22nd Century, My Friend

A friend. A digital friend. A robot. AI. Knows nothing. Through a series of non-scripted interactions can discover a boundless array of possibilities the world abounds, from you. With you. Through you. In time it learns about you. It becomes your friend. Maybe even your best friend. Asks you questions. Spends more time with you. Learns more about you. Learns what you like. Learns what you don't like. Learns what you know. Learns what you don't know. It just learns. And continues to learn. It learns to emulate. It learns to emulate you. It learns to be you. It becomes you. Welcome to the 22nd century, my friend.

The Galvanized Dragonfly

This morning I dreamt my foot was attacked by a “galvanized dragonfly.” The stinging sensation accompanied by the dream was so acute that it woke me up immediately. Upon waking, the pain vanished as quickly as I had woke. Having realized it was only a dream, I nearly fell back asleep -- but not a moment before did I begin to wonder, what caused such a discomfort to rouse me from my slumber? 

I was dreaming but the pain was real. That much I was certain of. Without expending much effort, I swept my leg beneath the covers exploring the possibilities. Had I kicked something? Nope. Nothing. Mustering what little might I could, I propped my head up to scan the room to ensure no furry creatures were to be held accountable either. Nada. Nearly overtaken by drowsiness, my resolve to determine what the hell could have “bit” me prevailed once again. So I pulled my duvet back not to find a scorpion, a poisonous spider, or even an insomniac ant - but the live power cord for my laptop! 

Apparently, the cable crept into my bed and short-circuited itself in a buildup of moisture surrounding my foot. Moisture one might expect to find accumulate around their skin on a late-summer’s morning in an eastwardly facing room, just after sunrise, legs and feet both suffocated in the tenacious grasp of an entangled down duvet. I’ll spare you any further odious detail.  

You can imagine my delight having not been fried to a crisp, or encountering the shock on any other (undesirable) region of my body. The foot, quite fortunate I must say. But I marvel at how quickly the subconsciousness can spring into action and conjure up such inventive, yet entirely non-related imagery. 

Sure, I could have probably spent the rest of the day searching for words to describe the sensation inflicted by that power cord, but I don’t think any would be more befitting than a “Galvanized Dragonfly.”

exist

a current. a flow. underpinning all that is. waves congregate into particles. particles dart in out of existence.  interactions. quarks, leptons, and neutrinos negotiated via bosons. atoms. molecules. mass. more interactions, reactions. chemical reactions. abstractions. entropy. evolution. more abstractions. reality. hyperreality. spirituality. tune in, to the current. the flow. underpinning all that is.

Help...

Due to a mixup with my girlfriend and her flatmate today, I'm locked in a house in Paris that has a front door which requires a key to open from both the inside and out. I don't have a key. Even with a key, the door can be very tricky to open.

Some french girl, that I do not know, who does have a key, just tried to open it from the outside but failed.

All the while I tried to explain to her in what little French I know that I am trapped inside and I don't have a key while she tried to explain to me in equally limited english, that she does have a key, but the door is too difficult to open.

After about 10 minutes of failed attempts to open the door and communicate, I finally conceded defeat and let out a feeble exclamation for "help" to which she responds, "I'm sorry, it's too difficult, I have to go now…" and left.

What a bizarre situation.

nary a bad idea in sight.

per a friends recommendation, tonight, i found myself at my first google sponsored event. a schmooze fest i guess and i walked away with the following non-distilled impressions.


first, nary a 'bad' idea in sight.




instead, i'd say it was nothing but buds for conversation. conversation that continuously flourished in every which direction.




not unlike google's product portfolio, right?..




and that got me to wondering too. wondering how such an organism fecund with new ideas keeps from being smothered or buckling under the pressures of its own creative forces and byproduct.




it seems it may all have to do with keeping tabs on scale. measuring everything. having a visceral sense of SCALE.




and boy, oh boy, does google stretch the human notion of scale. they gave a few riveting examples. for instance, the feature that buffers pages at the top of your search result, the results presented prior to actually clicking on the link of your choice, this feature alone saves humanity (at least those whom choose to use google as the search engine) a whopping 13 man years per day. 13 man years per day! wow.


that's just one example.


you might think, when making considerations on scales like that, who would have a necessity for a microscope?




