№ 448. A Bucket List for an Extended Lockdown

The plague has the real world on lockdown. Thankfully, not the "Westworld."

Whittier Daily News

Here's a list of things to do during our extended free time:

1. Get involved in the community. Red Cross.

2. Visit museums.

3. Tour libraries, borrow and read books.

4. Plan the next trip. Pre-Visit or travel to countries and cities: Moscow Metro; Along Dusty Roads; and, Cool Hunting.

5. There's still free television, cable TV, Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV and other streaming services.

6. Brush up on or, at least, keep up with the unfolding current events. The pandemic will pass sooner or later. But we need to hit the ground running. We lost an entire month already. Ah yes, I faintly remember the concept of deadlines and conferences. Yup.

7. Keep in touch, stroll, curate the world, troll and stalk on social media. We could do this so well before the plague. There's so much more time to waste now.

8. House chores, laundry and sundry. Clean out the ref., that butter looks green.

№ 444. Virtual Tours in the Age of Covid

Max Gustafson

Here's a safer and cheaper way to travel while the world is on quarantine: virtual tours.

Soon, I think, we can reinvent the internet and involve the other senses in the virtual tours. For example, we can walk through the tour and touch the exhibits, if allowed. Or smell and taste them, if the curators want us to sample them.

Fast forward to science fiction reality about a hundred years from now. After this 2020 pandemic becomes an uneventful entry in history, I look forward to teleporting directly to any tourist attraction, museum, restaurant, concert on the planet or off.

Teleporting will dispense with a lot of the necessary inconveniences of travel in the present like check-in, immigration, pre-departure wait and baggage carousels. Viruses and other contaminants, like terrorists, can also be safely isolated in the ether before they reach their destinations. Some thought.

№ 333. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 4

"If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” But, really, how can you tell? So much of what is happening between the public and Silicon Valley is out of view — algorithms written and controlled by wizards who are able to extract value from your identity in ways you could never do for yourself."

№ 326. Design of the Decades

His proposals:

1. Transparency
2. Accountability
3. Rethink / Redesign

№ 305. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 3

Layered Realities

Are we real? What if we're just a dream? A meme? Or looped replay of a song created by a civilization long gone? What if we’re living in a computer simulation?

№ 221. Virtual Lawyering

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." --- Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities

What is out there for the once and future lawyer?

Emails are so mid-90s. Google has grown up and morphed into a teenage giant. Social networks are slowly plateauing. Wireless, and its many iterations, is almost the humdrum norm, circa 2015, except maybe for my desktop office.

№ 217. Laminated Realities

What are you looking at?

Bouroullec

What are you really looking at?

№ 171. Happy Birthday Gmail, Quo Vadis?

Here's food for digital thought: What are the options and risks of Gmail usage. Costs and benefits? Where are we headed? 1984-esque?

Gmail is a superb service, which doesn't cost me a centavo. Yet, as the CNN article said, it's not free. Nothing in life is, as the cliche goes.

I started out with Yahoo but then moved to Gmail not for anything quantum really but simply because the service and the search features were killer. It's all about the delightful user experience. I don't mind sharing my information. As long as I control the bits and pieces I disclose and get to be apprised of the data they're going to mine, dig in big brother Google.

So here goes another turn for singularity. Happy Anniversary Gmail. Maybe I'll regret this much later, but for now, I can't say I'm on the losing end of the deal.

№ 76. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 2

The VR Glasses actually look minimalist. They don't appear too android-like or,

if you wish, Borg-like. No matter, I like their by-line: "We believe technology should work for you---

to be there when you need it and to get out of your way when you don't." This humanistic bent is 

similar to the one advertised by Nokia some ten years ago about connecting people and about 

having rounded edges instead of sharp ones. Photos from googlepalace.

Cellphones, those hand-carried metal or plastic bricks we see, touch and hear everyday will soon be obsolete. That is, if "evil" Google (insert maniacal laugh track here) and its team of engineers will have their machinations fleshed out. Again, another augmented reality or Flesh + Machine specie. The Borg-like reality isn't really that far out or implausible anymore.

Seven of Nine with remnants of the Borg implants after she was
disconnected from the hive mind. startrekdesktopwallpaper.com

№ 70. Ze Map, X Marks the Spot

"There are a ton of fan-made maps out there depicting the world of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series — not to mention some pretty impressive fan art — but this one is by far the best we’ve ever seen. Created by superfan TheMountainGoat by combining books from the maps as well as other fan-made maps, it is as functional as it is beautiful. There’s a larger, zoomable version at his website, plus some other goodies, like a cool animated timeline map and a view of Westeros in Google Earth view. We’ll never get lost on the Dothraki sea again."

from Flavorwire

№ 29. My Life in REM Sleep

Today is May 4, 2010, Tuesday. We're in the middle of Manila's concrete bake off. It’s only 11:10 AM and I’m already melting from the heat. 

I’m writing this confession on a black Mac, which has the color of my id.

---

Like the rings of a redwood, sweat is etched in my indexes. They yield tales of the fat years as well as the lean ones. 

I have recently been self-employed---unplugged from the matrix of production.  Technically though, I am just a capitalist in hibernation.

I also just switched from Windows to Mac last year. 


Yes, I’m aware that Mac is a Q Continuum compared to that unenlightened majority of the technological divide. Those protozoans and their clones. Still, my Mac hums on XP. Defilement, you say. Well, my system can’t be purged of all eighteen years of assimilation. Redmond is still fused with my flesh.

---

№ 20. Can You Be My Friend?

Bento: Thanks S for posting on Facebook.

№ 1. Commitment to be Waylaid

William H. Murray said it well: “The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way.”

Chapter 1: In the Beginning….

The email thread below began the big bang (or perhaps, more accurately, the small blip). The idea of a blog had been with me for years now. I just wasn’t prepared with the contents, visuals and the commitment.

As some force would will it, the edited conversation pushed this idea into the blogosphere. I stirred the primordial soup, ignited the burner and… 


*KABLAM!*