The question:
I had a very MResque thought today I wanted to share with you. Why are the typical lengths of albums across different music genres so different? In particular, I was thinking most of my rap albums are at least over the hour mark and many run all the way up to the 80-minute maximum. They're usually packed with intros, skits, and lots of 5 minute tracks that have extended intro and outro instrumental beat only sequences. My metal albums, on the other hand, have an average run length of no more than 40 mins. Most albums are between 8 and 10 tracks with little in the way of tangential material. These different run-times show up in other places too. For example, my older jazz albums (i.e. Kind of Blue, Time Out, Blue Train) typically run around 45 mins with a half dozen or so tracks yet my newer jazz albums like MMW's The Dropper run almost the whole 80 mins. Also, prog. rock bands tend to produce much longer albums than garage rock bands. Even adjusting for the fact that prog bands emphasize longer musical passages, they could compensate by just having fewer songs or garage rock bands could just have twice as many (like the White Stripes did on their first album).Tyler Cowen responds with some possibilities, although I don't think any of his answers knock the ball out of the park.
I would suggest that there are a few different factors that influence the number of songs that are recorded in the studio. One is obviously expense. A standard four-piece live band is probably only be able to lay down one track a day in the studio. If they are still at the garage-band stage, i.e. just breaking out, that's going to get expensive fast.
Meanwhile, bands that have a lot sampling and electronic parts are going to work faster, because they can put most of the parts together on their own time. Rap would probably fall under this category, although I admit to total ignorance of how the rap studio process works.
Techno acts tend to have long albums, for instance. But in their case the studio is usually redundant - virtually every techno virtuoso is going to have their own home studio, even if that studio is just a laptop.
Of course you can't discount the rise of home studio in this equation. Technology is making having your own an affordable proposition for a moderately successful act. That's going to increase the number and kind of bands who are willing to spend more time recording.
Another factor that needs consideration though is the label itself. I get the very strong impression that labels for some reason want a forty-minute LP from their pop/rock bands. It seems that there are quite a few bands that record scads of tracks in studio, only to wind up with the usual 10-12 making the final cut. The rest eventually surface in EPs, b-sides and free downloads.
Why do studios want short albums? I am not sure. Possibly this is a hold-over from an earlier time when radio was the only exposure that most music got. Maybe there is also some theory about the attention span of the listener, although this seems odd (it's not like a bored listener can't just turn a long album off). It could be that the labels believe that there's a trade-off between quality and quantity, and would rather have a short album full of potential singles then a long one that's more diluted. Who knows.
I do think it's true, though. For their second album, Bloc Party recorded over twenty songs in the studio. The eleven that were on the actual disc were apparently not all the ones the band would have chosen, and a sort of rogue companion album of the remaining songs have since surfaced on the internet.
I offer up a prediction based on all this: that as bands escape studio expenses and label constraints thanks to technology and the internet, albums are going to get longer, not shorter.
They recently linked to an article about an important problem no one has really thought about in the field of AI: motivation.
Okay, let's say we crack the code on real AI and build a vast, mechanical intelligence. We assume that it will ponder the imponderables, better civilization, and then build even better AIs of it's own. But that's a big assumption. Maybe this unfathomable intelligence won't even want to get out of bed in the morning:
Most science-fiction stories prefer their artificial intelligences to be extremely motivated to do things--for example, enslaving or wiping out humans, if The Matrix and Terminator II have anything to say on the topic. But I find just as plausible the robot Marvin, the superintelligent machine from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, who used his enormous intelligence chiefly to sit around and complain, in the absence of any big goal.We NIs make a lot of weird assumptions when we imagine what true AIs would be like: that they would be unaffected by emotion, possess absolutely logical purity, and, of course, be motivated to, you know, do really cool stuff. But this is a very reductive view of what intelligence is.
Indeed, a really advanced intelligence, improperly motivated, might realize the impermanence of all things, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence, concluding that inventing an even smarter machine is pointless. (A corollary of this thinking might explain why we haven't found extraterrestrial life yet: intelligences on the cusp of achieving interstellar travel might be prone to thinking that with the galaxies boiling away in just 10^19 years, it might be better just to stay home and watch TV.) Thus, if one is trying to build an intelligent machine capable of devising more intelligent machines, it is important to find a way to build in not only motivation, but motivation amplification--the continued desire to build in self-sustaining motivation, as intelligence amplifies. If such motivation is to be possessed by future generations of intelligence--meta-motivation, as it were--then it's important to discover these principles now.
