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Still this thing, 20 years on:
Kinda true, how this thing even worked, nobody knows
The tape head is basically a small and really sensitive electromagnet. Magnetized tape creates small disturbances in the magnetic signal. Amplify those disturbances and you get sound. Similar to an antenna, but only works in close proximity.
This also works in reverse. Feed an audio signal through the electromagnet, and the electromagnet will create the disturbances in whatever is next to it. You can do this to record to a tape, or you can do this to pass sound to another tape head, which is how these aux cassettes work.
You can build one yourself really easily. Just take the tape head from a broken player and solder to an aux cable. Take a cassette, remove the tape, and put the tape head in the middle portion so it comes into contact with the player tape head.
Of course it's Technology Connections. Who else would make a video about a (now) useless piece of 80's tech with enough content to satisfy any level of curiosity.
I think of it as extremely 00s. It’s the “I only have an mp3 player/phone and my computer doesn’t take aux” device
A full working computer, more powerful than what we used to go to the moon, and using less power than a light bulb.
It can take many forms, like smartphones, SBCs or older PCs/laptops.
You can buy an ESP board that meets all those qualifications from AliExpress for less than $3CAD shipped.
Setting one of those up was the first time in a while I’ve been so impressed with just how cheap and accessible tech has gotten. It’s a web server with WiFi and Bluetooth shipped to my door all for the price of a chocolate bar.
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If you shop around you can find a Brother (B&W) laser printer for about $100.
Imagine this weird future: Printers that always just work no matter what type of computer you have or how long they've sat since you last used them. And the "ink" cartridges last forever. And you can buy 3rd party refills or even refill them yourself. Plus it's completely reliant on microplastics to do its job, what's more futuristic than that?
Even better, if you scour your local thrift stores you can occasionally find them for as little as $10 and all they typically need is a cleanup and a new toner cartridge.
I bought mine for $7 4 years ago and it's still working on the toner cartridge that was in the printer when I bought it.
Admittedly, I only print about 40 or 50 pages a year but that's a hell of a deal.
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Raspberry Pis and other microcomputers can be had for pretty cheap, and they can be put to a surprising variety of tasks. You need to be a bit of a jack of all trades to fully embrace that DIY element, but I'd bet that showing off a project that you mostly built yourself would be seen as futuristic by most people.
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lighters. fire on demand! for all of preindustrial human history these things would be worth more than gold
A 1TB micro SD card
3 sea shells.
At the sea shore
A bow drill fire starter.
...I suppose it depends on what you assume the future will be like...
Barring that, you can get some small vials of tritium gas for under that price.
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I think the deauther watch is pretty cool if we're thinking cyberpunk-esque
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Probably a cheap 3D printer
I'm actually blown away by how good of a 3D Printer you can get for ~$200 now. Huge improvement from just a few years ago.
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A knife. Futuristic in that it will be handy for hunting and self-defense after the future collapse of civilization that results from our insatiable appetite for consumption - of, among other things, useless gadgets.
It's interesting the difference in what people think a collapsed civilization will look like.
Some people think we will "return to monke" where wilderness survival skills will be essential and people who have them will be the "main characters." That would probably be the easier and better future.
The more likely option will be technofeudalism where rich people have small, brutal armies and control localized power grids, farming operations, and politics with tech as mass migrations happen and wildlife becomes all but extinct outside of human cultivation. Survival skills won't matter when all land and food scarcity is controlled by a rich few with absolute control. The average survivalist will be wiped out with the first natural disaster or by the feudal lords with drones. Return to nature might only come after 50 years when chip supplies and power grids have dried up and fallen apart, but it would just as likely be mad-max as oil could likely still be used.
Who knows. Fascism might take over with how it is going now and solve the climate crisis with mass genocide and forcing green energy for all we know.
I see you've read Yanis Varoufakis. In all realism though, a fallen society is most likely to be a result of climate change. First it gets too hot for Africans, so their only option is to move northward and eastward to the Middle East. This results in tightened borders and the death of many due to heatstroke and dehydration - I also don't doubt a slave trade-like and human exploitation era might come about because of this. Increased demand for AC's in the west will also be a byproduct of this. Melting ice caps will also increase the danger to many of those living in coastal regions - Florida probably sinks faster than we'd predicted.
All of this I project to happen within the next 50 years where the problems are left for Gen Z and further generations to deal with.
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Poop knife, it's the future I tell ya!
Get one in damascus for really deluxe poop cutting experience!
I feel like that really depends on how you view futuristic.
I think things with colored e-ink displays, USB C chargeable AA batteries, handheld emulators, 2230 NVMe drives, and USB C power portable displays are really cool but I feel like their availability these days has made them lose a bit of their futuristic luster. They would have blown my mind when I was a kid.
More niche products like Meshtastic and ESP32 Marauder devices are things I view as futuristic (and can be found for under $100).
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Otamatone.
It's a synthesizer shaped like a note with a mouth and eyes.
You can buy a drone for, like, $5. So a swarm of drones for $100 seems pretty futuristic.
where can I buy a drone for 5$?
As long as you don't ask any questions... I got you. Meet me beside the dumpster at wendys. I prefer to be paid directly in drugs but cash app is fine to.
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Devices less sophisticated than smart phones were once pretty common in sci-fi novels, but they still achieved the same sort of thing, all the world's knowledge in the palm of your hand.
You can get smartphones for absurdly cheap these days, and while crappy by modern standards they're still technological marvels.
I once found a curved 4k monitor at my local thrift shop for $70.
While "good for you" and "congrats", it's not something anyone can buy for under 100 bucks.
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An R36s is like 40 bucks, and can emulate a LOT of old game consoles. I think that's pretty neat
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Anything with GPS capability
Amazon and Walmart have microwaves under $100
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this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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