Tag: people

Game season

Sooo… We have a new game console on the block. Let’s see whether the new boy will persist.
This, after:

But which may translate to a double jump, from classic TV via Netflix to this new blended thing where even much more than nowadays, categories (like ‘news’ or ‘nature documentary’) no longer apply. Where will the Authoritative (news) Sourcing community go, even when it may shrink and dwindle into little if any size or significance? Juvenalis’ bread and circuses the world will be.

Well, anyway, we’re storming towards that. And this:
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[Gloomy, waving your Freedom goodbye; still at NY]

One-sided mirror

Hopefully just in time for your last-minute (huh?) holiday season shopping: This masterpiece; excellent for edukaizjionel purposes and general divertissement, including Be-ing Warned…

Because, it spans so much of interest; from humble (?) ‘computer’ components all the way up till Topsight.
Read, learn and weep over humankind’s future.

Now then, for a short departure:
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[Unk Berlin]

Everyone’s using Layars

Just started re-reading the 1991 (..!) Gelernter classic Mirror Worlds. Nomen est omen, author-itywise.
Then it struck me: Mobiles weren’t invented back then; can you imagine ..?? And Home Improvement was the hit of the year. Some Tim Berners-Lee guy first proposed HTML. Even PCs version 1.0 were still not ubiquitous.
And then this Gelernter published this masterpiece about virtual worlds. Not some random tech prediction, but insightful, visionary stuff.

But the reason I give you this, is: In 2009, Layar started. Where has that gone ..!?

When you know what I’m talking about, you see the link with the above. And might wonder as well. Yeah, one can DuckDuckGo them, but that’s not the point, which is: Where’s the exponential unicorn disruptor daily jubilant news about them, whilst they have grown in prominence ever since ’90 ..? Why not ..?

Oh well, I’ll leave you with:
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[Once, friggin’ SotA at Noto]

Books, disrupted ..?

Remember when I posted about the Books business doing quite well, despite having been called to the grave ..? (As here)
Now, this arrived: Audiobooks have begun to outsell print.

Oh.

Which is a very disinterested Oh. Since, how would you envisage wandering through the pages, your eye being caught by some particular peculiar words ..? How about paging back to a clue you remember to be at about the fifth line top left towards the end of the first chapter?
Yes, reading may change.
Or not. People might still be buying books as they did before. And audio books may be a different thing. Like calling a car engine a liquid fossil fuel using explosion version of a steam engine. But why would you? Why not just think up a completely new category of … ‘narrative audio’ ..?

Then, loosening and losing the idea of a linear text, whole new ways of narrative narration might be possible. Like, this, in not Dutch but English or whatever language, to be ‘read’ in any way/order conceivable … ah, the need for guidance springing up. And the need, probably, for perfectly life-like auto-readers-out-loud not have to have actual humans doing that once and for all.

Well, that’s OK. Who’ll make this all happen? And:
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[Books *not* going this way… e‘Burg]

Ringtones on deaf ears

[Abridged repost; relevant again]
There seems to have been an explosion of (news over) ~mojis lately. Like, the past half year has seen a proliferation of subsets and niceties that, as a phenomenon, spell the end of interest in messaging.

As the phenomenon (not this which is great in any absolute measure) is so very much the same as we saw with ringtones…
Arrrg! Yes indeed they spelled the end of the introductory phase of mobiles. The more it became a fad to have some peculiar ‘tone, the more one exposed oneself as a somewhat (?) pathetic Laggard, not quite knowing yet how to have and treat a phone as perfectly normal tool without having to brag how great one was for having one in the first place.

Can you see the same with messaging? If not, you may be the one that actually paid for the nicest ringtone you disabled in shame for not getting any but negative recognition after a couple of days again.

So, … next up in this series: How “Like us on Facebook” went the same way in the 2nd half of 2015, latest… And:
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[Siegfried& not quite]

Software Defined Everything, not your monkey’s business

Lately, we have been reading a lot about Software Defined Everything (haven’t you …?), in particular sw-def networking. As the flexible way to the future.
Now, it turns out that humans may have had an edge over monkeys (and apes) by, for quite some time already, having had just that bit more software-defined Brain work than the competition. Though research is out also (since about half a year+) that apes using tools, have entered the Stone Age with that, for some 4300 years at least already. Now I will not refer here to the mix-up that your boss is, in this all.