We need motivation to get out of bed in the morning. We need emotion to keep us spending three hours trying to choose the most optimal cereal to eat for breakfast. And a being that uses pure logic can still make bad decisions based on faulty or limited information.
For that matter, look at the most intelligent people in the world, the top 1 or 2%. How many of these people suffer from other problems, like crippling depression or social anxiety? I don't have numbers, but it sure seems like increased intelligence generally goes hand-in-hand with an increased likelihood of mental disorders.
My number one prediction for AI is that, if it should ever prove to be possible to build one, that it will be surprisingly human: capable of having bad days, mood swings, and just plain screwing up.
The final reckoning of the infamous Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 'Hot Coffee' scandal:
With Take-Two's $20 million settlement with its investors late last week, the long-wrought 'Hot Coffee' episode finally comes to a close. The settlement comes after the $2.75 million the publisher had previously set aside for payments and costs to incensed consumers -- and that's not all.More here.
Once a user mod revealed a hidden sex minigame, the recall, re-rating and re-release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas the publisher had to undertake was surely expensive, concussing revenues -- where major GTA releases usually bring windfalls, the company's third quarter in 2005 showed a $28.8 million loss.
An estimate based on legal costs and lost sales is ultimately just a ball-park guess, of course -- that $20 million also compensates investors for Take-Two's stock option backdating scandal, and the company's insurance paid much of it. It's also impossible to create a precise lost-sales figure.
But the financial cost of "Hot Coffee" to Take-Two is clearly in the tens of millions, at least -- a huge price tag for a small share of game content consumers were never even supposed to see.
Alexander notes in her article that the cost to the video game industry was probably ultimately far greater than the cost to Rockstar, the game's developer, and Take Two, it's publisher. Video games are a medium still struggling for legitimacy, and continually saddled with the reputations of their most extreme representatives. A hidden sex game in one of their most high-profile releases does not help matters.
Video games, or at least their descendants, will most likely be the last great frontier of entertainment and storytelling. I really believe that virtual worlds and interactive works will be very important to us in the future. We're just beginning to understand how to tell great stories with these tools, but in time they will be every bit as powerful in this regard as film.
Let's not limit the kind of things that we can do in a virtual environment to stuff as silly and puerile as 'Hot Coffee' at this early stage.
But there was. Early photographers were no more accepting of black-and-white as the natural state of things than we are. There was constant experimentation to develop color film, and some of the processes were quite successful, albeit slow and expensive. And so, amazingly, there exist color photos from over a century ago.
In Czarist Russia a fellow named Prokudin-Gorskii developed one such a process. It required him to take pictures three times on different color plates and travel in his own specially-designed darkroom train car, but the results were excellent. Some of his work has recently been restored and can be seen here.
It's amazing stuff, actually. Czarist Russia is a place far removed not only in time, but even in terms of the geography of our imagination. Some of these images feel like the stuff of fantasy.
I'm curious to know what people think about seeing films in 3D. How much would it excite you to watch Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings or Braveheart on a big screen in three dimensions?
I find that personally I'm quite blasé when it comes right down to it. I've never watched any of the aforementioned films and thought, "Gee, that was awesome, but I wish it had been 3D!" In fairness to the technology, I've never seen a modern example of it. Maybe that would change my mind. But as far as I'm concerned, nothing is 'missing' from my film-viewing experience at the theater, unless it's a handheld EMP-device to fry annoying mobile phones.
And not everyone who has tried it is gung-ho about it. Roger Ebert is quite eloquent in his dislike of the technology.
My mom and I watched the latest Harry Potter on a standard IMAX screen yesterday*. Watching anything in IMAX means you're practically lost in the screen. During one of the opening scenes the camera zips through the streets of London at a rollercoaster pace, and it certainly felt 3D enough for me! I leaned over to mom and whispered, "Remember, if it bothers you just close your eyes."
