-
The Phantom ‘Global Race’
·
3–5 minutes·
No comments on The Phantom ‘Global Race’There’s been a lot of talk from Conservative politicians in the UK about the ‘global race‘. This race, we’re led to believe, involves all the countries of the world. The winners are those countries that can compete the best, presumably by selling more things cheaper than anyone else can, by dint of working harder and…
-
Why The Circle Won’t Happen
(in which, yes, I discuss the plot of the book) This week, Nest announced a ‘beautiful’ new smoke alarm that’s more advanced, more connected, more user-friendly, and more expensive than anything else on the market. Naturally, the press jumped on it like a Republican on a closed national monument. It does a lot — it monitors…
-
How do we make a friendly AI?
How we do avoid creating a superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) that does not end up harming humanity? This is a question of great consequence to AI researchers and thinkers who believe that future AIs will have capabilities and will act in a way completely different and unfathomable to humans, just as our actions may seem…
-
Could health insurers subsidise the iWatch?
A major reason why Apple has sold so many iPhones in the US is due to the unusual way phones are subsidised by carriers over there. Very few people buy an iPhone for the full, off-contract $649+ price — instead, they get it for ‘only’ $99 or $199, with the rest of the phone’s cost…
-
A Preview of A History of The Future
Two and a half years ago, I began a Kickstarter project for A History of the Future in 100 Objects, a book that would map out the 21st century in a hundred speculative objects. I wanted to cover more than just technology; I wanted to look at the future of religion, politics, sport, food, health,…
-
6. Smart Drugs
2019; Unified Korea Can we change who we are? For millennia, we’ve eagerly bought potions and medicines that promised to make us smarter and wiser, and for just as long, we’ve been bitterly disappointed. Yet we kept coming back; there was just something irresistible about improving ourselves without any effort. And then the promises came true.…
-
3. The Guide
2015; Seattle, US What is the good life? Philosophers, wise men, preachers, televangelists, self-help gurus — all have tried to answer the question of how we should live and thrive as humans. Some have been driven by a sense of moral duty and religious zeal, others by a quest for power and money, but over the millennia, they…
-
1. Ankle Surveillance Monitor
2014, San Jose, US “Six months doesn’t sound so bad. I mean, compared to the guys I’ve met who were in for five years or fifteen years, I had it good. But it’s still plenty long enough to lose your job. Lose your family. Even lose your friends, people you thought you could rely on. Seemed…
-
Molyneux’s Cube Contains Charity
Peter Molyneux is making a game called Curiosity: What’s Inside The Cube, in which players will be chipping away at a giant cube together in order to found out what’s inside; something “life-changing”, supposedly. Of course, you’ll be able to buy more expensive chisels and such to speed up how fast you can chip away,…
-
What Retro Games Mean Today
What’s a retro game today? 8 bit pixellated graphics, chiptunes, simple platformer game mechanics, and charmingly traditional scoring and levelling? If you grew up in the 70s and 80s, that makes plenty of sense. I didn’t – I was born in 1982, so the most memorable games I played usually had at least EGA or…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
mssv 