Author: admin

When I am working together with people on-line, there is a kind of efficiency we can achieve that is different from in-person efficiency. For example, if we are all working togther on developing a software package, on-line tools let us work in parallel in very nice ways.

In person the process tends to be different. We are (rightly) focusing mainly on each other, rather than on our screens. So we are communicating better as people, but we aren’t quite tracking each others’ work with the same focus.

I wonder whether there might be a way to get the best of both worlds. Perhaps some sort of collaborative software tools that privilege both the power of being together in person and the efficiency of being “plugged in” to our respective views of a shared software project.

This might be one of those situations that would benefit from future higher quality augmented reality.

When the Web started being used by millions of people nearly 30 years ago, pundits predicted that new forms of communication like video chat would kill the travel industry.

After all, why bother going through all of the time, trouble and expense of getting on an airplane, when you can “visit” anyplace or anyone without leaving the comfort of your home?

But that is not what happened. Quite the opposite in fact. As our collective use of the internet rose, long distance travel rose right along with it.

It seems that as it became easier to connect with distant people and places, there was a corresponding increase in everyone’s motivation to visit those people and places.

In the next few years, video chat services such as Zoom might gradually become replaced by something that feels a lot more like being there — perhaps something akin to the Star Wars Jedi Council.

When that happens, what will be the effect on long distance travel? I predict that the pattern will repeat: Our human connection to distant friends will only increase, and long distance travel will increase as well.

I’ve learned that there are certain social shortcuts on Zoom that work really well. If you make sure use them, then everything goes smoothly. If you don’t, you can run into trouble.

One of those shortcuts involves carefully dancing around the truth. I will illustrate with a helpful example:

Acceptable way to end a Zoom call: “Sorry, I’ve got to jump off now to go to another meeting.”

Unacceptable way to end a Zoom call: “Sorry, this meeting is getting really long and boring, and I have a life.”

Your mileage may vary.

I’ve finally gotten around to watching Psych, years after it went off the air. Well ok, bingeing.

It’s an incredibly funny show. And in nearly every episode, somebody is brutally murdered. That should be a contradiction, right?

I mean, how can a show be laugh out loud funny, when it consistently portrays so much violence and tragedy? And yet it all works — completely and very entertainingly.

As Jules Feiffer said in his screenplay for Popeye, we find this out, we find out everything.

Sometimes I just wonder about stuff. And sometimes the way I work on the answer is by writing a computer program.

In this case I was curious about the relationship between how fast particles move around in a fluid, and how far each particle really travels. With all of those particles bouncing around like crazy, every particle must quickly end up far away from where it started, right?

The actual answer surprised me. You can look at my little simulation here.

This week I needed to do various complicated things at the post office involving sending official forms to our US government. When the post office employee manning the line found that out, she pulled me out of the line and said to come with her.

She set us up at a table, and said “I’m going to boss you around a bit. Is that okay?” I happily replied “Yes, that is just fine.”

She then proceeded to help me with great attention to detail. In several places she caught crucial details I had missed. Had we not corrected those details, the forms would have been sent right back to me unprocessed, which would have been extremely unfortunate.

This was a fairly typical experience for me at the post office. These people work tirelessly for us, and I have had uniformly positive experiences with them. They never try to be overly friendly, but they are invariably helpful and professional, and they make sure to get all the details right.

Say what you want about government, I love the post office!

Today I went to the store to buy something, and paid with my credit card. Instead of inserting my card into the slot, I used the newer “Tap and Go” feature.

Tap and Go is much more convenient, and I am still happily surprised at how well it works. I shared that thought with the guy behind the counter.

“Yes,” he replied, “We are going to get to the point where you just need to look at the machine.”

“Yeah,” I said. “The problem is that it will be looking back.”

He laughed, but maybe a little nervously.

At this point in history, there is live theater and there are movies. Nobody would mistake the one for the other.

Movies offer unlimited special effects, but the thing about theater is that it is happening right now. You and the performers share a live intersubjective experience, one that can never again be exactly replicated.

But what if — given reasonable assumptions about where technology is going — we could one day add more elements of cinema into live theater? Suppose everyone in the audience were given a pair of glasses that would allow any magical effect to be added?

A performer on stage could appear to be twenty feet tall. Impossible flying creatures could wander through the aisles. The appearance of the set could change all around the audience, in the blink of an eye. The possibilities would be limitless.

It would still be live theater. If you took off your glasses you would still see actors performing — you just wouldn’t see the added effects.

Would this lead to some sort of new hybrid form? Or, at the end of the day, would it still be theater?

Just saw Company again, and appreciating all over again how different Sondheim is from anybody else. There is really no point of comparison.

When you think, in general, of musical theater, you think of broad strokes of the creative pen, crowd-pleasing numbers, singing, dancing, an old fashioned tug-at-the-heartstrings show.

But when you think of Sondheim, you think of something else entirely. The really hard problems of being an adult, the fractured hearts of humans that make relationships so challenging and yet so worthwhile. It’s a completely different beast.

If we had never had Sondheim, we wouldn’t have believed he was possible. How infinitely beautiful and astonishing is that?

I’ve started reading David Chalmers’ new book Reality+: virtual words and the problems of philosophy. Among other things, Chalmers asks the question of whether our reality is just a simulation. And if it is, would we have any way of knowing?

But maybe I am just a simulation of me reading this book. Or perhaps I am a simulation of me reading a simulation of this book.

I’m ok with the first part of that, but that last part is where I get stuck. Is there any difference, really, between a book and a simulation of that book? Aren’t they, essentially, exactly the same thing?

I understand that we can remain uncertain that we ourselves are “real” in some metaphysical sense. But our books are absolutely real, as informational entities, no matter what metaphysical interpretation one has of reality itself.

When it comes to a book, it’s turtles all the way down.