Computer-controlled Cauliflower? When Software Meets Spinach

Would n’t it be totally coolheaded to be a professional fantast ? You ’d get a paycheck for portend what the world will look like in a hundred class , then wait for everyone to die before they can evidence that you made it all up .

Okay , that ’s a little coarse . Brilliant the great unwashed like Stephen Hawking , Alvin Toffler , and Buckminster Fuller have made tremendous contributions to society by writing and speaking about probabilities , possibility and preferable future . futurist prognosticate global drift , emerging markets and plausible scenarios that might affect everyone on the planet . Where do you think the thought of the Chia Pet come from ?

I might well be a futurist too ! Consider this central with my goggle box - show co - host , Owen Dell , author ofSustainable Landscaping for Dummies . We were take about the fabulous intellectual nourishment commutation net that is burgeon forth up around Santa Barbara like pre - germinated radish seeds .

The theme is simple : masses who originate food at home base exchange their surplus within a loosely get up neighborhood radical , sharing eggs , fruits , vegetable , flower , herbaceous plant , recipes , seeds and seedling . At the same time , they build “ biotic community ” by meeting their neighbors . There are twelve neighborhood groups in our surface area , under the umbrella of Santa BarbaraFood Not lawn .

But I digress . As Owen and I were praise the value of food exchange , I wondered aloud what would happen if there were no excess . “ What if everyone ’s garden furnish on the button the produce you want exactly when you wanted it ? ” I posited .

“ nonsensical , ” scoffed Owen . “ What about that prolific zucchini industrial plant that enigmatically have dozens of twenty - pound green fiend as soon as you sprain your back ? Or that generous - to - a - shift Arctic Supreme peach tree diagram that groan under the weight unit of hundreds of red - over - emollient scramble globes of sugary good ? ” [ BTW : Owen does n’t really talk that elbow room – I’m flexing my writing heftiness . ]

That ’s when this budding futurist had his brain - drizzle . A few years ago , Microsoft , in a well - orchestrated media blitz , announced the development of Microsoft Kitchen . No kidding . They said it with a straight face !

This extract from Mary - Jo Foley ’s June 6 , 2007 “ All About Microsoft ” web log land :

“ Among the features Microsoft is planning to make part of its upcoming kitchen calculation environment are a house calendar , formula center , amusement feature of speech and a apportion bulletin board . ”

Whether this prototype - shifting technical find makes it into our dwelling house or not , I see a great chance to grow and market ( metal drum roll , please ) Microsoft Garden , a modular minimal brain dysfunction - on for MS Kitchen .

Here ’s how it will ferment . When the program is installed , the GPS computer software download your precise location , soil type and date of last frost ( unless you ’re in Santa Barbara where we can grow year around – just thought I ’d flaunt that a trivial ) .

Next , you input your dining predilection let in favorite ethnic foods – Moroccan for me – allergies , vitamin deficiencies , etc . When the calendar screen door pops up , you ’ll have ten minutes to input your dinner menu preference for the remainder of the twelvemonth , so work tight .

The program then searches an international database of come catalogs , access your quotation card account and orders all the seeds and seedlings you ’ll necessitate for the next yr . Usingjust - in - time - manufacturingstrategies , your seeded player are embark as need so you do n’t end up throwing them in an old Mason jarful in your potting shed , then forgetting where you put them . Foolproof , I tell you !

Now for the sorcerous part of the equivalence . Every nighttime while you sleep , MS Garden resets your alarm clock to awaken you before the cock crows , so you may slap on your bib overall , trip up out to the garden and implant precisely the right identification number of seed in the perfect spot , guided by a automatic laser arrow mounted on your roof .

In my futurist scenario , reckoner will hold in the weather . So it ’s really not a big stretch to see that my software system will be able-bodied to predict to the oz. , the number and size of it of tomato you ’ll need on August 23 , for that St. Basil and Lycopersicon esculentum with bufalo mozzarella antipasto salad you planned eight calendar month ago .

On the ordained day you may walk down garden gangway 4B to grid mental faculty 34/17 and pluck the seven sun - ripened Brandywine tomatoes , two apothecaries' ounce of Purple Ruffles basil , and milk the extra - virgin European olive tree crude oil tree diagram for three tablespoon of favorable - immature ambrosia .

I ’m sure there are still a few details to work out , but we futurists leave that dirty work to the programming droids in the dungeon deeply beneath the collective billet tower . But you have to take the melodic theme has deservingness .

Writer ’s bill : This column will be on a inadequate hiatus while I make my travel design for the Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo . After a fast worldly concern tour , I ’ll get back to predicting a glorious hereafter for all my devoted readers . I ’m suppose chia seeded player - get across hovercraft .

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