"Oh, I already did!" she assured me.
Bottom line for me is that I already find a good old-fashioned 2D film to be plenty immersive. 3D may be something that I simply don't need in my cinema-going experience.
But I suppose I'll have to give it a try first.
* In case you're curious, yes, I am the Best Son Ever.
I have stumbled across this site which reproduces a series of predictions published in The Ladies Home Journal at the turn of the century. The turn of last century, that is.
Ahem:
The Ladies Home Journal from December 1900, which contained a fascinating article by John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years”.
Mr. Watkins wrote: “These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible. Yet, they have come from the most learned and conservative minds in America. To the wisest and most careful men in our greatest institutions of science and learning I have gone, asking each in his turn to forecast for me what, in his opinion, will have been wrought in his own field of investigation before the dawn of 2001 - a century from now. These opinions I have carefully transcribed.”
During the Year 2000, we included Mr. Watkins research in our feature articles. We invite you to comment on these predictions, whether they have been realized in some way or how they can never be accomplished! In any event, we know you’ll enjoy these entries.
Well and good then, let's see how these experts fared, 109 years on! My notes are in bold.
Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”If there's a lesson to be learned here, it may be that while the things human beings want from technology are predictable, the way in which we actually get there is less so. Climate controlled houses, instantaneous world-wide communications and fast travel through the air were all breathless wishes of the readers of this magazine a hundred years ago. And... they got them. But not always in the form that they expected.
These numbers are a tad high, no doubt because the Nicaraguans are not yet begging to join us!
Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches. His increase of stature will result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food and athletics. He will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present – for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.
As far as I know, modern Americans are definitely taller on average, although I don't know by how much. You feel bad for the poor saps who only expected to make it to 35, though!
Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.
Mostly true, although the image of a three-year-old doing a full upper-body-workout is hard to expunge from my imagination!
Prediction #4: There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.
IF ONLY.
Prediction #5: Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour. To go from New York to San Francisco will take a day and a night by fast express. There will be cigar-shaped electric locomotives hauling long trains of cars. Cars will, like houses, be artificially cooled. Along the railroads there will be no smoke, no cinders, because coal will neither be carried nor burned. There will be no stops for water. Passengers will travel through hot or dusty country regions with windows down.
I'm not sure how this fellow reconciled 'artificial cooling' with driving with the windows open.
Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.
Basically true across the board. Way to go, #6!
Prediction #7: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations. Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.
A bit wonky. But as we will see, airships had a pretty terrific grip on the mind of your average turn of the century scientist.
Prediction #8: Aerial War-Ships and Forts on Wheels. Giant guns will shoot twenty-five miles or more, and will hurl anywhere within such a radius shells exploding and destroying whole cities. Such guns will be armed by aid of compasses when used on land or sea, and telescopes when directed from great heights. Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves as they move, will float over cities, fortifications, camps or fleets. They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts. These aerial war-ships will necessitate bomb-proof forts, protected by great steel plates over their tops as well as at their sides. Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of to-day. They will make what are now known as cavalry charges. Great automobile plows will dig deep entrenchments as fast as soldiers can occupy them. Rifles will use silent cartridges. Submarine boats submerged for days will be capable of wiping a whole navy off the face of the deep. Balloons and flying machines will carry telescopes of one-hundred-mile vision with camera attachments, photographing an enemy within that radius. These photographs as distinct and large as if taken from across the street, will be lowered to the commanding officer in charge of troops below.
This fellow seems to have gotten a bit carried away with the whole airship thing. Ironically, most of his predictions are too conservative!
Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.
Here we have this technology, and yet not nearly enough photographs of Chinese battlefronts. What gives?!?
Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.
I vote that 'giant telephone apparatus' replace the current description of the Internet as 'a series of tubes'.
Prediction #11: No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.
Alas, insects still rule the earth. Especially the part of the earth that's in Florida.
Prediction #12: Peas as Large as Beets. Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day. Sugar cane will produce twice as much sugar as the sugar beet now does. Cane will once more be the chief source of our sugar supply. The milkweed will have been developed into a rubber plant. Cheap native rubber will be harvested by machinery all over this country. Plants will be made proof against disease microbes just as readily as man is to-day against smallpox. The soil will be kept enriched by plants which take their nutrition from the air and give fertility to the earth.
