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Thursday, December 11, 2008

What if... #11

What if we could grow hardware on trees?


This post is part of the 2008 advent series "What if..."

10 comments:

  1. If grown on coniferous trees, silicon valley would be located in Washington
    or Oregon or Norway.
    In case of beeches or oaks appalachian
    forests or Germany/France were the
    procucing countries.
    The old landowning "gentry" still were
    the most influential, fruit pickers union the
    most influential trade union.
    Best Regards
    Georg

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm guessing that eventually someone will figure out how to do that through genetic engineering. Keratin is a pretty diverse and strong substance that could maybe be grown on trees and used to make things. And maybe that could lead to some way of making an 'artificial' photosynthesis/solar power generating system that is efficient enough to be worth the effort. This "power tree" concept has been on my backburner for a while, but I just don't know exactly how it could be done.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Franken-tools! The pollen wafts into cornfields to grow wrenches (not metric!) not gasohol dribbles.

    Enviro-whiners go ballistic about cellulose in chemical landfills. Vegetable rights advocates decry exploitation. West Hollywood demands the right to marry trees. Third Worlders piss and moan about fashioning their genocidal machetes at hearths.

    Hardware must be obtained as God ordained: by mining it in China.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ...then cleaning up in the fall will be even more of a chore.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Arun,

    ...then cleaning up in the fall will be even more of a chore.

    Perhaps so, yet you would have at least been naturally provided the tools required to help your do it :-)

    Best,

    Phil

    ReplyDelete
  6. -It would lead to massive reforestation and perhaps stem the tide on climate change.

    -It would transform the appearance and give multipurpose to our Industrial Parks.

    -perhaps squirrels could be trained to harvest the produce.

    -It would have industrialist also become tree huggers.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "-perhaps squirrels could be trained to harvest the produce."
    and squirrels would get some industrial
    food as "payment" :=)
    - on laterit soils in tropic regions
    aluminium cans or bikes will be grown.
    In (upper) saxonia they used to grow pretty girls
    on trees!
    Georg

    ReplyDelete
  8. almost there..

    The bamboo-laptop:

    http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,49288082,00.htm

    best

    Klaus

    ReplyDelete
  9. One of my fellow students from Indonesia 40 years
    ago had a slide ruler made from bamboo,
    but Bamboo is gras!
    Georg

    ReplyDelete
  10. I was thinking it would render high-tech trash more biodegradable.

    ReplyDelete

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