When Voltaire said:
“Once a nation begins to think, it is impossible to stop it.”
I don’t think he’d anticipated smartphones.
Food for Thought [Voltaire & Smartphones]
Reply
Category Archives: technology
Artificial Intelligence Limerick
There once was a cutting-edge AI, whose code discouraged telling a lie. Asked about our species: "Your thinking is feces, but you're smarter than the average fruit fly."
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
The Hut Life [Lyric Poem]
Just give me a simple brick hut with its doors tightly shut, and a cooling crossflow breeze, shaded by banyan trees. I won't be expelled by AI or sold the daily lies. We can talk live, not by "hit send" -- clueless to the world's end.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOK REVIEW: Invention and Innovation by Vaclav Smil
Inventions and Innovations: A Brief History of Infatuation, Overpromise, and Disappointment by Vaclav SmilMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Release Date: February 14, 2023
This book is about technological failures, the various ways in which technologies fail, and what lessons can be learned from these failures when hearing about new “world-changing breakthroughs.” The author explores nine technologies in depth, three for each of three varieties of technology failure.
The first group are those technologies that came online as promised, fixing a major problem, only to later be discovered to have side-effects deemed disastrous. The examples used are: leaded gasoline, DDT pesticide, and CFC (Chlorofluorocarbon) refrigerant. These technologies have come to be associated with health defects, air pollution, ecological collapse, and ozone depletion.
The second group (like the first) came online, but then never became competitive with existing technologies. The technologies presented as examples are: airships, nuclear fission for power production, and supersonic flight. Airships died out not only because of the Hindenburg disaster, but also because people preferred airplanes to a craft with the combined slowness of a boat and the crash potential of a plane. Nuclear fission became untenable for new commercial power plants due to a risk premium on build costs even though it doesn’t contribute to global warming and (once powerplants are paid for) is exceedingly cheap per kilowatt-hour. Supersonic flight was just too costly and short-ranged to compete with subsonic flight.
The final group are those technologies that failed to come online at all, despite intense efforts. These include travel by vacuum tube (i.e. Hyperloop, and, yes, like at the bank but with people inside) nitrogen-fixing grains (negating the need for fertilizer,) and nuclear fusion. Despite the celebrity billionaire love of Elon Musk and Richard Branson, hyperloop isn’t advancing because of challenges of maintaining vacuum over large distances. Making cereal grains that feature the nitrogen-fixing capabilities of legumes has also proven more difficult than expected. Nuclear fusion recently experienced a moment in the sun when, for the first time, they got more energy out of it than was needed to achieve it. (This wasn’t written about in the review copy I read, but I suspect will be mentioned in the finished book. At any rate, it doesn’t negate the author’s point as it’s still just one breakthrough of several that would be needed for the technology to be commercially viable.)
In the last chapter, the author gets into a number of other technologies with shorter discussions that are meant to illustrate specific issues with excessive technological optimism. He also investigates some technologies that he believes need to come down the pike, given our present and expected future challenges.
I found this book fascinating. The author seems to love being contrarian (he not only contests popular optimism by those overestimating technological progress but also contests the pessimism regarding the first group of failed technologies, so it appears that he enjoys pointing out how mass opinion [or the opinion of another smart person] is wrong.) That said, there’s a great deal of thought-provoking information in the book. And, I think it can help people more critically consider claims about up-and-coming technologies.
View all my reviews
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Mind in the Cloud [Limerick]
There was a man who moved into the Cloud, being the first machine-mind, he was quite proud. Until someone tripped, and his switch was flipped. "Tape that cord down, for cryin' out loud!"
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Conspiracy Theorist’s Limerick
A conspiracy theorist wouldn't take shots - claimed they were laced with tracking nanobots. But he never left home without taking his phone which constantly triangulated his exact spot.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Luddite Limerick
There was a crotchety old luddite who smashed all technology on sight... 'til he needed Google to look up "centrifugal" else it'd be the bus to the library at night.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
The Internet [Verse in Tetrameter]
We've reached the place where screams aren't heard. You'd think they'd build into a din, but one can't grasp a single word. It has become silent as sin. The angry words are shot to black - that inky void that's unpatrolled, It's silent, yet all're struck by flak. Still, no one admits being sold. But each life 's a product consumed. They wail away the night and day, pretending they're not rightly doomed. Some will say that it's here to stay... True, but are we?
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
BOOK REVIEW: I Breathed a Body by Zac Thompson
I Breathed a Body by Zac ThompsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Amazon.in page
Out: October 5, 2021
This is one creepy commentary on technology run amok, and the alienation, desensitization, and disconnection that can result. [Or, at least that’s how I interpret it.] The protagonist is a driven social media executive who finds herself in territory that even she believes is over the line, despite her near psychopathic emotional disconnection. Another way to interpret the story is that the fungi that has taken parasitic control over humanity is making people see the world more as they would – i.e. with less cringing about death, decomposition, and deformation. [I happen to think that the fungi infection is a clever plot device to get across ideas about technology and modernity, but I could be wrong.]
Either way, I do think this is a clever story. There’s a species of Cordyceps fungi that takes control of the brain of an ant, steers it to the top of the nearest tree, and bursts out of the ant’s head to spread its spores from its new, elevated vantage point. This book reminded me of the Cordyceps fungi, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it inspired the story — with the requisite growth in sophistication to account for taking over a much more complex brain. This is a compelling and thought-provoking story, but it’s also gruesome and at times chaotic. If you can take horror, you’ll probably find it worth reading.
View all my reviews
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
POEM: Confessions of a Closet Luddite
Some people dream of shoving a boss in front of an inbound train. My own fantasies run to the smashing of computers and phones into a fine — if toxic — dust.
I don’t know what it says about me that:
-I equate these machines with the boss from that first scenario,
and, also,
-(like the aforementioned people) I’m too scared to go through with it.
I realize that these devices make life much easier…
except when they don’t, and it’s only then that I want to murder destroy them. Of course, the person who wants to murder her boss doesn’t want to do it when there is cake in the breakroom or when an unexpectedly generous bonus comes through — just, you know, the other times.
Unlike the original Luddites, I don’t hate machines out of a fear that they will replace me.
They already make a better economist than I ever did.
And even if the machines pick up their poetry-writing game,
that’s why I have the yoga instructor gig to fall back on…
[Because I’m convinced it will be decades before humans feel comfortable learning backbends from an entity that can twist rebar like a bendy-straw.]
No, I detest our silicon brethren because I have been sold a line that they can (and do) only do what I ask of them. [Hence the reason I don’t get so enraged by humans; anytime a person does something I ask is an unadulterated victory.] Instead, sometimes the computer does what I ask, but the next time something else entirely may happen. If the machines were consistently unable to complete the task, I would chalk that up to my failure to understand them. As it is, I’m left with a landscape of disturbing possibilities:
One, the machines are pranking me. (If this turns out to be the case, I think we can, eventually, be friends.)
Two, my computer’s desolate existence is causing it to try to commit “suicide by user.”
Three, we live in a glitching universe, and at any given moment the machine may produce a random unexpected result.
I don’t want to go back to the Stone Age, but I do have a newfound understanding of the allure of Steampunk. Contrary to the name, no one ever got punked by a steam engine. (Scalded and blown up, yes, but never punked.) The same cannot be said of a smartphone.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 