sun. no sun, no human energy. stupid.
the energy used to sustain the humans come from dead humans which are broken down and feed to the human batteries
(Scene from “OVERDRAWN AT THE MEMORY BANK”)
Fingal: “Mom? What are you doing here?”
Fingal’s Mom: “That’s an entirely healthy question son. The fact is, I’m being electronically simulated.”
Aram Fingal: “MOM?!? My nuts?”
Fingal’s Mom: “No dear. This is all in your mind. There’s been a big good up and your body was misplaced.”
@HUmmmm
Violates thermodynamics, brah. As I recall, the original idea was that the machines were linking up human minds as a sort of vast parallel processor for dealing with intuitive/emergent problems, but the studio people said, “That’s stupid. It’s complicated, no one will understand that.”