Give this guy some credit for predicting genetic engineering. On the other hand, I haven't seen any giant peas lately.
Prediction #13: Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.
Again with the giant fruit! These scientists would be SO disappointed.
Prediction #14: Black, Blue and Green Roses. Roses will be as large as cabbage heads. Violets will grow to the size of orchids. A pansy will be as large in diameter as a sunflower. A century ago the pansy measured but half an inch across its face. There will be black, blue and green roses. It will be possible to grow any flower in any color and to transfer the perfume of a scented flower to another which is odorless. Then may the pansy be given the perfume of the violet.
Remember kids, Giant Plants represent Technology!
Prediction #15: No Foods will be Exposed. Storekeepers who expose food to air breathed out by patrons or to the atmosphere of the busy streets will be arrested with those who sell stale or adulterated produce. Liquid-air refrigerators will keep great quantities of food fresh for long intervals.
Every day I thank God for refrigeration.
Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.
thx 4 teh dmb prediction n00b.
Prediction #17: How Children will be Taught. A university education will be free to every man and woman. Several great national universities will have been established. Children will study a simple English grammar adapted to simplified English, and not copied after the Latin. Time will be saved by grouping like studies. Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses. Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind. The very poor will, when necessary, get free rides to and from school and free lunches between sessions. In vacation time poor children will be taken on trips to various parts of the world. Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in the public schools.
Several of these items are true, but the author forfeits all points with his ridiculous last sentence.
Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.
This is just crazy talk.
Prediction #19: Grand Opera will be telephoned to private homes, and will sound as harmonious as though enjoyed from a theatre box. Automatic instruments reproducing original airs exactly will bring the best music to the families of the untalented. Great musicians gathered in one enclosure in New York will, by manipulating electric keys, produce at the same time music from instruments arranged in theatres or halls in San Francisco or New Orleans, for instance. Thus will great bands and orchestras give long-distance concerts. In great cities there will be public opera-houses whose singers and musicians are paid from funds endowed by philanthropists and by the government. The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devises will add to the emotional effect of music.
What do you think, readers - have pianos become more melancholic over the years?
Prediction #20: Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth’s hard coal will last until the year 2050 or 2100; its soft-coal mines until 2200 or 2300. Meanwhile both kinds of coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper. Every river or creek with any suitable fall will be equipped with water-motors, turning dynamos, making electricity. Along the seacoast will be numerous reservoirs continually filled by waves and tides washing in. Out of these the water will be constantly falling over revolving wheels. All of our restless waters, fresh and salt, will thus be harnessed to do the work which Niagara is doing today: making electricity for heat, light and fuel.
Peak coal!
Prediction #21: Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls.
One senses that here was a man who loved his bath time. "If only," he thought, "more things came out of spigots!"
Prediction #22: Store Purchases by Tube. Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and bundles. These tubes will collect, deliver and transport mail over certain distances, perhaps for hundreds of miles. They will at first connect with the private houses of the wealthy; then with all homes. Great business establishments will extend them to stations, similar to our branch post-offices of today, whence fast automobile vehicles will distribute purchases from house to house.
Personally, I am still waiting for this one.
Prediction #23: Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today. They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking. Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile wagons. The meal being over, the dishes used will be packed and returned to the cooking establishments where they will be washed. Such wholesale cookery will be done in electric laboratories rather than in kitchens. These laboratories will be equipped with electric stoves, and all sorts of electric devices, such as coffee-grinders, egg-beaters, stirrers, shakers, parers, meat-choppers, meat-saws, potato-mashers, lemon-squeezers, dish-washers, dish-dryers and the like. All such utensils will be washed in chemicals fatal to disease microbes. Having one’s own cook and purchasing one’s own food will be an extravagance.
Pneumatic tubes. Pneumatic tubes delivering HAMBURGERS. When will this day finally come?!?
