(Link from Fred<\/a>).<\/p>\n Sure, it’s only one-colour, and simple stuff right now, but the step from “no programmable clothes” to “simple programmable clothes” is a lot bigger than the step from “simple programmable clothes” to “tricked out programmable clothes”.<\/p>\n I can’t stop thinking about this. I want a t-shirt like this so I can have Quote of the Week Friday. I want it be able to attach it to an SD card so that the text and image can change ever 10 minutes all day. (The all Russell Quotations<\/a> T-shirt! The random non-sequitor T-shirt!). I want to integrate other sensors, so I can have mood-based programming, and so that when I pass out the shirt can change to an “If found, please return to…” message. I want to have a shirt that displays the entire text of the Fagles<\/a> translation of the Odyssey, one line at a time. And so on.<\/p>\n The sad realization is that many of those things are only cool when programmable clothes aren’t common. As soon as everyone has them, that would quickly become annoying. Oh well.<\/p>\n Now the bad bit:<\/p>\n You know those science-fiction novels where the ex-urban future is a kind of “Road Warrior in the landfill” scenario? The ones from before nanotech was going to give us the Diamond Age<\/a>? That kind of Max Headroom<\/a> dystopia where scavengers survive by boating through a literal stream of garbage?<\/p>\n Yeah, that’s here too:<\/p>\n Apparently that area was absolutely pristine twenty years ago. That’s some shocking change in a relatively short time.<\/p>\n You can read the full story<\/a>, and see some other images, at the Daily Mail<\/a>. Oh, and the story gets worse:<\/p>\n And the doomsday effect will spread. It is one of two major rivers that feed Lake Saguling, where the French have built the largest power generator in West Java.<\/p>\n Experts predict that as the river chokes, its volume will decrease and the generator will not function properly.<\/p>\n The area will be plunged into darkness. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OK, first the good bit: Right now, today, I can order a programmable T-shirt. (Link from Fred). Sure, it’s only one-colour, and simple stuff right now, but the step from “no programmable clothes” to “simple programmable clothes” is a lot bigger than the step from “simple programmable clothes” to “tricked out programmable clothes”. I can’t stop thinking about this. I… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-eL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"River](\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-content\/images\/2007\/06\/_river.jpg\" "\\"River")
<\/a><\/p>\n