Because the future has just started
When I was little, our dad would sometimes bring home donuts for dessert. One day I asked him “When you eat a donut, what happens to the hole?”
He thought about it for a moment, and then he told me “The ghosts eat them.”
I really liked this answer. From then on, I felt very good after I ate a donut.
After all, I wasn’t just eating a donut. I was also feeding a ghost.
Today Kamala Harris turns 60. Hopefully she (and the rest of us) will get a nice belated birthday present on November 5 when she beats what’s his name.
Although considering the completely loopy things that guy has been saying recently, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he is no longer her actual opponent. Any month now he may stop being able to form English sentences altogether.
Which means she is actually running against the man who will take his place when he goes off to the cuckoo bin. And that’s what really scares me.
The Republican VP candidate is something far worse than a mere crook. He is a extremist true believer, which is ten times more terrifying.
I find it fascinating the way fantastical fiction seems to come in pairs, like Coke and Pepsi.
Currently there are currently two major fictional SciFi universes in American culture: Star Wars and Star Trek. In addition, there are currently two major fantasy universes in American culture: the universe of Lord of the Rings and the universe of Harry Potter.
Interestingly, the two science fiction universes both originated in the U.S., whereas the two fantasy universes both originated in the U.K. This roughly matches our sense of those two cultures. America speaks to our sense of the future, whereas England speaks to our shared sense of a nostalgic past.
Of course there is now a third fantastical universe, which has taken over popular culture by shamelessly mixing science fiction and fantasy, without regard to any sense of rhyme or reason. I’m speaking, of course, of the Marvel Universe.
Where else could you find a touching love story between a witch and a robot?
Today I was on a flight over the U.S., and I used my phone to see where I was. Google maps did a spectacularly good job of locating me as a little moving blue dot upon the Earth.
It was fascinating to see lakes and other features on the map at the same time that I could see them with my own eyes out of the window of the plane. I was impressed by how fast this country is, and how much of it is covered in farmland.
And I am reminded once again, lest I should ever forget, that this world is very large, and we humans are extremely small.
Maya Angelou famously said “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” That makes me curious about the thought process of the people who intend to vote for the Republican candidate for U.S. president in this election cycle.
Are they intending to vote on the premise that they don’t believe the things he is saying? His claim that he will be a dictator on his very first day in office. His creepy promise, if elected, to persecute anyone who disagrees with him politically. His promise to destroy entire sectors of the U.S. economy by deporting the workers that those American industries depend upon.
Do those voters think that he is just joking every time he opens his mouth? And if they really think that, then why exactly are they planning to vote for him?
I loved watching the Kamala Harris interview on Fox. News anchor Bret Baier kept interrupting her and trying to trip her up.
But she kept running circles around him, just as she ran circles around you know who during the presidential debate. Every time she turned the tables on her interviewer, it reminded me what a great president she will be.
Sometimes I feel hopeful about the future.
At the user interface conference this week, I got into a conversation with a researcher at Meta. He enthusiastically told me about his research there on gaze tracking.
Specifically, his research group is trying to analyze where people are looking to figure out what they are thinking. In my mind I found myself turning that into a Black Mirror episode.
In my episode, a large unnamed corporation is able to figure out all sorts of things about people from where those people are looking. At one point the corporation’s A.I. figures out that two people are secretly having an affair.
The corporation immediately proceeds to use this knowledge to blackmail the unfortunate couple. The plot twist: We find out that this practice is the corporation’s major source of revenue.
Is that too dark?
You like to think outside the box,
You’re feeling bold, unorthodox!
It’s not as easy as you think
Because there always is a link
Between new concepts, bright and bold,
And other concepts ages old
Which build upon ideas we know
That people dreamed up long ago.
If you don’t want to swing and miss,
You simply must remember this:
To think in ways unorthodox
First you need to see the box.
Today I attended a workshop at the UIST conference. A random conversation with another participant got me thinking in a completely new direction.
After I left the workshop, I started to build a virtual prototype on my computer. Pretty soon I had something working.
When I get back to NY I am going to print it out on a 3D printer and see whether it all works. Meanwhile, I am feeling very appreciative of conference workshops.
Today I read a recent interview with Danny Bonaduce. He played Danny Partridge in the TV show The Partridge Family. In the show, he was the kid with attitude who was always causing trouble. Man how I had loved that character.
Fast forward to now. At one point in the interview Bonaduce was asked about his school days, which led to this exchange:
“You went to school with Michael Jackson. What was he like back then?”
“He was painfully shy. I remember one day I startled him by saying, ‘Hey, Mike, how come you never say anything?’ And he said, ‘Because I’m in constant remembrance of God.’ I said, ‘That’s cool, but what about girls?'”
Somehow, reading that made me very happy.