Month: February 2013

Causing Future Shock

I would probe what total history means: what can you do with a transcript of everything said in your vicinity, from that point forward?
How do you speed up your life to have enough time to watch the “best of” of other people’s life streams?
What does a world look like where lying is really, really hard?
What are memories, anyway, if remembering is the default and forgetting a decision, and rewatching your memories hits you in the stomach because you had a rose-colored recollection?
How do we avoid turning the world into a safe, boring disneyland when you can’t get lost ever again?
How do social norms change when no one will ever be in the moment again?
Who will write the monitoring to alert you about anomalies the contacts version of glass detects in your vital signs?

Seeking Glass Explorers
Last year we showed Glass to the world for the first time – we jumped out of airships, crashed New York Fashion Week and even took a ride on the subway. It’s been an exhilarating journey so far and there’s a lot more to come, but we can’t go it alone. We’re developing new technology that is designed to be unobtrusive and liberating, and so far we’ve only scratched the surface of the true potential of Glass.

Now we want you to get involved and that’s why today we’re expanding our Glass Explorer Program. We’re looking for bold, creative individuals who want to join us and be a part of shaping the future of Glass. Glass is still in the early stages, so we expect there will be some twists and turns along the way. While we can’t promise everything will be perfect, we can promise it will be exciting.

We’d love to make everyone a Glass Explorer, but we’re starting a bit smaller. So, if you want to be one of the first Explorers, go to How to get one find out how.

#ifihadglass

Uncanny Dolls

When Ms. Martinez travels, she will sometimes bring one of her own 5 reborn dolls to photograph people’s reactions. She prefers to carry them in open bags because she feels uneasy putting them into closed containers, and her suitcases are always searched by airport security if a doll shows up in a scan. This leads to unusual encounters — like when other people in line get upset thinking that a real baby is about to be harmed by X-rays as they pass through security

apparently there is a hobby of modding dolls to make them as lifelike as possible. hilarity ensues when these dolls go through an x-ray at the airport.

Frantic police smashed a window to rescue a seemingly unconscious baby from a locked vehicle in Queensland last week only to find it was an extremely lifelike doll.

In this clip, Good Morning America travels to the homes of the women who buy Reborns, which the women treat like real infants. One woman throws her dolls birthday parties and invites actual children to attend the events. Another woman carries her dolls around with her and has to inform cooing strangers that her life-like dolls are not actually living babies. Awkwardness all around!

another tool for the overpopulation problem. whatever helps.

Realistic play

the 4-year-old of a coworker has pretend Skype conversations with imaginary friends on his toy-that-looks-like-a-computer, and the first few minutes of these pretend conversations go as follows: “I can see you but I can’t hear you. Now I can hear you but I can’t see you.”

Friend portfolio

I see a new revenue stream for Facebook here — some kind of automated friend-portfolio management app that optimizes your mix of friends and alerts you whenever a buddy spends too much time in a bad neighborhood or starts hanging out with low-lifes. Maybe Facebook could even set up an exchange for trading friend-portfolio derivatives. You could have everything from Aaa-rated friend portfolios (stable marriages, high-net-worth zip codes, regular statin intake) to speculative junk-rated friend portfolios (druggies, socialists, poets).

Aerosolized sulfuric acid

Customize several Gulfstream business jets with military engines and with equipment to produce and disperse fine droplets of sulfuric acid. Fly the jets up around 20 kilometers—significantly higher than the cruising altitude for a commercial jetliner but still well within their range. The planes spray the sulfuric acid, carefully controlling the rate of its release. The sulfur combines with water vapor to form sulfate aerosols, fine particles less than 1 micrometer in diameter. These get swept upward by natural wind patterns and are dispersed over the globe, including the poles. Once spread across the stratosphere, the aerosols will reflect ~1% of the sunlight hitting Earth back into space. Increasing the planet’s albedo will partially offset the warming effects caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases.

If operations were begun in 2020, it would take 25k tons of sulfuric acid to cut global warming 50% after 1 year. Once underway, the injection of sulfuric acid would proceed continuously. By 2040, 11 jets delivering ~250k tons of it each year, at an annual cost of $700m, would be required to compensate for the increased warming caused by rising levels of CO2. By 2070, the program would need to be injecting a bit more than 1m tons per year using a fleet of 100 aircraft. One of the startling things about Keith’s proposal is just how little sulfur would be required. A few grams of it in the stratosphere will offset the warming caused by a ton of CO2

since these schemes are cheap enough and consensus unobtainable (who gets a say?) we’ll very likely see surprise unilateral action by rich individuals, companies or states once the situation gets dire enough.

Huge boost to trade

this is the most ambitious trade agreement being worked on in 20 years. usually the chances for this would be slim to none, but with governments on both sides in dire financial straits it could actually happen.

Goods already flow freely between the United States and the E.U. Much of the value of a free-trade pact would come through reducing regulatory red tape so that — for example — the 2 sides would adopt common policies on food safety, pharmaceutical testing, patents and other complex regulatory issues.

Anna maria

The vast majority of what is now in the Uffizi Gallery, Pitti Palace, Palazzo Vecchio, the Laurenziana library, Magliabecchiana library, Palatine library, a large chunk of the Bargello and everything in the smaller suburban Medici villas would be gone. Florence as we know it today would not exist. Think of how prescient Anna Maria was to recognize the value of her family holdings to city tourism.

anna maria was one badass woman.