Prediction #24: Vegetables Grown by Electricity. Winter will be turned into summer and night into day by the farmer. In cold weather he will place heat-conducting electric wires under the soil of his garden and thus warm his growing plants. He will also grow large gardens under glass. At night his vegetables will be bathed in powerful electric light, serving, like sunlight, to hasten their growth. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants grow larger and faster, and will kill troublesome weeds. Rays of colored light will hasten the growth of many plants. Electricity applied to garden seeds will make them sprout and develop unusually early.
I'm really not up on my agricultural practices. This is basically accurate though isn't it? Certainly seasonal fruit is something of a rarity these days.
Prediction #25: Oranges will grow in Philadelphia. Fast-flying refrigerators on land and sea will bring delicious fruits from the tropics and southern temperate zone within a few days. The farmers of South America, South Africa, Australia and the South Sea Islands, whose seasons are directly opposite to ours, will thus supply us in winter with fresh summer foods, which cannot be grown here. Scientist will have discovered how to raise here many fruits now confined to much hotter or colder climates. Delicious oranges will be grown in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Cantaloupes and other summer fruits will be of such a hardy nature that they can be stored through the winter as potatoes are now.
A lot of this is spot on, although I have bad news for all those hopeful turn-of-the-century Philadelphians.
Prediction #26: Strawberries as large as apples will be eaten by our great great grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.
I like picturing a beaming family feasting on a single, massive cantaloupe. Sadly, #26, no one gives a fig about figs anymore.
Prediction #27: Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh. They will be carried with the electric current applied without pain to the outside skin of the body. Microscopes will lay bare the vital organs, through the living flesh, of men and animals. The living body will to all medical purposes be transparent. Not only will it be possible for a physician to actually see a living, throbbing heart inside the chest, but he will be able to magnify and photograph any part of it. This work will be done with rays of invisible light.
(emphasis added)
Prediction #28: There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse. Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.
This guy left out the Robot Monkeys.
Prediction #29: To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days. The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water’s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree. Propellers turned by electricity will screw themselves through both the water beneath and the air above. Ships with cabins artificially cooled will be entirely fireproof. In storm they will dive below the water and there await fair weather.
England in TWO DAYS? Ridiculous!
It's very interesting to see which scientific fields have progressed by the leaps and bounds imagined here, and which have maintained a more methodical pace. "Moore's Law" famously describes a rate of breathtaking rate of technological progress, so communications technologies have indeed progressed in the fantastic manner these early scientists foretold. Flight and jet-engines had a similar curve up until about the middle of the century. Heating, cooling and refrigeration were not far off when this article was written so it's no wonder that they all came to pass. They probably deserve more credit, both then and now, for transforming our lives then they are usually given.
Meanwhile, biology seems to plod along. We're still waiting for genetic engineering to grow steak dinners on trees. Or at least eradicate the damn mosquito.
How 'bout it, guys?
What should we do with him instead? Make him an economist, maybe? Give him a law degree and put him in charge of sorting out the intellectual property mess? Or possibly just make him a consultant for architecting Web 4.0?
I think he'd shine in any of these positions. And then we'd be spared sentences like this:
TI is an angel specializiing in high-tech start-ups, your typical Web 3.1415 outfits, and TI contracted DBA - in the person of Chris Morgan, full partner (and Director of Risk Management) - to produce full pre-IPO investment reports on their clients.If you feel like you just accidentally read the prospectus for a Silicon Valley startup instead of a line from a novel, well, wait until you try the whole thing. And that second person singular thing is not an accident - throughout the entire book, all three different characters are referred to as you.
Which, believe it or not, doesn't help to make the long-chain molecules of jargon porn less hard on the ear. It's like being whacked over the head with a baseball bat made of old Wired articles. Stross is clearly trying to emulate old-time cyberpunk heroes like Gibson, but he comes off sounding like a copywriter for Microsoft on cocaine.
The plot doesn't make a lot of sense. Or maybe it does, but the author never slows down long enough to explain the soup of acronyms and buzzwords he's spewing at you, so whether they resolve themselves into something coherent at some level is anybody's guess. And remember, I write this as a member of the target demographic. What someone would make of this who is over 35 doesn't eat, drink and breathe the internet for a living I shudder to think.
So no, there's no character and no plot and the sentence structure will burn your eyes, yet I'm going to go ahead and recommend this as a book possibly worth reading.
