I built myself a HUD using a VuFine LCD and a raspi Zero W. It runs a custom TUI I wrote for myself that provides an interactive terminal session surrounded by configurable text widgets.
Currently, I have widgets configured to display the date/time, the weather (near-term and week), and CPU/Mem utilization. With the main display running my combined to-do/calendar app to help keep me organized.
It’s tacky as hell, bulky and exposed wires, but I love it.
Teleportation every time. It’s just too useful. Invisibility is really only useful for mischief and security. And both can also be done with teleportation.
Invisibility, while cool, just seems like it’d only be cool for a little bit. Like, oh wow, I can sneak into the girl’s room without anyone seeing, woooh. Or I could maybe attempt to rob something and carry whatever I can hold. Meanwhile, Teleportation would mean being able to go literally anywhere on Earth instantaneously. Would almost never need a car or plane ever again in my life. You could take a vacation to a new country every weekend. You would have a get out of jail free card for life. You could talk to anybody you wanted to (assuming their security didn’t tackle and/or kill you if they were important enough).
Since I haven’t seen any of the comments mention this yet…
I think the big reason is storage/bandwidth.
Digital audio is an interesting form of media because the size of an audio file is determined almost entirely by 1) how long it is and 2) the bitrate/quality and has a lot less to do with what the actual content is. Therefore, an audio track of a video that contains dialogue and music is pretty much the same size as one that only contains music. So, if you were to, for example, separate dialogue and music of a video into two tracks to allow a user adjust the volume of either independently of the other (an amazing user experience IMO) the storage size (and bandwidth usage) of the audio virtually doubles despite no “additional” content being added.
Multiple audio track is actually something I’ve wanted for forever, especially for watching stream on Twitch. But I think it’s a pretty hefty burden to place on the service, especially if a lot of people aren’t even going to use or notice it.
I’m struggling to think of any situation in which invisibility would benefit me personally. Teleportation would save me over an hour a day of driving to/from work alone, plus hours at work itself, fuel & vehicle maintenance costs just about disappear, world travel becomes something possible to do any time of any day on a whim, you could do anything.
I think this depends on what invisible means. Does it mean no detectable signature - IR/thermal, scent, sound, etc.? Or just not on the visible light spectrum for humans? If not detectable at all, I think it would hold greater value for information gathering and have a lot of useful applications in hostage and other criminal situations, as well as state security through a very useful means of tradecraft. All that’s out the door if a couple of rottweilers can sniff me out though.
It’s a bit of a monkey’s paw question as having either power puts a huge burden of secrecy as well as the threat of danger on yourself and whomever you choose to share knowledge of it that with.
Teleportation. I suppose it would be somewhat limited by the fact that teleporting to a place where other people might be would be tricky, since I absolutely don’t want to be caught.
Even with hesitation to teleport to populated areas, the ability to teleport home would be massively useful as a utility. I could also teleport out of danger in an emergency. I wonder if I pick up a person would allow me to teleport them with me, in which case then it’s got hero potential too.
Teleportation is the queen of all powers. Invisibility can be basically mimicked with quick teleportation work if needed.
Although my legs would probably atrophy from lack of use, lol. Why walk to the kitchen when I could blink there and get a sandwich and blink back in no time at all?
Interesting view point. I would have to consider whether time still passes for the user of the power? If you freeze time for everyone else, do you still age? And if so, I would still take teleportation over that as travel would be instant vs “appearing” instant to outside perspectives.
My first instinct would have been to pick invisibility - I’m a total introvert and I do NOT enjoy having to deal with people, so knowing that noone sees me anyway sounds tempting.
… but then again, teleportation sounds even more tempting for the same reason. Need groceries? Teleport into a store after hours, grab some stuff, teleport back and enjoy the rest of the day undisturbed (and with a still full wallet) without having interacted with anyone. Need to run an errand, like sending a letter? Who needs the post office anyway when I can just teleport wherever the letter was supposed to go and stuff it into the recipient’s mailbox, then quickly teleport back…? I could sell the car since I would never need it again - no more traffic jams either. I would be on time for every appointment without having to rush. And there are a million smaller things too, like never having to worry about locking yourself out of the house.
With the stipulations given here (no limits on where, and ability to know if it’s safe) you could teleport to what astronomers speculate are earth-like planets. Grab some samples, head home, repeat. Maybe win the Nobel Prize for discovering extraterrestrial life.
Given that, it feels a bit one sided against the other option that would let you perv a locker room or get trapped in a bank vault when you trip a non-visual sensor.
If you could teleport anywhere, you could demonstrate the power to your region’s space agency and get them to build a pressurised container or suit that can go with you.
Teleport to the moon and grab some rocks for a billionaire to make some money, then teleport to Mars and repair the broken rover. Take whatever samples the space agency wants,or transport some materials there ready for the first settlers.
This is just the standard stuff. Once you start using your imagination, there’s not much of a limit :)
As others have said, invisibility versus teleportation is way too lopsided in favor of teleportation. Even if we’re talking perfect ‘you cannot be detected unless you bump into something or otherwise reveal your own presence’ invisibility, it’s still not good enough to compete with teleportation. Especially with S-tier teleportation like described there.
You’d have to really beef up the invisibility side to make it more fair. Maybe instead of just invisibility, go full incorporeal, with the ability to have gravity affect you (or not affect you) however you want, relative to whatever reference frame you want (be very careful with this) and the ability to make any part of yourself incorporeal or corporeal without it being all of you. Even then, I’d have a bit of a hard time picking this over teleporting.
Or go with the Invisible Woman’s powerset, that’d be a pretty solid other option versus that teleportation. At that point I would actually have a hard time choosing, cause that is some nice teleportation, but Sue Storm’s powers are pretty high tier as well.
Force field bubbles are wild. I bet you could use them as transportation as well. Just explode one under your feet and catch yourself with them when you land.
At a minimum you could make bridges that would let you walk/run/ride/drive though the air or across water. Still great for travel.
Teleportation. Invisibility is a nice gimmick (until you accidentally leave it on and get hit by a car, that is).
Teleportation isn’t just incredibly convenient, depending on the distances you can travel in one hop it’d also save you a lot of time (skip your commute, instantly travel to a nice vacation destination and back), and it’d be a money maker (fastest courier in the world).
Even if it was just line of sight, being able to easily reach places that are normally hard to reach or require extensive detours would be helpful. Even just crossing a busy street without having to wait for the traffic light would be a nice thing.
asklemmy
Oldest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.