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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Sneakers/Tennis/Running shoes that have automatically pop/retracting heel wheels like Heelys
You lock your shoes together a certain way to engage the wheels which lock in place so you can skate around. When you’re done, you lock in the opposite direction which causes the wheels to eject and swing out to rest on the top of the shoe so it stays out of the way.
You get the ultimate tactical shoe that you can run and play sports in which also also double as Heelys when you need them to
Optionally, make the wheels electric powered as well lol
I just want basic running shoes that are $30/pair and will not change in any way for the next 40 years. Basically, I just want a pair of New Balance shoes on sale from joesnewbalanceoutlet.com for the good old price they used to offer 3 years ago. The only problem with them at the moment is they have raised the price floor to $40 and the style rotates too much. I just want the same stupid thing every time.
Some key features:
a little rubber around the toe to keep the puddles out
breathable top
cushy bottom
dont change
I hear a lot of this BIFL for shoes stuff. I have no intention of keeping my shoes longer than 6-9 months. At $30/pair, they are disposable. When I accidentally step in dog crap, they become disposable immediately.
I also have no interest in leather. Might last a long time, but for me it is like putting a ziplock bag on my feet and it turns into a swamp real fast.
For me it’s the sense of progression. I cognitively know it’s meaningless progression but emotionally I still feel value out of that artificial progression. Like I’ve achieved something. In addition to that it’s freeing in that it’s the most objectively fair setting(I suppose this is less true in modern games than it used to be sadly) in a game it doesn’t matter who you are or what your reality is, it doesn’t exist there. No problems from your real life have to exist there so that escapism can be a very addictive coping mechanism.
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