OGWiseman Rounds Up!
Some fascinating things I found on the internet!
I got a pretty significant response from my post last week, expressing frustration with the general state of the world, and while I definitely stand by that post and in fact think a lot of what I wrote has been unfortunately prescient this week and likely in the weeks to come, I also wanted to let everyone know that I’m doing okay and coping better now than I was then. Life is chaos and entropy, but it was ever thus!
And with that, here are some amazing things I’ve found on the internet since the last time I did one of these.
This company is using mirrors in orbit to direct small patches of sunlight onto the dark side of the planet, so they can literally beam you a spotlight anytime, anywhere. What a fun concept. It reminds me of the opposite of this:
Incredible breakthrough in China: BYD has dropped a car that does a full charge in less than ten minutes, competitive with gas. Still a lot of work to do, including getting one that can be sold in America and retrofitting the existing stock of gas stations with the right electrical connection to handle these devices, but this is clearly the future and America should get on it.
And, oh yeah, batteries that last so long and recharge so many times that you could drive a car to the moon and back seven and a half times before the battery had to be replaced. We live in a time of miracles.
Japan is making up for a shortage of monks by training robot monks to take their place. Seriously:
On the other hand, these robots just seem sinister. I know it’s just a bike, but something about the way it moves just seems very sinister to me. The future is gonna be wild.
Old but awesome essay from Ribbon Farm, nominally about CEOs, but really I think about agency and productivity. We’re all CEOs, in a way, managing the various parts of ourselves to create cohesive outcomes.
Another incredible new interactive book from Tyler Cowen, who is light years ahead of everybody else when it comes to where publishing is going, and on the underlying economics of it all. This book is about “The Marginal Revolution”, from which his famous blog also takes its name. This is a concept I was unfamiliar with until I started reading Tyler, but it’s become extremely important to my worldview. (In a nutshell: Value is not determined by utility in the abstract, nor by cost of production, but by the value of the last and next unit consumed. So if you have zero food, one unit of food is extremely valuable. If you have a six month supply of food, an additional unit of food is not very valuable. That sounds simple, but it resonates in everything.)
I love Geoguesser, which is this if you’re not familiar:
I’d often thought it would be fun to do this but with places in history, and of course somebody made it! Super fun concept and I’ve already spent too much time playing.
This product seems kind of like vaporware to me, I haven’t actually used it yet, and I’m not sure I will, but go read the description of what Hark does. To me, once this becomes an actual, usable product, this is the future. Describe in plain lanugage what you want to happen, and then, eventually, don’t even describe it. The machine will simply know. Yes, this will be dehumanizing. I just think it will also confer so much utility, we won’t care.
This story of a Mexican pro athlete who was kidnapped and forced to compete in a cartel-sponsored tournament where he was playing for his life sure sounds like a movie. I don’t know how much actually happened or not, but seriously, I’m pretty sure they will make a movie of this. Incredible writing and story.
Deafness has been reliably cured with gene therapy in a small population. Gene editing is experiencing an enormous breakthrough at the moment, and in a calmer world, this would be an international story of hope. There are many, many genetic problems that this can theoretically solve, and here it is already solving one and not just in theory.
Speaking of “should be a bigger story”, an air base on US soil was attacked by sophisticated drones of unknown origin. An US Air Base has not been shut down in combat since WWII. Gulp!
An unfortunate reminder that once Donald Trump is gone, we are going to have to rebuild our scientific competitiveness, and we’re going to be playing from behind. America is incredibly dynamic and the tast does not seem impossible, but that will indeed be the task before us.
That is what I have for you this morning! I hope you found something useful and informative to brighten your Sunday morning. I have a cool idea for a poem, and I’ve been feeling renewed inspiration, so hopefully I will be back next Sunday morning with an original story! Untes then, thanks for reading and I hope everybody has a great week.