Ken's Blog

I used to keep lots and lots of phone numbers in my head. This was before the days of smart phones.

I didn’t think it was a problem, because I really didn’t have much of a choice. When there is only one way to do something, you don’t think about it much — you just do it.

Yes, you could keep a little book with phone numbers, but you’d need to carry that book around with you everywhere, and most people didn’t do that. We just learned to memorize phone numbers.

Today I saw somebody I recognized, but I didn’t know from where. He smiled and waved hello, and he clearly believed that I knew exactly who he was.

I was tempted to start a conversation, but did not want to reveal that I didn’t quite know who I was talking to. But if I had a pair of smart glasses with the right software, my glasses would have told me his identity, and he would just assume that I had remembered who he was.

All of which leads to the following question: Will our ability to remember names one day go the way of our ability to remember phone numbers?

Just the other day I was talking to a friend about Bette Davis. My friend is a guy who loves movies, but who had never seen any of her movies.

I was trying to explain to him just how radical she was. You see, there were certain ironclad assumptions in old Hollywood.

One of those assumptions was that a movie star must always lead with attractiveness. It’s ok to play a dark and problematic character (Bogie did that quite a lot, for example), but underneath it all, your audience is still supposed to secretly want to sleep with you.

Davis blew all of that out of the water. Unlike her contemporaries, she leaned into embracing the realities of aging.

As the years went on, she boldly transitioned from being a glamorous leading lady to becoming one of the greatest character actors of all time. In fact her greatest performances were in that latter part of her career.

Just this morning I learned that today is her birthday. Please join me in wishing a very happy 118th birthday to one of the greatest legends of the silver screen.

As AI advances, vibe coding is becoming ever more popular. There may come a point when much of “computer science” will consist of giving high level directives to an AI, rather than actual programming as we think of it today.

But I like programming. It’s fun, it’s challenging, it keeps my mind sharp, and it gives me an enormous sense of satisfaction.

Will programming one day go the way of the switchboard operator or milkman? Or will we still keep on programming after it is no longer necessary?

I am encouraged by the fact that photography did not kill painting, and movies did not kill live theater. People will generally continue to do things that give them satisfaction, because that’s what we humans do.

What a sad coincidence. Just one day after my post of yesterday, our creepy U.S. Secretary of Defense is saying that our nation has a sacred mission to to go out and kill people in other parts of the world in the name of Jesus.

Thank God for the Pope and his very timely response. A voice of kindness and sanity in a time of cruelty and insanity.

Last night I attended a Passover Seder at the house of a friend. After the person running the Seder talked about how grateful we are to have our freedom, she asked whether anyone wanted to add any thoughts.

One older man spoke up: “I hope the people of Iran will be able to be free from the oppression of their government.” The fact that he picked that particular example provided me with a strong hint about who he had voted for in 2024.

I found myself wondering whether the people who say things like that ever think about other places. What about North Korea, or Eritrea, or Syria, or Myanmar, or Turkmenistan, or Yemen, or South Sudan, or Belarus, or Somalia, or Libya, or Nigeria, or Tajikistan, or Zimbabwe, or Chechnya?

Compassion is good. But virtue signaling for the purpose of political posturing? Not so much.

Apple Computer Incorporated turns 50 years old today. All things considered, the company has been doing pretty well for itself in its first half century of life.

In fact, I’m typing this on an Apple computer, and it has been many years since I’ve wanted to use any other kind of computer. That right there tells me something.

Sometimes research feels a little like rock climbing. You look up, and you see a daunting cliff looming high above. You tell yourself that you could never climb something like that.

But then you get a foothold, and you pull yourself up a bit. From a little higher, you spot new ways up that you couldn’t see before.

After a while you rest a bit, and think about strategy. Then you keep going.

Sometimes you found out that you’ve been navigating into a dead end for that last little stretch. When that happens you need to carefully ease your way down again and regroup.

But eventually, if you are patient and careful and persistent, you make it all the way to the top. Then you can celebrate with a little lunch.

And maybe publish.

I have been having a lot of discussions recently with colleagues about the nature of virtual reality. Different people have different definitions for which experiences, exactly, should be considered VR, and what experiences shouldn’t.

But one thing that we all agree on is that there is actually no such thing as pure virtual reality. In a sense, VR is a kind of willful collective fiction, albeit an often useful one.

The reason is pretty simple: No matter what technology you use to virtually “transport” you to another world, you still remain within your body. You may have the sensation of an out of body experience, but that is an illusion.

There is nothing new about this principle. For example, many people cry at movies, even though they know full well that they are looking at a recording of actors playing make-believe. The power of all media depends on our human ability to ignore literal reality when we wish to.

Similarly, when you are wearing that VR headset, even if you don’t perceive the wall or the couch or the coffee table, you know that they are still there, and that your physical body could still run into them.

And that’s really ok.

I’ve noticed in research that one of the most difficult things is establishing the right scope. There is a great temptation to take on everything at once.

When I start a project, I’m like a kid in a candy store. There are so many directions, and I want to go into all of them!

But eventually, as I keep working on the plan, I realize why less is more. If you go in every direction at once, you are not really able to go very far.

You don’t just need to find the right research questions. You also need to have the right research focus.

Today I am very proud of my fellow Americans. More than 10 million patriots (possibly a lot more) took to the streets across our nation to uphold the U.S. Constitution and fight fascism.

Many people showed up with great home-made signs about our bizarro president and his cruel and destructive actions. Some of the signs were very elegant, others were just plain funny.

My favorite sign? The one that said that if there’s any justice, “Big Beautiful Bill” will be the name of his cellmate.