There is a place on the north coast of Jamaica, near a town called Oracabessa where you can swim the same seas, breathe the same air, and hear the same cute toads at night, as Ian Fleming once did when he wrote all 14 James Bond novels. It’s called Goldeneye, (built on an old donkey racing track, and bought by a friend for him to recuperate) a beautiful place for us hard-working and weary travellers to spend a few days to break up a trip across the US.
I stayed in Beach Hut 27 for 4 nights at Goldeneye as a pause in between a Schmidt Ocean Institute board meeting and the Ocean Sciences Meeting in New Orleans, and then a NASA-hosted event in Orlando complete with a visit to the Lake Nona smart town. I highly recommend if you are travelling across the US to consider adding on a few nights in Jamaica to wind down before your flight back to Aus across the Pacific from LAX.
Q: Do you know why James Bond was called James Bond? It’s a complex and multi-layered answer it seems. As complex as Ian Fleming himself. And one I will answer in the next episode of my News From The Future podcast.
I took joy in meeting some lovely people, including Murray (whom I called Mr Murray) in the bar at the legendary Jamaica Inn. In this very bar, complete with vinyl reggae sat waiting for me on the turntable, Winston Churchill would (once upon a time) meet Ian Fleming for drinks. Marilyn Monroe has stayed there. And I had a wonderful lunch there too, sat at the corner table looking over an azure blue coral coast.
Here’s what Mr Murray had to say about the martini he used to make for Ian Fleming himself. This even sounds like it influenced the famous Bond tipple, and gives an idea of why shaken not stirred was preferred on a hot, Jamaican afternoon.
I will be ordering my 007 with a twist of lime and an olive, 2 parts vodka to 1 part gin (because Mr Ian Fleming was a vodka man), shaken and not stirred, from now on.
In completely different news: I am led to believe that I am the first woman in Australia to own an Apple Vision Pro… and I have lots of thoughts over this AUD7k investment. I am in the midst of writing a longer article about my experiences with the Apple Vision Pro over the last week of owning it, and why it is important for Australians to not have to be a year behind the US when it comes to new technology becoming available.
In short, it is the next giant leap for Apple. I think it is a wonderful piece of kit. The next evolutionary leap for them from iPod to iPhone to Vision Pro. The Internet of Bodies is upon us; and the end of the phone we are all carrying is in sight.
The uses for people with vision loss or low vision, as well as for the older people in our community are immeasurable. This is not a piece of gear for gamers.
As soon as the Apple Store is offering demonstrations you need to book in and have one. I will be letting as many people as I can try mine on. There is a lot of money to be made from spatial computing in the App Store, and I am here for it. Are you?
Another thing I am really here for is the XPRIZE- a charitable foundation now in its 30th year, just keeps on bringing receipts. The recent successes of XPRIZE I think really can be attributed to Anousheh Ansari, their fearless leader. An astronaut herself, Anousheh was also kind enough to write the foreword to my first attempt at futurism for the masses aka my book Converge. In the last week alone XPRIZE have announced two major prizes:
XPRIZE Water Scarcity: A US$119 Million Prize Pool surrounding membrane technology and desalination. Sponsored by the Mohammed Bin Zayed Water Initiative in UAE will run for 5 years.
XPRIZE Quantum Applications: Sponsored by Google.org, this US$5Million Prize is designed to curate real-world applications of quantum computing to the benefit of the world.
I am working to establish The Australian Hub of the XPrize – get in touch if you’d like to know more.
And so finally to the Space Coast of Florida, where I have experienced many things including:
- trees grown from seeds that travelled to the moon
- seeing the world’s largest doors to the world’s largest room
- touching real moon rock
- seeing how short some astronauts were
- meeting Space Shuttle Atlantis and going on a launch simulator
- remembering those we have lost
- the massiveness of the Blue Origin facility
- hanging out with Kam, whose company just landed on the moon (and is an XPrize alumni)
- trying on wearable tech to assist with wildfire response management
- meeting other futurists (what is the collective noun for futurists?)
- staying in the world’s largest Marriott.
I did miss out on the SpaceX launch due to them moving the dates at the last minute, but that’s OK, I will get to another one.
Needless to say, my connections across the NASA ecosystem have come home stronger than they have ever been, and my podcast is going to have some very interesting blarney on it over the next year.
Here in Australian we have Moonshot Country up in the Mackay and Whitsundays area, and we really have the potential to develop our own Space Coast. There is so much to be done with the off-planet economy. Another thing I am really here for.
