Chimero: On Writing at Starbucks

I can focus on the words, because the rest of the environment is vignetted in a fuzziness produced by its lack of opinion on the world.

Frank Chimero

Shit Silicon Valley Says

Love it. I probably should be there to say these things.

Undetectable Technology

Science fiction author Karl Schroeder has an interesting answer to the Fermi Paradox, which asks why there is no evidence for extraterrestrial life given the high probability for its existence:

Basically, either advanced alien civilizations don't exist, or we can't see them because they are indistinguishable from natural systems. I vote for the latter.

For the interested news reader, the distinction between what's natural and what's artificial is already blurring in the fields of biology and chemistry. It is mind-boggling, though, that the most advanced technology might be undetectable because it appears to us as natural physical phenomena.

Simple is Hard

Some things—apps, presentations, speeches, appliances—are simple, but feel just right. I have to remind myself every now and then that it takes hard work to achieve that effect. 

About Time

Sean Carroll writes about time itself in Discover: 

Intuitively we think that the “now” is real, while the past is fixed and in the books, and the future hasn’t yet occurred. But physics teaches us something remarkable: every event in the past and future is implicit in the current moment.

Finally somebody who thinks about things that matter (ha!). Seriously, some of this stuff might not be entirely surprising for anyone interested in physics, but the implications are enormous. 

No Small Apple USB Keyboard

Early 2009 iMac revisions shipped with a new version of the wired keyboard, which omitted the numeric pad, similar to its wireless counterpart. The full keyboard with numeric pad remained available as a built-to-order option for no extra charge, as well as a separate purchase. The A1242 was silently discontinued in December 2010. #

Noooooooooo!

U.S. Declare Martial Law

No, they didn't. The did pass the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA), however, which allows the indefinite detention of suspects by the military without trial (previously covered on this blog). That's as close as you can get without declaring martial law, only now it's a permanent, regular law.

They passed the bill despite good reasons against it (do you need any?). For a funny overview, watch the first few minutes of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show (hat tip to Eiko). 

I still can't believe this is happening.

★ Death of the Industrial Age, Rise of the Service Age

In his Vanity Fair article The Book of Jobs, Joseph Stiglitz describes the current decline of working class jobs (that Godin called the Forever Recession): 

The trauma we’re experiencing right now resembles the trauma we experienced 80 years ago, during the Great Depression, and it has been brought on by an analogous set of circumstances. Then, as now, we faced a breakdown of the banking system. But then, as now, the breakdown of the banking system was in part a consequence of deeper problems. […] The problem today is the so-called real economy. It’s a problem rooted in the kinds of jobs we have, the kind we need, and the kind we’re losing, and rooted as well in the kind of workers we want and the kind we don’t know what to do with.

Where Godin lays out the characteristics of future jobs, Stiglitz stays in the realm of classic economic advice, and demands government spending in infrastructure to move to a service economy. It comes as a surprise to no-one that the outdated, industrial education system is one of his four major targets:

We have to transition out of manufacturing and into services that people want—into productive activities that increase living standards, not those that increase risk and inequality. To that end, there are many high-return investments we can make. Education is a crucial one—a highly educated population is a fundamental driver of economic growth.

An investment in traditional educations systems is essential, but not enough. Until money put into primary and secondary education shows an effect the world will be a very different one. Funding post-secondary education and basic research will introduce new technologies and ideas. Without infrastructure to bring them to life, however, they will not prosper.

We need to prepare all organizations to use new ideas, play with them and make them better, and execute on their realization. We need to do that now. Too few are prepared for that.

Trust frees you to do meaningful things

It's incredibily difficult to build a civil society on the back of "read the fine print." Emptor fidem works so much better than caveat emptor. When we have to spend all our time watching our back and working with lawyers, it's far more challenging to get anything done

Seth Godin

Security Theater

“The only useful airport security measures since 9/11,” he says, “were locking and reinforcing the cockpit doors, so terrorists can’t break in, positive baggage matching”—ensuring that people can’t put luggage on planes, and then not board them —“and teaching the passengers to fight back. The rest is security theater.”

Bruce Schneier in Charles C. Mann's Vanity Fair article Smoke Screening