For example, how much longer is the job of convenience store clerk even going to exist? Already most major supermarkets have self-serve checkout lines. Could a convenience store just have self service checkout? Of course there is the issue of security. Who’s to prevent people from just walking out with the goods. But let’s go a little further.

Google’s got self driving cars. How long till all shipping is done by A.I? There have been for a long time robot run warehouses. How long until the entire supply chain for retail goods is robot assembles, robot delivers, robot stocks selves at store, self checkout. For that matter, robot delivers to my door. Why even have the convenience store in the first place where from my phone I can ask a robot car to deliver right where I am.

I realize that it’s probably a long way off but you never know. I grew up before ATM machines when I’d be with my mom every time she had to go to the bank to get some cash to go shopping. When was the last time you went to a teller? I grew up when going to a gas station meant an attendant came and filed up your tank. Unless you live in Oregon, when was the last time you even talked to an attendant at a gas station? I drive up, put in my card, fill it up, and leave. No interaction with any attendants. Video stores are mostly gone. Music stores are gone. Bookstores, at least the chains, are dying. I love them but that’s beside the point. Things are changing. People get their news from the net. They get their books either through Amazon or on their Kindle. India will have $40 tablets if they don’t already so this isn’t a rich people thing.

I grew up before printers were common when typewriters were the norm. Then came low-res dot matrix printers and laser printers in 1985 where $4000+. Now a color printer is $50 and if you stick in nice paper it will print beautiful full color photos. Looking at 3d printers it only seems a few years away until you’ll be able to print quite a few things at home. While I suspect it will be a long time before you can print an iPad it doesn’t seem that far off until you can print most kitchen utensils, most non-soft Ikea like furniture, most flatware, tableware, bottles, containers, cabinets, bookshelves, chair, phone covers, etc.. And who knows, if they can print something as complex as human organs maybe printing computers is not that far off.

I guess the point is BIG CHANGE IS COMING. It will be exciting think about all the problems and possibilities.

I friend of mine recently pointed out this program, ArtRage which is a Painter like program with at least one major difference. It’s only $20.

ArtRage, Painter and similar products are arguably a different category from programs like Photoshop, PaintShopPro and the Gimp in that the later are primarily designed for image manipulation where as the former are designed for drawing and painting on a computer.

My experience is mostly with Photoshop so I don’t know Painter or any of the other digital art programs that well so I’m not sure what makes one better than another. My impression is ArtRage is extremely nice for $20. One feature ArtRage has that is probably standard in these types of packages but that I had not personally seen before is that when painting with oil the oil has a thinkness and dryness setting. If you paint thick non-dry oil and then draw over it with the palette knife or other utensil it will smear in proportion to it’s thickness and dryness. Most programs I’ve used in the past didn’t keep that kind of information. Another example, if you apply think oil and then draw a sharp pencil line through it you’ll part the oil meaning you’ll see the thinkness in the oil around the new pencil mark. Put different colors of paint down and smear them and they will mix into different colors. This also works for markers, draw with say a wet purple marker then draw over it with a yellow marker and it will smear and get mixed just like real markers.

Anyway, for $20 it’s completely an impulse purchase. There is both a Windows and a OS X version and a free version as well.

I’m not sure where this started but links are pooring in for parodies for this song which I think is called “Dragostea Din Tei”. Check them out at your own risk.

link1 link2 link3 link4 link5 link6 link7 link8

And I guess the original? as well