Halting State takes place about twenty minutes into the future, and even as he does violence to the very concept of a novel, Stross has a lot of interesting and intriguing things to say about What's Next. Peer-to-peer networks, cellular phones, network security, quantum computing, ARGs, risk management and the economics of MMOs all get some attention here and it's fascinating stuff. I would rate his vision of the future as one of the least implausible ones I've read recently. If you're interested in that kind of stuff, this really is your ticket to ride.
The cliff notes of Stross's vision is a world where information is not getting any more centralized or any more secure. As distribution spins out of control, international powers have to find new ways of spying on each other and keeping their own stuff secure and where the spheres of corporate gamesmanship, international NGOs, government policymaking and the dabbling of private citizens bleed into each other. The resulting vision is somewhat compelling.
If you're not quite ready to wade into Stross's prose to dig these gems out, however, you can go straight to the horse's mouth. I don't know who got a leading New York Times economist and a science-fiction writer together for a panel, but somebody did and the resulting transcript is worth reading.
I assume that my forebears were not so different from me in that they found sporting a bristling growth on the bottom half of their face neither comfortable nor attractive. But how did they shave without the power of Gillette? And while we're on that subject, how did Gillette and Schick corner the market on selling me over-priced disposable blades?!
As always, it's Mental_Floss to the rescue.
So, any guys out there want to ditch their razors and give pumice a shake? How about clam shells?
*shudder*
They are controlled by a large, easy-to-use controller that talks to them on infrared. They plug into the same controller to charge up their little batteries. The choppers have bright LED lights so flying them in low light is kind of a trip.
The best part is the blades. I'm sure the first thing to break on any RC chopper is the spinning blades. Well the genius of this design is that the blades aren't fixed on the rotor shaft, one across from the other. Instead they just hang there at whatever angle. They actually straighten up in flight. But it means that if you bang into something the blades just bounce off it, rather than being rigid and most likely shattering. There are two levels of blades and then a balancing bar on top of that. Overall it's remarkably stable.
Due to the funky blade setup, the LEDs, and their size, the little RC choppers do give the impression of some buzzing, chitinous insect. I'm trying to name mine but haven't come up with anything sufficiently insectile yet.
Do give me your suggestions.
Did I mention that these things double as The Greatest Cat Toy Of All Time?
UPDATE: Someone put a nice little video of the chopper in action up on teh youtubes.
But what makes Moore's Law a law? Can you really have a law about technological progress? Aren't these advances just a product of luck and economics? Here's a very thought-provoking article that discusses that question. I had no idea, for instance, that a similar technology curve predicted the space race in the early 50's or that the information storage and networking industries had similar curves.
Interestingly, Moore's Law is likely to hit the wall within the next decade. That's not to say that the show won't go on with some new technology, but silicon-based transistors face serious challenges. For starters, there are fundamental, quantum mechanical limitations on how small a transistor can get. But of more immediate concern is the fact that it's just getting too expensive to cool the damn things.
That being said, I've been on the inside of the IT industry for nearly a decade now. Long enough to know that if you want to break into a secure computer system and cause havoc, you don't do it like they do it in the movies, with lots of frantic high-speed typing on your computer.
You know how in heist movies, the team of wise-cracking criminals always uses high-tech equipment to break into the laser-guarded vault to steal the giant blue diamond? But in real life, crooks just find a pawn shop with a lousy security system and smash a window?
Hacking works pretty much like that. Sure, there may be individuals out there who can code some sort of insidious master program that takes over your computer at the root level and gives them access to all your private info in the form of a glowing three-dimensional grid. But 99% of successful hacks stem from a very bored individual figuring out that your email password is 'fluffy'.
And that's how a Frenchman hacked Twitter.
Strangely enough, I recently used the exact same exploit this guy did - on myself.
( The only account I hack is my own... )
The Sharp 912SH for Softbank, for example, comes with an LCD screen that swivels 90 degrees, GPS tracking, a bar-code reader, digital TV, credit card functions, video conferencing and a camera and is unlocked by face recognition.Japan and Asia have always lead the world in cellphone innovation. I remember being over in China in 2002 and everyone was SMSing like crazy. This was before anyone in the US knew what "SMS" stood for.