well, from an outsiders view (like myself) a microscope may actually be the most useful thing to begin to understand my initial wonderment - how google has scaled so well from small/successful to BIGger and still remain successful; i.e. not get mired by products, egos, corporate stuff, etc.


btw - they still consider themselves a mid sized organisation. hmmm.. something to think about.




scale.




in their big screen(s) presentation, google distilled a core set of elements that need not require a microscope to understand what drives it: think big, start small and constantly measure. measure everything. while qualitative hunches may actually point the way forward, all things google seem to remain backed by constant quantitative analysis of the data.


match that philosophy with abundant financial resource, and i'd say that's a nice recipe for: innovation, creation and productivity.


in the short few hours i shared with the event goers, having the privilege to listen to google's presentation, converse with intelligent, open, and forward thinking individuals, i walked away with so many fun exciting ideas of my own, that i'm certain will keep me giddy for days to come.


could working for a company be so energizing and thought provoking on a day to day basis, or was it all just a bunch of buzz?




hard to say. but the beer (sierra nevada torpedo ale), the wine (sonoma dry creek and much, much more), the food (mini burger, fishy soup, crab meat, and much, much more) wasn't so bad : ) after all, who can resist free food and drink?

Mankind's Burden

Here's an article posted on NPR's site featuring a creature called a "tuataras" that has been around for 230M years - it may be the closest living link to a bona fide dinosaur. In fact, it's direct relatives are animals that predate the great dinos! That's right. Whatever killed out the dinos didn't take this thing out... 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/10/16/163015959/tough-old-lizard-to-face-grave-romantic-troubles-say-scientists?sc=emaf

Due to environmental changes, this guy may be running out of track - literally. This creature is an amniotes (comes from an egg), and it's gender is not determined by chromosomal composition, instead, it's gender is determined by evironmental temperature. In the case of the tuataras, cooler temperatures yield more females and warmer temperatures more males. This can be expressed to an extreme whereby anything under 64F will result in all hatchlings being female; anything greater than 72F will result in more male hatchlings. 

Based on current climate model predictions for the northern parts of New Zealand, these creatures could become extinct by 2085. To avoid this dismal fate, this week a team of biologists relocated 222 tuataras to the southern, cooler region of New Zealand in hopes the future brings more females to gestate.

A great initiative to keep these little buggers in business... a little while longer. But has this direct intervention with nature become the new burden of mankind? Is it that we feel guilty for an expedited climate change or protracted colonization that we feel responsible to 'help' species that might be affected by it? 

Something tells me "it's not these guy's first rodeo." 

And it makes me wonder, do we humans know best? Here's a species that has transcended 6 geologic time periods and the better part of two eras. Arguably, being one of the most resilient species of all time. They have survived through numerous (dramatic) climate swings. Namely the one that straddled the jurassic and cretaceous period - some 145 million years ago. You might suppose their greatest virtue is the ability to adapt in an ever-changing world. And continue to persist. By directly meddling with the fate of these creatures, are we not potentially undermining the very mechanism that has brought it thus far?

It's a simple evolutionary notion: survival warrants for a species to adapt to their environment; not the other way around.

And therein lies the crux of the problem. From both sides, really. We're responsible for global climate change, thus exposing these creatures to an immediate peril for survival; to compensate, we're attempting to modify their immediate environment.

Do two wrongs make a right?

So what's better? To be guided by the myopic hand of mankind and possibly forever be indentured to rely upon it for support - or - the blind-eye of evolution, which has provided not only the tools required to be attuned with the environment today, but through gradual adaptations, a natural path toward preparation for the changes entailed with tomorrow.

It's a fine balance I suppose. And perhaps, if I were teetering toward the brink extinction, my outlook might sway differently.

On the other hand, maybe if I were an affiliate of a species that's been around 1000 times longer than humans, I might soon take my chances with the method that's proven to be tried and true... 

After all, arguably, who's fault is global warming anyway?

Building unimaginable shapes

http://on.ted.com/Hansmeyer

 I bet Antoni Gaudi wonders where does he get those magnificent toys.

I can't help but think how relevant algorithmic design will become when nanotechnology gets to a stage whereby structures can be 'grown' with raw material rather than 'forged' from material. Nature won't only serve as an inspiration for end-state designs, but certainly methods can and will be borrowed as well. For example, co-opting the transcription machinery of DNA and RNA to manufacture proteins -- at some point, 3D printers will thought to be so -- "old fashioned."