Focusing on the fabric as the problem ignores the other major issue of the wasteful way we clean our clothes. This could potentially be much improved if we developed alternative ways of cleaning our clothes that didn’t waste resources and pollute as much as the current system: using lots of water, energy to heat the water, detergents to clean, energy to generate friction and circulation, dumping the waste into nature.
Are there any current efforts/research into new and better (efficient & sustainable) fabric cleaning systems?
I think we've been working quite hard on that problem. Most of the detergents I use today (in the UK) are now cold water detergents, that don't need warm water for every day use. Modern front-loading washing machines use about 50 litres (10 gallons) for a full load - about a fifth of old top-loaders.
I seem to recall some research into using ultrasound to clean fabrics, but I'm not sure where we are on that.
Modern machines vary the water consumption based on the load, so in reality it's even less. On a 40c wash they will consume around 0.5kWh of electricity.
I've heard a lot that the new "high efficiency" washers are a bit of a joke; while they may use less resources, they also are far less effective at cleaning, which just causes users to run the cycle multiple times.
It somewhat reminds me of the old saying about optimisation in software: "The most efficient way to do something is to not do it at all."
Not exactly something to follow when it comes to cleaning, however...
You really want to uv treat your cold washed clothes, though (hang them outside). It kills bacteria about as well as bleach - see this subthread and story:
Well, we live in a world that's bombarded with UV, so there could be some drawback to living in an environment artificially shielded from it. Both may be nonsterile, but that doesn't imply they are the same.
I think Apple's current approach, where all the smarts (Machine Learning, Differential Privacy, Secure Enclave, etc.) reside on your device, not in the cloud, is the most promising. As imagined in so much sci-fi (eg. the Hosaka in Neuromancer) you build a relationship with your device which gets to know you, your habits and, most importantly in regard to search, what you mean when you search for something and what results are most likely to be relevant to you. An on-device search agent could potentially be the best solution because this very personal and, crucially, private device will know much more about you than you are (or should be) willing to forfeit to the cloud providers whose business is, ultimately, to make money off your data.
>, where all the smarts [...] reside on your device, not in the cloud, is the most promising. [...] An on-device search agent could potentially be the best solution [...]
Maybe I misunderstand your proposal but to me, this is not technically possible. We can think of a modern search engine as a process that reduces a raw dataset of exabytes[0] into a comprehensible result of ~5000 bytes (i.e. ~5k being the 1st page of search result rendered as HTML.)
Yes, one can take a version of the movies & tv data on IMDB.com and put it on the phone (e.g. like copying the old Microsoft Cinemania CDs to the smartphone storage and having a locally installed app search it) but that's not possible for a generalized dataset representing the gigantic internet.
If you don't intend for the exabytes of the search index to be stored on your smartphone, what exactly is the "on-device search agent" doing? How is it iterating through the vast dataset over a slow cellular connection?
The smarts living on-device is not necessarily the same as the smarts executing on-device.
We already have the means to execute arbitrary code (JS) or specific database queries (SQL) on remote hosts. It's not inconceivable, to me, that my device "knowing me" could consist of building up a local database of the types of things that I want to see, and when I ask it to do a new search, it can assemble a small program which it sends to a distributed system (which hosts the actual index), runs a sophisticated and customized query program there, securely and anonymously (I hope), and then sends back the results.
Google's index isn't architected to be used that way, but I would love it if someone did build such a system.
To some extent, doesn't Google already do this? Meaning that based on your location/Google account/other factors such as cookies or search history, it will tailor your results. For instance, searching the same query on different computers will result in different results.
Though to your point, google probably ends up storing this information in the cloud
I think you're suggesting homomorphic encryption to execute the user's ranking model. Unfortunately, homomorphic encryption is pretty slow, and the types of operations you can do are limited. But it's viable if the data you're operating on is relatively small - e.g. just searching through (encrypted) personal messages or something.
I think you've got the right general idea, but I don't know that it has to be homomorphic encryption. After all, an index of the public web is not really secret, and the user doesn't have a private key for it.
In the simplest case, you could make a search engine in the form of a big, public, regularly-updated database, and let users send in arbitrary queries (run in a sandbox/quota environment).
That's essentially what we've got now, except the query parser is a proprietary black box that changes all the time. I don't see any inherent reason they couldn't expose a lower-level interface, and let browsers build queries. Why can't web browsers be responsible for converting a user's text (or voice) into a search engine query structure?
Or even an online search engine that was configurable where you could customize the search engine and assign custom weights to different aspects.
I'd love to be able to configure rules like:
+2 weight for clean HTML sites with minimal Javascript
+5 weight for .edu sites
-10 weight for documents longer than 2 pages
-5 weight for wordy documents
I'd also like to increase the weight for hits on a list of known high quality sites. Either a list I maintain myself, or one from an independent 3rd party.
Once upon a time I tried to use Google's custom search engine builder with only hand curated high quality sites as my main search engine. It was to much trouble to be practical, but I think that could change with an actual tool.
I remember hearing something about Differential Privacy from a WWDC keynote a few years back however I haven't heard much lately. Can you say how and where Apple is currently using Differential Privacy/
Apple uses local differential privacy to help protect the privacy of user activity in a given time period, while still gaining insight that improves the intelligence and usability of such features as:
• QuickType suggestions
• Emoji suggestions
• Lookup Hints
• Safari Energy Draining Domains
• Safari Autoplay Intent Detection (macOS High Sierra) • Safari Crashing Domains (iOS 11)
• Health Type Usage (iOS 10.2)
I didn't know that could be done. I've never even opened up the Accessibility panel. Actually, grayscale is not too bad. Everything is sharp and the contrast is high. However, I think I'll keep things in color anyway.
Alas, third-party apps—and of course websites—aren't made to be converted to grayscale. This can be easily seen by comparing custom-made monochrome icons in the menu bar to grayed icons in the dock and third-party toolbars (e.g. browser addons).
In fact a country selector would allow not just measures to be adapted but also the ingredients (eg. in some countries dry-yeast is a lot harder to find than the regular kind). Cuts of meat are different too and you often have to resort to Wikipedia's language options to see what a tenderloin cut (say) is in your own language. Finally you could have alternatives with which you could swap out any missing ingredients.
As always Douglas Adams had some keen, if slightly cynical, insight:
"The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years
radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same programme." Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
