The author’s photo is of her holding two oranges in one hand. I have unexpected joy from this.
The author’s photo is of her holding two oranges in one hand. I have unexpected joy from this.
30 minutes in: “And you don’t have to change anything if your dishwasher is working for you. But honestly, you’re probably not watching this if things are working for you.”
Me: I live my life the way I want damn it!
Over the last fifteen years of having read him, I find myself coming back to him to gain clarity of our current situation. At first, I couldn’t tell if he was a genius or mad man. I tilt towards genius now.
Edit … Isn’t that Hunter S. Thompson?
Baudrillard is always a joy to read.
I think the distractions are partially a user issue and partially a company issue. Companies make their programs noisy with notifications by default that I only change it once I’ve found it annoying. They also make their program so bloated that they are slow to load and execute. By the time the app loads, I’ve lost my flow and now the tool is a nuisance. My mind is already cluttered. I don’t need tech to slow it down.
I want those things and I want a phone that’s easy to use, doesn’t constantly advertise to me, and is more of a helpful tool than a distraction.
Oof…
You are the voice of authority. Your words can wound.
This podcast episode strong critiques the technical challenges, lifecycle costs, and market effort of hydrogen. I was hydro-curious before this, but it really seems unfeasible.
The chemical engineer being interviewed, Paul Martin, has been working with hydrogen for years.
Paul Martin is a Canadian chemical engineer with decades of experience making and using hydrogen and syngas. As a chemical process development specialist, Paul offers services to an international clientele via his private consultancy Spitfire Research. He is also co-founder of the Hydrogen Science Coalition, a nonprofit organization providing science-based information about hydrogen from a position free from commercial interest
I actually wonder if that’s a benefit for young people just starting out on their career journey. It’s mostly about feelings and a general sense and not specific opportunities to advance a career. In a lot of ways, a well established manager whose from another generation is not in time with those feelings and the difficulties with navigating them in a complex corporate environment.
Engineers in the US regularly stop at the bachelor’s level.
“It is better that one hundred innocent college students fail a class than that one guilty college student write a paper with AI.” - Benjamin Academic
This is an addendum to the original lease. They don’t have to sign it and the landlord still has to honor the terms of the original lease.
This is an addendum. The renter has the right to refuse to sign it and the leasor still has to honor the original lease. I’m assuming the signature portion is cropped out. But if there’s no signature line provided, that some real shady business.
This is probably more of a failing of infrastructure and planning than technology. But I think if we only handle advances in technology as a thing on paper and not a thing in society used by people, then we miss an important, but simple point. Technologies are used by people and they is the only way they can change society.
Any case, toilets ruined London for a couple of decades:
As the population of Britain increased during the 19th century, the number of toilets did not match this expansion. In overcrowded cities, such as London and Manchester, up to 100 people might share a single toilet. Sewage, therefore, spilled into the streets and the rivers.
This found its way back into the drinking water supply (which was brown when it came out of the pipes) and was further polluted by chemicals, horse manure and dead animals; as a result, tens of thousands died of water-borne disease, especially during the cholera outbreaks of the 1830s and 1850s.
In 1848, the government decreed that every new house should have a water-closet (WC) or ash-pit privy. “Night soil men” were engaged to empty the ash pits. However, after a particularly hot summer in 1858, when rotting sewage resulted in “the great stink (pictured right in a cartoon of the day)”, the government commissioned the building of a system of sewers in London; construction was completed in 1865. At last, deaths from cholera, typhoid and other waterborne diseases dropped spectacularly.
The Great Stink only arises because of the development of a sewer system that piped all the sewage to the Thames. And it didn’t stop with the stink:
Despite Bazalgette’s ingenuity, the system still dumped tons of raw sewage into the Thames - sometimes with unfortunate results. The death toll from the sinking of the pleasure boat Princess Alice in 1878 would certainly have been smaller if it had sunk elsewhere on the Thames. As it was, it went down close to one of the main sewage outfalls. Approximately 640 passengers died, many poisoned rather than drowned. Horror at the deaths was instrumental in the building of a series of riverside sewage treatment plants. [Science Museum]
So that’s just one example of toilet technology causing a mess. I bet there are others such as the need for an ‘S’ pipe. But ultimately, technological improvements require a little foresight, insight, feedback and a lot of social power.
This is not about women being free to go shirtless which is fair, this about eyeballs and ads. This lazy sex work. This corporate giants profiteering. This about that corporate giants maintaining brand image control. Reducing it to a slogan is missing the rest of the picture.
Saw a typo on Nature’s blog today. Made my whole breakfast sad.
I think you’re absolutely correct here. I’ll point out that they are a luxury product and among the wealthy, highly popular. And while they don’t capture a large portion of the units sold, they capture a large portion of revenues. On top of that, Apple’s market share has grown by 1/3 year over year while cell phone sales were flat.
None of this changes anything and think Apple should comply, but I see why they might. I guess I don’t see a situation where they wouldn’t complain. These companies are so emotional.
HAL was dreamt up after the first generation of AI reseacher made audacious claims that AGI was really close. For example, He Simon said “machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do.”
The issue isn’t that we can or can’t do it, we aren’t even sure what it is or how to test for it yet.
I wish I had a friend who could just be there while I tried to get it set up. Honestly, I’d peroxide pizza, beer, and video games just so I don’t collapse in a mess of confusion and self doubt when something goes wrong. I don’t mind doing the work, but I don’t know if I have the patience to figure it all out.