I never intended to start a company. I wanted to make CPUs.
Monroe Bank and Trust interviewed me for our 20th corporate birthday. You can check it out here:
http://www.monroebankandtrustcares.com/2013/06/focus-on-our-customers-brad-wardell-and.html
Hi all! As some of you know, Draginol is my “alt” handle here for Frogboy.
Anyway, this week I was on PolyCast, a popular Civilization-related podcast and this episode focused heavily on the upcoming Civilization V expansion “Brave New World”.
Feel free to check it out here:
http://civcomm.civfanatics.com/polycast/polycast/season7/episode176.mp3
You can see other episodes here:
http://civcomm.civfanatics.com/polycast/polycast/season7.php
The technological singularity is defined to be the point in which technological progress is increasing at a rate that human level intelligence can no longer predict what will come next.
We are closer to that time than most people think.
There are a lot of technologies most people expect to happen that I don’t think will happen or, if they do happen, will be relevant for a startling short amount of time.
For example, strong AI. My day programming job is AI (for games anyway). It’s been an abiding passion of mine for 20 years. But I don’t think we have to worry about a strong AI wiping out us mere mortals. If anything, strong AI and post-humans will evolve together and the lines between the two will be blurred.
When I use the term, Strong AI, I am really talking about an AI that is truly artificial (i.e. not modeled on our own intelligence). That is the type of AI that I am skeptical occurring. I know that Kurzweil believes this is inevitable but just like he (and I for that matter) believe that gene therapy is going to have a short life-span, I believe that artificial intelligence engines are going to have a short life-span, at least in the traditional envisioning of them.
It's sort of like robots. There are lots of people who imagine the future is going to be filled with intelligent (sentient) robots. I don't see this happening at all. I think our technological progress is becoming so rapid that we'll bypass sentient robots as a solution to things just like we'll bypass long-term genetic therapy and long-term plans on moving human biologics around the solar system.
Instead, we'll simply keep extending more and more of "us" into "the cloud". It won't happen overnight. I don't think we'll be doing any sort of intrusive inorganic conversion (i.e. I don't see us becoming Borg-like). Eventually (and by eventually I really mean 25 years from now) most of what makes "us" us will be in the cloud at which point you could argue that this enhanced version of us is in effect, "AI" because we'll have vastly expanded our intelligence using artificial means.
I realize when we look at a fixed point in time -- 2013 -- what I say above may seem absurd to some. But, then again, someone in 1813 would think the future we live in today would have been an absurd scenario. We already are using artificial means to greatly expand our individual capabilities.
Let’s look at 1813.
In 1813, homes were still primarily lit with candles (if you were rich, most people, if they lit their homes, did so with animal fat and other rather nasty stuff). Furniture, such as it was, was kept up against walls. The idea of having furniture in the middle of the room would be ridiculous (you'd trip on it in the dark all the time). It wouldn't be until Whale Oil became common (the whale oil boom started in the 1700s) that lamps would start to become a wide-spread solution (again for the rich countries of the world) which led to kerosene and then gas and of course electrical lighting.
Today, in 2013, I can, from my person, turn on and off the steady, perfect, illumination in my home from across the world. I have control the temperature of my home from across the world. I can "command" my home to play movies on the television for guests even if I'm not at home (mind you, in 1813, the equivalent entertainment would be going to the theater to watch a live performance). Point being in 2013, an individual can command light, heat, cool, entertainment and more via their constructs (their tiny machines) from anywhere in the world.
None of the above scenario required me to insert wires or electrodes into my body. 
And I want to emphasize this: The pace of this progress is accelerating exponentially. That's why so many people have a rough time realizing that our dreams of a Star Trek future or one of robots or even a future where we're all genetically modified super beings will never come to pass because technology will outpace those inventions. They'll never have a chance to really get going. We'll still have some of this stuff but they'll go the way of the telegraph except unlike the telegraph which lasted many decades, the things I mention above many only get a few years of spotlight before being passed on by.
In the time that this forum is likely to still exist, I predict (And we can refer back to this in another 10 years) that 10 years from now (and this forum is 12 years old already) that the idea of sending biological human beings to Mars will seem ridiculous to a lot of people, if not most people.
One more personal example of how our individual capabilities, enhanced via our machines, is trumping our "meat". As some of you know, I'm an amateur astronomer. I've spent many thousands of dollars over the years on telescopes. I still, for the kids and such, will haul out one of my smaller ones to show them Jupiter or Saturn. But that's about it. Why? Because today, I can simply take control of a robotic telescope in an observatory somewhere in the world (like the Canary Islands) and look at the sky with that. Why would I futz with a 14 inch telescope (if you've ever used a large non-permanent positioned telescope you know what I mean) when I can "see" the same thing with a much better telescope?
And we're just beginning. Aug Glasses are coming (Google glass being a primitive example), Aug Chairs an when they figure out how to connect our "meat" inputs to the cloud in a way that is culturally acceptable, we'll have Aug us and at that point, the singularity will be upon us.
My hopes are so high for is movie!
I'm wondering if Clark Kent (with glasses) ever makes an appearance?
As discussed here, the climate models that predicted a rapidly warming earth continue to be way way off.
The measured results and the projected results are way off.
I’ve received a lot of grief over the years from friends, family and colleagues because I’m a global warming “skeptic” (particularly about AGW).
Now mind you, I drive an electric car powered by a solar array and live in a house heated and cooled through Geothermal and had a gold rating from the NAHB. I personally fall into the “the less impact I can have on the environment, the better” line. But there’s a big difference between what I voluntarily do and what the government tries to coerce me and other people to do and when it comes to AGW, I don’t think the evidence is compelling enough to justify a world wide economic depression.
