In researching a presentation I’m giving on the current state and future of electronic publishing, I found an interesting article summarizing Forrester’s projections for the eBook. We’re turning a corner with respect to adoption, with over 11 million eBook consumers in the US predicted by 2013. I don’t own a Kindle or a Nook, and I don’t want to read a novel on my iPhone or on my computer. But the power and flexibility of the eBook reader is undeniable. I will keep reading my novels on paper, and I will also own an e-reader for research, for news, and for interacting with writers and fans of similar interest. What about you?
I cried after watching this for the first time - for the loss of a great person, Carl Sagan, and for empathy with his struggle - to convey a critical message to an audience he is not convinced to be listening. In the Cosmos series there is a reference to an unnamed planet which has substantial technology, including the ability to create nuclear bombs. He ranks the odds of survival of this planet over the next hundred years at 40%. Was he referring to Earth?
I love this project. I think the world needs a version of this with about 50 parallel streams in a big frame, say 8′ wide by 4′ tall. Who’s going to build it?
The question was: “Do you use Facebook Applications.” The results:
Yes: 25%
No: 50%
I don’t know: 25%
Sample size = 12 respondents. Certainly not statistically significant but interesting. Please comment if you have any thoughts to share on the results!
When working on interactive art project Jellyfish 12,000, I thought a lot about possible display technologies for our 8′-diameter dome before we settled on the design we chose. One option that had a lot of appeal was a persistence of vision (POV) design: rather than 36 ribs containing 136 lights each, we could produce similar functionality by rotating one, two, three, or four such ribs, depending on the speed we could achieve, around the dome. Ultimately this design concept was abandoned for this implementation due to our sentimental concern for the life and limb of our passengers.
This is a joke, right? Has to be. I mean, seriously. But if it’s a joke, the question becomes, who’s playing it? Could this be the first tangible evidence of a creator? Macropinna microstoma. Thanks to Carmen for the link.
Ray Kurzweil talks about the evolution of technology and the emergence of the singularity. Kurzweil’s brilliance and the reasoning of his arguments put him in a rare class, one among few who can discuss the possibility of immortality as a physical being without tempting concerns for his sanity. However, I admit that there are some rarely-discussed issues in this conversation with which I struggle. For example: if in fact we are at some point able to upload our consciousness into a machine, there’s this sticky matter that there’s still a copy running on your brain. I think that you still experience death, even if there’s now another mind out there that thinks it’s you, and may never have to. Am I missing something, Mr. Kurzweil?
“You know, the whole term ’ski mask’ is itself a joke. If you saw somebody - you’re skiing in Vail, and you saw someone coming behind you wearing a ski mask, you’d go batsh*t. You’d try to call homeland security, the police. God help us! You know, it’s someone skiing with a ski mask! It’s a f*****g terrorist! No self-respecting skier would ever be caught dead with a ski mask. It would be risky. You’d get shot.” -Errol Morris
Entries (RSS)