What are /r/SciFiConcepts' favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

>A day night cycle?

This would have a pretty big effect on society. Because the moon is in a synchronous orbit with the Earth, a lunar "day" lasts about a month. If the sunrise is on the first of the month, high noon is about a week later, sunset is a week after that, and then you have about 2 weeks of darkness.

People would have to adapt artificial schedules to keep themselves functional, much like people living near Earth's poles do. I'm not sure if two weeks of darkness per month is enough to create an onset of seasonal affective disorder.

The level of nighttime darkness between a "new moon" and a "full moon" would vary more dramatically than what you're used to. This is because the earth would occupy a much greater angle of view in the nighttime sky than the moon does from our current perspective. The apparent size would be like this.

this is pretty good on the subject

https://www.amazon.com/Von-Neumanns-War-John-Ringo/dp/1416555307

​

but as to lack of resources?

there are K strategies of reproduction and R strategies

​

humans care for their limited young, and many of them (percent wise) mature to adulthood

lots of other creatures have BAZILLIONS of babies, and some survive to adulthood

if you gnaw a planet down to nothing reproducing, and launch into a sorta panspermia wide broadcast across the universe, and one planet lacks a necessary element for a self-aware/self-capable bot to reproduce, that's ok, there are the rest of the bazillions spreading in other arcs from the last planet....

heck.. you could program in to all the drones 'if you land on a planet with insufficient resources to go through a life cycle, then new program, warning beacon. Scavenge/self cannabalize enough to set up an enduring warning beacon to your future cousins 'no gold pressed latinum here'

lacking that subroutine for useless planets, eventually your corpse will be joined by the corpses of the next generation/cousins generationally removed- from the next planet down the list, with those probes spreading in a sphere, some of them will come back to the middle of the last starting point and your now middle point...

eventually you might have a planet chock full of unrequited von neuman probes of differing capabilities and knowledge shredding each other for a few molecules of lithium..... combat evolution for elemental dominance... a micro version of Mortal Engines....

• Right now, current digital assistants can't call companies over the phone to make appointments, payments, or ask questions. They can't make negotiations on behalf of humans.
• They can't fill out forms with complex/nuanced data (some password keepers can fill in addresses and such, but even that doesn't always work right).
• They can't tell if you are distracted and remind you to work on a task. They can't remind you to do another task after you finished one (only time-based tasks or an IFTTT type trigger).
• They won't give you ideas for purchasing gifts for a certain person (despite the tracking of data).
• If you find a picture of a piece of clothing, it won't tell you where you could find it to buy (or anything else about the design, designer, historical inspirations, color, fabric, etc.).
• They won't give you ideas for meals based on what you liked previously.
• They aren't a good source of accountability, just for tracking data.
• Can't accurately summarize data with information you would find relevant.

As a recommendation, the novel Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling has many discussion on art, and focuses on artist communities and how they interact in a futuristic setting. There is an interesting conflict brought on by generational and cultural shifts that is played out in the art, punk culture and choices of the characters.

Others have noted... technology facilitates this communication; art is the cultural exchange between individuals (often of different perspectives, generations, planetary cultures, alien species...).

Maybe a cyberpunk hacker/artist creates a virus that makes advertising billboards display selections of impressionist paintings, or their own artistic work. The message is still "focus on beauty, not on buying", right?

Here is my favorite site for browsing interesting things... digital, artistic etc. Maybe something there will inspire you.

Cargo Selections...

Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card has kind of a similar story. They use mirrors and such to watch and study Christopher Columbus and the story flips back and forth between the future scientists and Columbus. I was oblivious to the political motivations behind the book when I read it, but it was still a good story if I remember and the concept is cool.

Try amazon smile to donate to a charity of your choice automatically at no cost to you!
https://smile.amazon.com/Pastwatch-Christopher-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0812508645
^^^I'm ^^^a ^^^bot ^^^and ^^^this ^^^action ^^^was ^^^performed ^^^automatically.