The Technium. A fascinating interview with Kevin Kelly from last February. It’s a long read, or an hour-long video, but so worth the time. One of my favorite nuggets was, “Machines are for answers; humans are for questions.”
Tag: future
What Would a Better Technological Society Look Like?
Overcrowded prisons, rapid gentrification, industrial disasters, and predatory banking practices aren’t bugs, they’re features of our current historical moment.
The Future of Education Is Not What It Used To Be:
There must be a loud call—not to make teachers better at teaching, not to quantify student success, but simply to encourage all students to be better thinkers and learners.
Software Is Reorganizing the World:
In this sense, the future of technology is not really location-based apps; it is about making location completely unimportant.
On Thingpunk. Interesting read via Matt Pearson about what the author dubs Thingpunk. Essentially:
Thingpunk is a deep bias in design thinking that sees physical products and the built environment as the most important venues for design and innovation even as we enter a world that’s increasingly digital.
Not sure how to capture it but it was an intriguing read.
This transcript of James Burke’s talk at dConstruct 2012 is fantastic. In it he discusses the network effect of small changes repeated at scale. There’s also this gem:
Institutions manage change above all so that they can make sure that innovation doesn’t mean disruption. Established institutions, even yours, are vulnerable to disruptive technology.
Humanity’s deep future. Interesting survey of future-oriented human thinking. The bit on Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s notion of a great filter is new to me.
New design factors for Robot Cars. Absolutely fascinating. My current Prius will likely be the last car I ever own. The sooner ideas like those in this post see reality, the better.
Warren Ellis, How To See The Future:
The most basic mobile phone is in fact a communications devices that shames all of science fiction, all the wrist radios and handheld communicators. Captain Kirk had to tune his fucking communicator and it couldn’t text or take a photo that he could stick a nice Polaroid filter on. Science fiction didn’t see the mobile phone coming. It certainly didn’t see the glowing glass windows many of us carry now, where we make amazing things happen by pointing at it with our fingers like goddamn wizards.