Well, they may have taken the lead on innovation, technology and advanced features, but we've still got provider monopolies with lousy service!
Have we got a phone for you.
( A picture is worth a thousand words... )
Holy Moog Batman! What exactly is the Chief Pumpkin Head planning to DO with that thing?! Surely nothing so mundane as simply making music. There's no way that thing isn't going to go all "I'm afraid I can't do that Dave" within the first week of being plugged in.
Actually, we're probably all pretty safe. Unless Billy has a whole lot of time on his hands in the near future, I can't imagine there's anyway he's going to patch the whole thing together any time soon. Still, one wonders what sort of noises you could make with 32 VCOs(!!!).
(For those of you who are completely in the dark about what a modular synthesizer is, Wikipedia has the beef. Modular synths are perhaps one of the best tests of true geekdom - if all of those knobs, dials and LEDs don't make your heart flutter a bit, maybe you should go out for JV volleyball or something. Oh and by the way, these strange beasts can actually be used to make music.)
I posted about the possibilities of instantaneous book printing machines way back in 2007. Two years is an era in technology time. Print-on-demand machines have arrived.
It looks like at the moment these machines are ideal for out-of-print works that are in the public domain, but deals with modern publishers will be soon to follow. Also soon to come: your book. These machines don't mess around -
... printing over 100 pages a minute, clamping them into place, then binding, guillotining and spitting out the (warm as toast) finished article. The quality of the paperback was beyond dispute: the text clear, unsmudged and justified, the paper thick, the jacket smart, if initially a little tacky to the touch.Apparently the pricing is not yet pinned down, but is expected to be competitive with traditional books.
So. Does this change everything?
Also: am I the only one who wants to see these in airports?
Don't worry, I'm not one of those wide-eyed information-wants-to-be-free Linux enthusiasts you've heard so much about. In fact, I do think that unauthorized downloading, copying, sharing etc., has moral and ethical issues. But, that doesn't make it stealing. Or piracy.
Theft of property deprives the rightful owner of the property of something. If I sneak a Miley Cyrus CD out of a Best Buy under my coat, I've just taken something that must now be literally replaced. Best Buy is now -1 Miley Cyrus CDs.
If I download the new Miley Cyrus album over BitTorrent without paying for it, though, nobody anywhere has been deprived of a physical product. Have they been deprived of a potential revenue stream? Possibly. But that's getting pretty metaphysical. The point is, whatever just happened, it isn't theft.
Likewise, piracy. 'Piracy' as a term is worse than 'stealing', really. Piracy implies a lifestyle of nautical murder and rapine, which doesn't quite square with the image of the spaced-out college freshman in his dormroom with his laptop. The kid doesn't have the cash to spring for the new Linkin Park album, he's not a Somali warlord holding tanker crews for ransom.
Naturally, Freakonomics agrees with me. And one of their readers has come up with an alternative term to describe the act of Unauthorized Digital Duplication:
"Downlifting"
So, what do you think? Does "downlifting" work? Or does Freakonomics need to keep digging?
We recently asked you to consider renaming “digital piracy” in light of recent actual piracy. The question appears to have some resonance, as it was picked up by The Guardian, The Washington Post, and others.
For my money, the best suggestion by far comes from a reader named Derek:
Downlifting. Download + shoplifting. Pretty accurate description that doesn’t imply violence. Plus there’s a little mental double-take with “down” and “lift.”
Thus nominated. Anyone care to second?
It will also initiate popups that encourage me to shut down 'offensive' programs, again usually Mozilla, which it seems to have a real beef with. It's most likely to have real issues after it's 'locked' itself after being idle for several minutes. Coming back from being in locked mode can take as long as ten minutes on a bad day, and even after it has 'booted up' again it may still run slower than before. Often, Windows Explorer itself seems to be the source of the problem, as it will actually crash and have to restart itself.
I do try to keep some space clear for the swap file and I frequently check the process list to see if anything untoward is going on, but I never seem to find anything that could be the problem. Firefox IS big (I run it with several tabs open at once, typically) but not so big that it should have to be the only program running.
