Ken’s Blog

The visual cortex in the occipital lobe of the human brain contains a very rich and dense set of neurons. Those neurons are activated by light hitting the retinas in our eyes.

The connection from our eyes to our visual cortex is the optic nerve, which is mainly just a fat data pipe. Most of the interesting processing happens only after the signals have reached our visual cortex.

One can imagine a future technological intervention in which information is sent directly to the visual cortex. It is interesting to consider a computer directly exciting the neurons in our visual cortex, because those neurons provide a super-set of the connections available through the retina.

In other words, a direct connect to the visual cortex could eventually provide us with a kind of super vision. Such a capability might be far richer, more detailed and sensually vivid than the signal we currently receive through our eyes.

We might be able to see colors that no human has yet experienced, to perceive textures and visual details so rich and powerful that new language will be needed to describe it.

To people with such an enhanced visual capability, our current visual system might seem woefully dull and primitive. Those future people might wonder how we ever got along with such dim and limited visual acuity.

How, they might ask, did we ever manage to get through the day in a state of constant near blindness?

Sometimes when I look into a mirror, I think of it as a great model for what future teleconferencing should be. Unlike a flat screen, a mirror gives you a fully dimensional view.

Of course it is only providing a view of whatever is in front of the mirror. But eventually that might change, as technology evolves.

Imagine a future in which you and I could simply “swap reflections”. I could see whatever would normally be visible in your mirror, and vice versa.

Compared with our present day gleaming gadgets, this scenario feels oddly low-tech, which is how it should be. After all, the most successful technologies do not call attention to themselves. They simply blend into our everyday lives.

Today on our Future Reality Lab blog, I wrote a post about my recent visit to Facebook. If the image below does not look like what you expect a Facebook building to look like, you might want to read that post.

Today was a very joyous day in Greenwich Village. The fiftieth anniversary of Stonewall brought out a lot of people to celebrate in style.

Yet seeing all of these happy joyful young people, coming together for a giant party, reminded me of the historical complexity of such situations. It’s wonderful that so many are able to join together to celebrate something positive, yet the people celebrating are, inevitably, at a certain remove.

The daring act of defiance of authority that led to so much progress took place long before most of these celebrants were born. To them those events must seem somewhat abstract.

Would the young people enjoying today’s celebration be willing to risk their own lives for a similar cause? Fortunately for them, they will probably never need to find out.

Those brave individuals who stood up to an unfair society so long ago are now in their seventies or older, if they are still here at all. I imagine some of them are watching today’s celebration with a mix of satisfaction and bemusement.

For I am sure they know that some wars are never completely won. Mindless hate and intolerance are always waiting in the wings, looking for a new opportunity to arise.

One day that opportunity may rear its ugly head, and the battle will be joined once more. Should that sad day come to pass (and I hope it never does), I hope the young people out celebrating today will find themselves able to rise to the occasion.

This evening I called up Peacefood Cafe and ordered food to pick up. When the man who answered the phone asked what I wanted, I was ready.

“I’d like the Shanghai style dumplings,” I said, “and the vegetable tempura. Also, a slice of the strawberry cheesecake.”

There was a slight pause. I wondered whether the man had heard my order correctly.

Then he said “Oh, I really like that order!”

I know it sounds completely irrational, but in that moment I felt total triumph. I had managed to impress the guy behind the counter in a NYC restaurant with the perfection of my take-out order.

Nobody ever impresses those guys. But this evening I did.

Sometimes it’s the little things.

Yesterday, on an airplane, I watched the new Aquaman. It was a bad movie.

There were so many things wrong with it that I couldn’t even begin to enumerate them. Fortunately, you have the critics for that (pretty much all of them, it seems).

Yet my traveling companion and I really enjoyed watching it — even the bad and unintentionally cheesy and ridiculous parts. There is something about watching a bad movie together that brings its own pleasures.

I subscribe to the theory that a large part of movie watching is the person next to you. When we watch movies with somebody we know, we are learning at least as much about them as we are about the movie.

We notice when they laugh, when they groan, when they gasp in disbelief. If you subscribe to that theory, then even you can see how even bad movies can be enjoyable, because they help to connect you with the person you are with.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking here about every bad movie. Some movies are so bad that they are unredeemable. When you watch a movie like that, you and your friend just end up feeling as though somebody has stolen an hour and a half from your life.

Fortunately, Aquaman isn’t that kind of bad movie. It’s the kind of over the top experience that you can genuinely enjoy picking apart for its gaping plot holes, eye rolling inconsistencies, cheesy characters, over-obvious cliches and missed opportunities.

Also, Jason Momoa is great no matter what movie he is in, so there’s that.

All in all, if you’re looking for a bad movie to enjoy, I highly recommend Aquaman. Just remember to see it with a friend.

When I read the news, sometimes I respond by making imaginary t-shirts in my head. The question I usually ask myself is “If I wanted to publicly comment on this latest development through a t-shirt, what would I say on the t-shirt?”

It’s tricky, because you can’t put too much. People who see your t-shirt are not going to read long screeds in tiny text.

On the other hand you need to say enough so that people get the point. Sometimes this is easy — so easy in fact, that you don’t even need to make a t-shirt — you can simply buy it.

For example, I bought myself a nice black t-shirt in early 2017 that just says “Nevertheless she persisted.” I knew there was no need to make that one — you could purchase them on-line within one day of the precipitating event.

When I wear that shirt in public I often get an appreciative thumbs up from women passing by. Interestingly, I have never gotten that response from a man.

Reading the news the last few days, I immediately created a particular imaginary t-shirt in my head. I suspect that some people who get the reference would really like it. Others not so much:

      What if your
      daughter were
      “‘his type”‘?

Today is the date that they started the reign
Of that crazy King Richard the Third
That didn’t end well (the man was quite a pain)
There’s a play on the topic, I’ve heard

Sometimes a leader is really insane
And sometimes is merely absurd
Alas, history is repeating again
And I think that it would be preferred

That rather than wait for a play to explain
The weirdness of what has occurred
This time we just skip the annoyance and pain
And depose our new Richard the Third

In the last two days I did whirlwind tour of both the Google SF and Facebook Menlo Park campuses. In both cases I met with really interesting and brilliant people, and had great conversations.

But also in both cases I observed an interesting similarity between the two campuses. The architecture of each was marked with a distinctive flavor.

Google has a kind of low-key “cool nerd” vibe. The message seems to be “we may be geeky, but we are cultured, and we appreciate good art and music.”

Facebook has more of a bro vibe. It’s architecture is a bit like your friend who likes to party more than you do.

Yet so many of the details — the cafeteria, the art on the walls, the mini-kitchens and little tips about work above the urinals — were eerily similar. I realize that there is a sort of meta-language of corporate campuses. Beyond the individual differences,
they are all of one species, and it is a fascinating species indeed.

In my post yesterday I blocked out a particular word. It actually took me a while to work out exactly how to block it out.

I realized, in the process of experimentation, that different ways of blocking the same word convey different meanings. I am speaking not of denotative meanings, but rather of connotative meanings, which in some contexts are more important.

If you block out a █████ word, readers get interested. You are obviously trying to stop them from seeing something naughty.

If you block out a ◙◙◙◙◙ word, readers just get curious. Whatever could be going on behind those funny little circle things?

But if you block out a ░░░░░ word, readers understand that you are simply removing something unpleasant from polite conversation. Which was exactly my intent.