6 years ago, I wrote an article called “What happens if the Earth starts cooling?” which speculated on what would environmentalists say if their predictions turned out to be wrong. 6 years later, the measured temperatures for 2012 are less than those of 2006 which in turn were less than 2005 which where less than 2003 which were less than 1998. I’m not arguing a trend down but now that global temperatures have gotten highly politicized, the measured temperatures are now much more scrutinized than they used to be (which is why I take the precision of temperatures in say 1950 with a grain of salt).
What should be reasonably irrefutable at this stage is that the climate models are wrong. By a lot. According to the models, the mean atmospheric temperatures should be well over almost 0.50 degrees higher than they were in 2000. Instead, it’s within the margin of error of being the same.
None of this should mean that we shouldn’t try to reduce our impact on the environment. But hopefully people will start to decouple their political beliefs from their scientific beliefs. Skepticism isn’t a bad thing.
I’d like to think I’m doing my part but I did this voluntarily.
Windows 8.1 is scheduled to bring the Start button back to the Windows 8 desktop. However, it will not include the Start menu. Instead, it’ll simply transport the user out of the desktop and back into the Metro Start screen environment. This is a mistake.
I realize that there lots of people out there who like the Start screen metaphor. And we can argue whether the Start screen is a more productive environment than the traditional desktop until the end of time. However, what isn’t debatable is that such a radical departure from 20 years of training is very expensive and disruptive.
Not everyone, in fact, I would argue not even most people are particularly familiar with using computers even today. They have some expertise with some piece of software but in terms of navigating the operating system itself, their understanding is remarkably fragile. I run into this every day when I deal with enterprise customers (who, I might add, represent a significant percentage of the 5+ million Start8 users out there).
I don’t think most technically savvy people realize just how reliant on documentation the average user is. Whether that be a computer book, a website, or even the training manual for the support people who are trying to help walk through people updating their cable modem or the streaming video service or access their online banking account, people rely on existing documentation. And that documentation – those 20 years of accumulated knowledge – has real value. This is value that Microsoft is discarding for purposes that make little sense.
I personally have no issue with the Start screen or Metro. I find Metro (even the Windows 8.1 iteration) to be wholly inferior to the desktop for trying to get work done but it’s not something that can’t be improved on with a few more iterations. What I do object to is forcing users to completely switch paradigms where the new one offers no tangible benefit to the bulk of the existing user base. The user base should be gradually migrated over to the Start screen/Metro/ModernUI environment based on the intrinsic advantages it delivers (which, right now, are not very apparent to the non-touch user).
As much of a boon Microsoft’s design choices have been to our business this past year, our first concern has to be for the health of the overall ecosystem. Start8 and ModernMix are products we’ve created to make Windows 8 more usable for our customers. But they are features that should have been part of the OS from day 1. They should never had to be made. Microsoft should realize that the immense popularity of these programs indicates that people want these features and should have made them part of Windows 8.1.
With Legendary Heroes out, I can finally start reading how people are playing the “finished” game. Kael’s gotten me tons of reports and I’ve started tackling them one by one.
I am hoping to have the first batch ready for the next update (perhaps as early as next week). But that won’t be the end of it. I plan to take care of some low hanging fruit strategy suggestions first and then go on and deal with the more challenging aspects that will require a lot more play testing to do.
Stay tuned!
In the meantime, check out 8 out of 8’s video impressions of Legendary Heroes:
The Atlantic found this highly interesting cartoon from the 1950s:
http://m.theatlantic.com/video/index/276344/the-wonderful-world-of-capitalism/
We are gradually losing this dynamic as the United States (and Europe) move away from a manufacturing economy and into an information economy and it’s not likely to get better.
Where in the 50s, the “captains of industry” had a symbiotic relationship with their workforce – their objectives required the labor and ingenuity and productivity of their middle class workers – that is no longer the case today and our society suffers as a result.
Today, a combination of computer automation and globalization (outsourcing of labor) has resulted in the wealth of the very top to dominate every other tier. Being in the “1%” myself, I can see how this has happened as capital now generates accelerating returns (our machines displace human workers at an increasing rate and this is likely to continue to accelerate).
I don’t have any suggestions or policy proposals to change this. But if you watch the video linked above, it really sends home how much our economy has changed over the last 50 years.
My office has a lot of light in it. It’s one of those catch-22, people want windowed offices but the light can be very distracting. Rather than constantly fighting with my blinds, I decided to try some computer glasses.
This is what I picked:
I can’t say enough good things about these. Not only do they let me work in a well sunlit room in comfort but they make working on my Cintiq a joy since I don’t feel like I have a flash light in my face.
As a tablet OS, Windows 8 is pretty decent. I don’t have a problem with the Start screen in theory. But I spend 8+ hours a day in front of a PC doing real work and that means using a desktop OS.
Windows 8 includes the desktop but it relegates that to being a program you run from the Start screen. What we really want is to get the good stuff in Windows 8 (faster performance, new Modern app support, etc.) without the negatives. That’s where Object Desktop comes in!
So with Object Desktop, the beta of WindowBlinds 8 is now available which brings back “Aero glass” to Windows 8 users on the desktop. Plus with ModernMix, Start8, Fences and the other goodies you can have the best of both worlds.
Here’s the UI of WindowBlinds 8:
We include some “skins” that are timeless favorites plus a few that represent what we thought (hoped) the Windows 8 UI might have been like to choose from. Plus there are thousands of skins available at WinCustomize.com.
If you want to get our whole package, you can get Object Desktop at www.objectdesktop.com. When you buy it you also get a 1-year subscription to ObjectDesktop.net which gives you access to everything new we add for a subsequent year (Object Desktop is always improving and changing as the needs of PC users change).