When I first got this laptop it did not have any of these problems. I know Windows has a tendancy to get like this over time, and usually a clean install is the solution. But I'm far from home and don't want to risk not having a laptop at all so I'm not prepared to go that route just yet.
I always found this proposition a little unlikely, but based on some recent developments in prosthetics I am rethinking my position. A New Zealand woman who became a double-amputee in childhood has recently been outfitted with a mermaid tail - by no less than Weta Workshops. And yes, it really works.
Meanwhile, a woman who is the only model/amputee I have ever heard of owns a number of sets of custom legs which, among other uses, allow her to change her height at will.
She also owns a pair of cheetah prosthetics - the prosthetic that is causing a great deal of controversy in the sports world because it may give disabled runners an unfair advantage over able-bodied runners.
It appears that radical redesigns do appeal to at least some people. And perhaps we are only waiting on the technology to change everything.
Congratulations, you are now living in the future.
There are various theories about electromagnetic interference, but my favorite theory is the one that manages to be both True Believer and Curmudgeonly Old Man:
But he adds: “I personally believe the decline in hauntings may simply be because people haven’t got time to see ghosts any more. These days people are always rushing around, playing computer games, surfing the net, and such activities aren’t great for experiencing apparitions.”"When I was your age, we used to go out and see three apparitions before breakfast! And we did it uphill, in the snow, both ways. Now you kids get off my lawn!"
Sounds like someone's a little bit bitter that the ubiquity of cellphone cameras has reduced the credibility of their breathless UFO sightings.
"And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"
I blame teh youtubes.
I initially expected that it would just try and find all similar songs in your library, but in fact it really takes sort of a mix tape approach: some songs will be similar, while others will be different. There even seems to be some attempt at having a 'flow' - transition from a block of down-tempo songs to a block of up-tempo songs, for instance.
The results don't always blow me away, but some of its song choices are really intriguing. So I thought it would be interesting to have Genius make a playlist and listen to the whole thing straight through, and review it.
This is that review.
1. UNKLE - Reign
The starting song I selected was "Reign", by UNKLE. This is a sweeping electronic piece that starts out gentle with a lot of mournful strings, and then adds a D&B-style kick to move things along. So, what did I get from it? Here's the 25-song 'mix tape' generated by iTunes Genius based on this song:
1. UNKLE - Reign
2. Hybrid - Just For Today
3. The Chemical Brothers - The Boxer
4. BT - The Internal Locus
5. Portishead - Sour Times
6. Sarah Vaughan - Fever (Adam Freeland Remix)
7. Royksopp - Only This Moment
8. Craig Armstrong - Weather Storm
9. Goldfrapp - Train
10. Ferry Corsten - Beautiful
11. Vitalic - My Friend Dario
12. The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar
13. BT - Superfabulous
14. Bitter:Sweet - Don't Forget To Breathe
15. Hybrid - Choke
16. Ladytron - Seventeen
17. Fischerspooner - We Need A War
18. Delerium & Sarah McLachlan - Silence
19. The Chemical Brothers - The Pills Won't Help You Now
20. Free the Robots - Diary
21. Gabriel & Dresden - Dangerous Power (Cicada Full Vocal Mix)
22. BT - Dynamic Symmetry
23. Adam Freeland - We Want Your Soul
24. Hybrid - Higher Than A Skyscraper
25. Telepopmusik - Don't Look Back
Here's how the actual listening experience went:
( Read more... )
I don't think I'll just start using Genius to automatically generate mix tapes on its own. It's not that prescient. But I think if you want to create a mix, Genius could be a really useful starting point. It's likely to come up with some pretty good ideas. You just need to weed out the stinkers and reorganize things a bit.
I think it's also a nice tool to generate playlists for yourself. If you're a musical pack-rat like me and have a huge catalog of music, most of which doesn't get listened too all that often, Genius can be very helpful. It's a good way of jogging your memory about stuff that you've unfairly ignored for too long.
To play with Genius yourself, just pop open iTunes on select a song. Down in the bottom left-hand corner of the program you should see a button with the omnipresent 'nuclear' symbol. Click it and you're on your way to procedurally-generated musical exploration!
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