Ken's Blog

The reason the U.S. government switched its font to Calibri in 2023 is that it is easier to read than Times Roman. Not everyone has great vision. For those who don’t, a simpler and more rounded font is very helpful.

But today our U.S. Secretary of State decided that Calibri is “too Woke”. So now the government is going back to using a font that is harder to read on screens, and more challenging for anyone with reading difficulties or dyslexia.

At this point, I think this government is just being cruel for the sake of being cruel. And every time they do something incredibly stupid and damaging that harms innocent people, they claim they are being “anti-Woke”.

So much depends on
That dream you forgot as soon
As you were awake

There is a good chance, after the U.S. returns to having an actual government, that today’s cars will eventually be replaced by self-driving cars. Once there are no longer any human drivers on the road, transportation will change in many ways.

For one thing, the absence of human drivers will mean that deaths from automobile accidents will dramatically plummet. Countless human lives will no longer be needlessly lost each year.

But another consequence will be that cars will most likely become a kind of utility — a highly granular cousin to buses. It might no long make economic sense to own a car, if you can simply call one up whenever you want.

And that means home garages — currently a large part of the footprint of many houses — will no longer serve their current function. So what will happen to those garages?

Will they all be converted into storage rooms? And if so, will future generations eventually forget that those storage rooms ever served any other purpose?

A century from now, I can imagine a history teacher trying to explain to children the original use of that odd storage room attached to their house. And those children might not believe it. How could something which sounds so crazy actually be true?

I realize that this day in history is best known to Americans as the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, prompting the United State to enter World War II.

But it seems to me that in this time when our own U.S. Government is trying to create fear and division between us, it would be productive to remind ourselves that we are all bound together by our common humanity.

And so I give you this beautiful and inspiring picture, taken on December 7, 1972 from the window of the Apollo 17 spacecraft.

I hope it will inspire you to remember that we are all brothers and sisters on this planet, and that at our best, we possess the moral courage and the spiritual awareness to care for one another.

The U.S. federal administration just released its new security doctrine. The basic thrust is that Europe is facing an existential threat because of immigration from non-European countries.

This is essentially the “Great Replacement” theory, the same one used by the Nazis to justify their, um, “policies”.

This sad episode helps me to understand why it is important for Europe to continue to receive all those immigrants. After all, on very public display right here in our own country is a sad example of the alternative.

You can find that example in the White House, which is currently housing a low functioning, knuckle dragging genetic throwback. Alas, too much inbreeding can lead to bad outcomes, or even existential threats to a nation’s well-being.

Europe, in contrast, is getting the benefit of the kind of cultural and genetic diversity that until recently was the greatest strength of the United States of America. It’s nice to see that a least somebody is still doing it right.

Sometimes you have technical breakthroughs. And sometimes you have conceptual breakthroughs.

Today I had a conceptual breakthrough. I realized that an important research concept had been staring me in the face for months, waiting for me to stare back.

The good news is that now I know what direction to go. The bad news is that now I’ve got lots of work to do.

Or maybe that’s also good news.

Today at a conference at NYU I learned all about the Oura ring, that $350 health-monitoring device you wear on your finger. For example, one colleague told me that it can continually monitor your heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygen level and breathing rate. It even has a linear accelerometer.

Another colleague told me that it can also be used for family planning. When I asked her how, she explained that it can track your menstrual cycle.

I told her that you could also use a VR headset for family planning. “Why can a VR headset do that?” she asked.

“Because,” I replied, “it gives you a headache.”

Today I was in a discussion with someone who designs those user interfaces that you see on the Web. When you need to navigate somewhere on the web page of your bank or your airline or your doctor, there are teams of people who figure out how to make that process as unconfusing as possible.

As for me, I gave up trying to figure those things out as soon as I could simply ask Google Gemini. I just ask, in plain English, how to get to, say, the refunds option, or the cancel appointments option, and Gemini gives me clear step-by-step instructions how to traverse the tree of menu options.

It doesn’t take much foresight to realize that this phase of things is very temporary. Within another few years, we will all be vibe coding those nested menus.

Underneath there will still be a branching tree of menu choices, but we will never see it, because our AI bot will be clicking through those menus for us.

Navigating those web options will then become a lost art. I suspect it is an art that very few people will miss.

On my MacBook I have Google Docs. I also have Zoom.

I use both of these programs pretty much every day, as well as manyother useful pieces of software.

They co-exist with one another in a kind of uneasy truce, as though they are shouting at each other across a wide ravine.

I cannot embed my Zoom window into a Google document, and I cannot automatically upate the contents a Google Doc from the text in my Zoom chat window, or vice versa.

Both Zoom an Google Docs have facilities for creating and inserting sketches and diagrams, but there is no way to go from one to the other.

And neither Zoom nor Google Docs can interact with my 3D modeler in any meaningful way, let alone a presentation tool from another company such as Apple Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint.

Why can’t all my apps play nice with one another? Do they really all need to be locked within their respective separate islands?

Or is this just the price we must pay for internet software that comes from large warring corporations?

A new month arrives
Fresh with possibility
And fresh with danger