James Lileks Interior Desecrations

James Lileks: Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s looks at the 1970's brass age of interior design.  He provides photographic evidence of modern designs from yesteryear.  Bold color schemes including yellow, lime green, brown and tangerine orange come to life again.  He wrote the book in part to head off any nostalgia for the interior design of the 70's.  He succeeds.

Relive the inch deep shag carpet, the round furniture and the multicolored drapes captured in faded Kodachrome.  Examine futuristic recycled furniture and interior furnishings decades before their time.

The perfect waif's sitting room - James Lilek's book

Typical photo from James Lilek's book advocating attractive repurposing of items

Visions by Michio Katu

Michio Kato's Visions was published in 1997.  The book offers predictions about ways science will change the twenty first century and beyond.  The topics cover the computer revolution, the biomolecular revolution and the quantum revolution. 

Most of his near term predictions about the computer revolution have come to pass regarding the expansion of the internet and e-commerce.

His discussion of energy and civilization classification was very thought provoking.  At present, the earth is a class 0 civilization obtaining most of it's energy from decayed plants or uranium.  With the expansion of energy needs additional resources will be needed for the planet using energy from the whole planet and the nearby solar system. 

Planetary societies to become "immortal" need to advance in their technological expertise to protect the planet from external forces, comets and asteroids and control climate and weather.  The species will need to expand the civilization across the galaxy to protect the survival of the species in the event of a local supernova event.  He advocates sending self replicating robots to progressively colonize other planets. 

The book Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century is available from Amazon.com and other retailers

2057 Humans Michio Katu 8 minutes

The world in 2030 64 minutes

 

Can nanotechnology create a utopia? 6 min.