But I will note that the Software Defined Everything, in similar vein is where the Singularity starts to take over, as the System evolves away from the human brain limitation to adapt to its environment. Yes, that’s a bit of thought stretch but you’ll manage. Still…

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[At least the apes among you might figure out the Three-Body Problem at the table …; Nicolaci, Noto]

Porter’s half “value” chain

The problem: Half an <undefined> chain isn’t much good.
Because … There’s no money anywhere in the ‘Value Chain’ oft portrayed. As it is in Starreveld’s model. [You’re out of luck, in Dutch only and even then, no pics .. oh, there‘s one]

Which points to an even bigger error: No clear(ly communicated) def of Value in the first place. Allsorts went off and did a lot of heavy lifting (they wished! The lightweight airheads the majority was!), but achieved … not much; little; nothing worth their salts.

Obviously. And also, obviously very much required, these latter days, that a proper all-inclusive and operable definition of Value still is created, leaving mere ‘money’ in the dust similar to the distance between ‘data points’ and ‘information’. But let’s start with completion of the core model not keep it in half.

Oh well…:
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[Capture that in moahnay…; at what translates to Eddie’s ‘hood]

The Season of Innovation

Anyone has stats on when, during the year, most actual innovations are dreamt up, or brought to light ..?

Just wondered, pondered, looking outside into a greyish dawn, and thought: Where are this year’s Innovations that make late fall / winter time more amicable ..?
Just because seasons are only a quarter of the year ;-| doesn’t sound like a good explanation; whereas any year, or innovation’s adoption wave, is a one-time thing only, seasons tend to re-appear quite regularly over and over again through the ages. So any real innovation might stick even better. [Will now halt this silly argument.]
Then again, can we pinpoint the exact moment an innovation is conceived, even when delivery may take some time (possibly, spanning a year) ..? Can we spot seasonal patterns ..? One could imagine that Nature’s recurrence and bloom, impacts the mind in similar ways. *waves.

So, if any of you Big Data lovers out there would have a nice graph, I’d welcome it. Plus:
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[Yes, that’s Spring, in Antwerp. Other corners are, in no particular order, Summer, Fall, and Winter]

Stealing others’ Innovation flag

On how one (organisation) can be truly innovative, but another gets all the credit — later on when History gets written down.
I mean, have you checked the innovation of Tesla ..? Which consisted, apart from the green(?)fields start of operations, with a simple copy of an iconic car. Indeed, not the S type, but the Lotus Elise. Yes, yes, I know, not many parts are the same but that misses the point..! What Tesla vehemently denies, is that buyers don’t give a single … [censored] about said parts, they buy a design. And well, on that point … is there a better summary than ‘carbon (body) copy’ ..?

And the all-electric part ..? Also, had many predecessors.
Apart from which, the actual innovation which as so many ‘Inventions’ of the past twenty centuries was a rediscovery of a lost art, was in the electric — and the grand prize for putting that on the serious market goes to Toyota for their Prius.

Just realise that it has all the characteristics of a true disruption… demonstrated on the outside by its (initial) design, that was of course ‘corrected’ by the photos of Cameron Diaz’ and others’ endorsement.

So… where’s T’s innovation at? The S type that’s too expensive (by far, if you add appropriate options) for most folk ..? It’s not overly innovative in design, nor in … everything else. Looks good, yes, but …
And why would I still not be able to drive to my holiday destination with refills in under 10mins only every 1000km ..?
And, if it were true and distinctive innovation, competitors would have followed big time. But hey haven’t; apparently easily keeping up with smaller-step improvements.

Though, I’m not negative, at least T’s CEO has the gusto to go after moon shots. Praise for that, would one not want many more of the 1% to follow suit so they’d spend their money wisely… And:
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[Bam! in Syracuse the Original]

A simple link to a profound article

Today, just a simple link to an article you’ll find interesting — or find yourself not that.
As in: this here piece.

After which:
ubx15

Uhhh okai then: The point of the matter is that here, we still have that idealistic vision in which AI would augment us, improve us, near-eugenetically though with prostheses, leaving so-hard-they-become-easy-by-not-being-recognized choices of the Hobson kind for the ones with least ethical scrupules, the early adoptors to collateral on the others. Early adoptors through the need for compensation of already lacking (basic…) capabilities…

Before becoming too negative, this:
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[Think, self-rule, et al.; Dunedin again]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord