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The homes of the future viewed from today
Mark Finchley reviews TV series Tomorrow’s Homes
Having just watched the whole of Channel 8’s TV series Tomorrow’s Homes, I’ve been wondering about how anyone can predict the future of domestic life. You’d imagine that if you knew what architects and technology companies were developing now to make life easier, more exciting and more beautiful, you’d have a pretty good idea of what to expect in tomorrow’s homes. In reality, it’s more complicated, and just as much about what we’ll choose to hang on to from today’s – the things that are ‘future-proof’. In the 1950s, people thought that in the twenty-first century household tasks would be done by labour-saving devices or robots – with food pills for dinner. Yet people still wash up and cook, even though the technology exists that makes neither of these tasks necessary.
Tomorrow’s Homes, however, dared to make predictions which it turned into reality using an average home belonging to a family called the Forseys. Four miles of cable were installed in the house so that all the electrics, from lights to the fridge, could be controlled via the internet, and various other devices and gadgets were introduced in addition to this. The family were then filmed as they got used to their new home life. Programme presenter Harry Thwaites is also a consultant who spends his work life imagining the future, so testing out his ideas for the programme was a fascinating experiment for him. His approach was to use technology that was not totally brand new, but had only recently become more affordable. CCTV cameras for security have been around for years, for example, but they are no longer only an option for the mega-rich.
The Forsey family consists of a husband and wife with four children and two grandchildren. They appear to be very natural and ordinary on the programme, and it was always interesting to see how they reacted to the technology they were testing. One example that sticks in the mind is when Janine, the mother, enters her reconstructed, all-white home (after successfully unlocking her new front door by using her thumb print as a key), and she immediately bursts into tears – quite understandably it has to be said. A short while later, her husband Ben gets locked out because the skin on his thumb is too rough. As the series progresses, however, they slowly come to accept the technology, and even start to believe it could have some value in their lives.
I was keen to see during the show if anything emerged as potentially future-proof, and there were some great examples. To help Janine deal with various worries, she was provided with a mind-controlled relaxation tool. This was a kind of headband connected to a DVD, which, incredibly, she could control with her thoughts. When she relaxed mentally, she made an image of the sun go down, as it would at night, on the DVD. When she had tried the gadget and achieved the sun set, she was asked how effective the gadget had been. Janine commented, ‘Nothing can compare to a nice cup of tea and a good soap opera!’
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In 1997, Americans drank an average of 2 gallons (7.57 litres) of alcohol per person. This translates roughly into one six-pack of beer, two glasses of wine and three or four mixed drinks per week. About 35 percent of adults don’t consume alcohol, so the numbers are actually higher for those who do; alcohol is an amazingly popular social phenomenon.
If you have ever seen a person who has had too much to drink, you know that alcohol is a drug that has widespread effects on the body, and the effects vary from person to person. People who drink might be the ‘life of the party’ or they might become sad and droopy. Their speech may slur and they may have trouble walking. It all depends on the amount of alcohol consumed, a person’s history with alcohol and a person’s personality. Even though you have seen the physical and behavioral changes, you might wonder exactly how alcohol works on the body to produce those effects. What is alcohol? How does the body process it? How does the chemistry of alcohol work on the chemistry of the brain?
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Athletics in Jamaica
Jamaica has produced some of the world’s best athletes, including stars such as Usain Bolt and Veronica Campbell-Brown. Is this success partly due to one event – the Annual Boys and Girls Championships?
The four-day Championships have taken place every year since 1910. Nearly 200 school students take part in front of an audience of over 30,000 people. The event is also shown on live TV, and the whole country watches what is sometimes called Jamaica’s mini-Olympics. The competitors take it very seriously, and they all want to win. Classmates and former students also come to support and encourage their schools.
School coach Dwayne Simpson has trained many young stars. He believes the Championships have an important role in the development of young athletes. They are the biggest schools competition in the world, he says, and other countries are now looking to copy them. He also believes that the Championships give young athletes a reason to practise. They want to do well for their school, so they work and train together as a team, so they produce better results.
Nathaniel Day, a young runner from Britain, has studied and trained in Jamaica for the last two years. ‘Young athletes here get experience of being on TV from the age of 12,’ he says, ‘so when they’re older, they aren’t scared of big occasions and they perform well. In the UK, athletes don’t perform in front of the cameras until they’re adults, and sometimes they find it hard to deal with.’ According to Nathaniel, the Championships also give young athletes a goal. ‘Because it’s such a big event, it gives them an idea of how exciting it is to perform in an Olympic stadium. It helps them develop the ambition to become champions.’
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Basics
Cricket is a team sport for two eleven-player teams. A formal game of cricket can last anything from an afternoon to several days. Although the game play and rules are very different, the basic concept of cricket is similar to that of baseball. Teams bat in successive innings and attempt to score runs, while the opposing team fields and attempts to bring an end to the batting team’s innings. After each team has batted an equal number of innings (either one or two, depending on conditions chosen before the game), the team with the most runs wins.
( Note: In cricket-talk, the word Innings is used for both the plural and the singular. Inning is a term used only in baseball. )
Equipment
Cricket Ball:
Hard, cork and string ball, covered with leather. A bit like a baseball (in size and hardness), but the leather covering is thicker and joined in two hemispheres, not in a tennis ball pattern. The seam is thus like an equator, and the stitching is raised slightly. The circumference is between 224 and 229 millimeters (8.81 to 9.00 inches), and the ball weighs between 156 and 163 grams (5.5 to 5.75 ounces). Traditionally the ball is dyed red, with the stitching left white. Nowadays white balls are also used, for visibility in games played at night under artificial lighting.
Cricket Bat:
Blade made of willow, flat on one side, humped on the other for strength, attached to a sturdy cane handle. The blade has a maximum width of 108 millimeters (4.25 inches) and the whole bat has a maximum length of 965 millimeters (38 inches).
Wickets:
There are two wickets – wooden structures made up of a set of three stumps topped by a pair of bails. Three wooden posts, 25 millimeters (1 inch) in diameter and 813 millimeters (32 inches) high. They have spikes extending from their bottom end and are hammered into the ground in an evenly spaced row, with the outside edges of the outermost stumps 228 millimeters (9 inches) apart. This means they are just close enough together that a cricket ball cannot pass between them.
Bails:
Two wooden crosspieces which sit in grooves atop the adjacent pairs of stumps.
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JUNGHEINRICH AG NEWS
Hamburg: In the third quarter of 2006, the Jungheinrich Group achieved another strong rise in incoming orders. The decision to prolong the reengineering of production is bearing fruit: The Group improved its production capacity by 20 % over the same quarter last year. This benefited both net sales and income.
In the third quarter of 2006, the value of incoming orders rose by 21 % to €474 million (prior year: €392 million). The value of incoming orders after the first nine months totalled €1,399 million compared to €1,229 million posted in the corresponding period in 2005. This represents a rise of 14%. Orders on hand from new truck business expanded considerably as well: As of September 30, 2006, they amounted to €313 million, exceeding the year-earlier figure (€212 million) by about 48%. Since the beginning of the year, the value of orders on hand has risen by €144 million, or 85%.
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Dear Mr. Smith,
In the future, if you find that the continuing growth of your company makes it necessary to expand its present office space, we hope that you consider the new Chambers Plaza Towers for your next location.
Enclosed are some brochures which describe in more detail the building services and appointments, parking space, accommodation, and some of the typical office spaces currently available. The office-space plans in the Towers are unique by virtue of the building’s triangular design, affording maximum use of the column-free floor space and eliminating the need for interior corridors. The 38-storey buildings offer spectacular panoramic views in all directions, serving as a focal point of Chambers City.
We would be delighted to have you visit the Towers so that you might see for yourself the many fine building features that have been implemented to make the Towers far superior to most competitive new buildings in the St. Petersburg area.
May I call you in a few days to discuss how we might assist you in the evaluation of your office space requirements? Meanwhile, if you would like to stop by to visit us, please feel free to do so.
Basics