Aug 18

While I feel this article creates alarm without setting out a clear path forward, it does make some valid points.

While I feel this article creates alarm without setting out a clear path forward, it does make some valid points. I was born in the 1960s and educated in the 1980s, and I do a job that didn’t exist in either of those decades. In my early 50s, I find myself needing to learn new skills, remain calm in the midst of constant change, hold uncertainty lightly, and define who I am again.

How much more will a child born today, or being educated now, need those skills and abilities? And how badly is today’s education system preparing them for the world of 2050? (No disrespect to teachers, who do an almost impossible job, often with great dedication and inadequate resources; it’s the system that is poorly designed.)

The future is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/yuval-noah-harari-extract-21-lessons-for-the-21st-century

Aug 17

We need more software engineers like this.

We need more software engineers like this.

Originally shared by Self-Rescuing Princess Society

Today’s the birthday of Margaret Hamilton.

What I find fascinating about her work was the fact that she was building the field of computer software engineering as she went along. The brilliance of her work wasn’t so much that she build a system to help the astronauts reach the moon, but that she built it to basically save them from their own mistakes.

When NASA began its quest to send the first humans to the moon, there was immense pressure to make certain that whomever went up into space also came back down safely. Too much was riding on the success of the moon landing and any mistake could have dire consequences for the astronauts. It would be devastating to the space program if something terrible happened with millions of people around the world sitting on the edge of their seats watching each space launch and landing.

Astronauts are highly trained, intelligent people, selected for their ability to function under extreme pressure. But even astronauts make mistakes, push the wrong button, switch the wrong knob. How do you reconcile the absolute need for “no room for error” with the fact that “to err is human?”

Margaret Hamilton figured out a way.

Read more about her on the SRPS blog: https://selfrescuingprincesssociety.blogspot.com/2017/08/todays-birthday-of-computer-science.html

Aug 17

You might not be too keen on spider-like microbots under your skin, or your workplace using facial recognition to…

You might not be too keen on spider-like microbots under your skin, or your workplace using facial recognition to monitor morale, but the MIT-developed blockchain ledger to increase the transparency of police requests for private data sounds good.

Originally shared by Peter H. Diamandis

Abundance Insider: August 17th, 2018 Edition – http://bit.ly/2Bmcz4R

http://bit.ly/2Bmcz4R

Aug 17

This is a screenwriter, doing what writers do: turning an everyday event – a man running to catch a bus – into a…

This is a screenwriter, doing what writers do: turning an everyday event – a man running to catch a bus – into a suspenseful human drama.

Originally shared by Anne-Marie Clark

A great read, to the very end:

What follows is true.

August 15, 2018. DTLA.

So, this guy is walking down the street. A rumpled, stained, fast food uniform. Obviously just off a long day of serving ungrateful, hurried guests. But he knows self-care. He’s got himself an ice cream cone.

And he is in a state of nirvana. He’s enjoying this (I’m sure well deserved) ice cream cone like it’s the last one he’s ever gonna have. He is focused. No one has ever been this focused, except maybe Carlos Hathcock.

His focus is only broken by the sound of a bus… I watch him look, and see the realization come over his face – this bus is where he is headed with his delicious feast. And that there is no way he gets there before it leaves… unless he runs.

Now, our boy isn’t small. There’s some density here. There’s been other days of ice cream cone victories and solo pizza parties. But he’s going to try. Goddamn it, he’s going to try. So, our boy begins to run…

I’m sure even in lycra, sprinter’s cleats, and empty hands, our boy is only going to move this mass so fast. He’s got his backpack over one shoulder, and that glorious cone of delight in the other hand. And let me pause here to tell you, this isn’t just any cone.

This is one of those cones where the ice cream towers almost twice the length of the cone itself. It’s a balancing act. and just licking it still, let alone in medias res, would be a feat. If I’d be close enough to the bus I would’ve simply had the driver wait..

But I was watching all this unfold before me like a live action film, a broadway play on the streets of downtown LA. So, our boy is running, as much as he can run, because though he is running, his focus is the cone.

The cone is life. The cone is everything. He’s running, but only to the point where his speed does not upset the melting Matterhorn that is his entire existence right now. But he’s doing great! He’s found a rhythm that gives him maximum speed while keeping all sweets upright…

Until the curb. He trundles off the curb, crossing the street, and things nearly go south. He slows, bends, and pulls off this extraordinary move worthy of headlining Cirque du Soleil. My jaw drops, but his ice cream does not.

But the move to keep Life (I’ve named the ice cream cone “Life”) upright has cost our boy precious seconds. He regains his stride and is running again. Up onto the next sidewalk – the tail of the bus is in view now. He’s gonna make it!

And then our boy, and this is why I will love him forever, this is why I will be telling this story for years, our boy TAKES A LICK! He slows his pace again just enough to manage a full on semi-suck lick of Life. There’s other buses, but there will never be this cone again.

I catch myself wanting to scream, “GO!” I glance around to share this moment with someone. But no one, literally no one else is witnessing this episode of the human condition play out. I silently urge our boy on, and he is running again…

But the bus, unaware of the Herculean feats taking place behind it, is horrifically unaware. I see the black smoke from the exhaust, I hear the rumble as the driver guns the engine. I look to our boy – back to the bus – COME ON!!!

Click to continue reading: https://twitter.com/Fizzhogg/status/1029871610411462657

Beginning of thread: https://twitter.com/Fizzhogg/status/1029871598629613568

ht Kee Hinckley

https://twitter.com/Fizzhogg/status/1029871598629613568
Aug 17

Although this is an author self-promoting, what he has to say is interesting: Imagine a future where population…

Although this is an author self-promoting, what he has to say is interesting: Imagine a future where population shrinks. A lot. Non-disastrously.

Originally shared by Alexander M Zoltai

https://www.tor.com/2018/08/16/escaping-the-default-future-when-writing-science-fiction/

Aug 17

Imagine a cyberpunk future, but with a lot more Chinese influence than Japanese, and corporations controlled by the…

Imagine a cyberpunk future, but with a lot more Chinese influence than Japanese, and corporations controlled by the government instead of vice versa.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent: The Rise of China’s Tech Giants https://suhub.co/2w9UXTW

Aug 13

I often see phrases like “he was twelve-years-old,” which is incorrect. Or “a twelve-year old child,” also incorrect.

I often see phrases like “he was twelve-years-old,” which is incorrect. Or “a twelve-year old child,” also incorrect.

Originally shared by Grammar Girl

When the age is an adjective that comes before the noun and modifies the noun, or when the age is a noun, hyphenate. http://ow.ly/pKIm30kCTJj

http://ow.ly/pKIm30kCTJj