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My dad bought a Pontiac Solstice this summer. My wife and I postulate that it was either the result of his early sixties or meeting his future wife (or both). In any case, I hope I'm fortunate enough to own a completely impractical car during my tenure here.
My impressions of the car:
It is a very cool car and fun to drive. I felt like Speed Racer driving it. I haven't driven it on winding mountain roads yet, but the suspension was tight through turns in city driving. The manual transmission seems like it was built for a true roadster feel - tight and somewhat unforgiving. Sitting behind the steering wheel, visually, it seems like they designed the hood line to rise up a little bit. I'm not a big guy and I couldn't really see over the hood - not quite like how some cars' hoods seem to "drop off". I thought this was cool and really gave it a unique feel driving it but I could see how it might annoy people who appreciate other sports cars. This was really the touch that I thought gave it the Speed Racer feel. The body is moulded around the seats so there almost wasn't enough room for me, my dad, and a box of bagels... but hey. The only drawback I felt was that the manual rag top seemed cumbersome to put up and down. Other than that, I appreciate the engineers at GM that designed and built that beautiful machine!
I experienced a number of reactions to Clive Thompson's provocative article, "A Head For Detail", in the November 2006 issue of Fast Company. The article explores the MyLifeBits Project, an experiment by Gordon Bell of Microsoft Research Labs that attempts to digitize, collect, and make sense of a lifetime of memories; literally, everything one encounters in life on a daily basis. Mr. Bell's tools: a digital audio recorder, a modified phone tap, a Microsoft SenseCam that hangs around his neck and snaps photos of everything, a tool like Slogger that stores a copy of every web page Mr. Bell looks at, a scanner to digitize every piece of paper, and experimental search tools developed by Microsoft.
The innovative side of me immediately understands how this project must be driving incredible innovation in search tools (and according to Microsoft, obviously developed on top of SQL Server). It's estimated in the article that a 72-year-old person would require 1 to 3 terabytes of space for an average MyLifeBits instance. Obviously that much personal data is useless without tools that help one make sense of it. Tools that no doubt will in some way enrich our lives in the future. The article also mentions DEVONthink, the information manager for the Mac that attempts to augment thinking. Likewise, concepts and technologies surrounding MyLifeBits are actively being pursued and utilized by psychologists because they have shown true promise in improving mental health; both in "normal" folks and in people who have experienced trauma.
But the human side of me (my gut, specifically) says that this kind of technology is just wrong as a standalone and widespread entity. Mark Federman, former strategist for the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology points out that "We'd all be on our best behavior. Reality would become reality TV." Mr. Thompson then goes on to ponder what happens to Microsoft's sensitive corporate memos when Mr. Bell leaves the company... Mr. Bell quips, "I'll need a lobotomy."
Granted, the point is made that we're already doing this in so many ways. We're storing our photos with tags on Flikr, we're uploading movies with tags on YouTube, we're keeping all of our email with Gmail, we're blogging our thoughts here. Yeah. At our discretion.
Part of me says this is just another form of hoarding, or the pack rat syndrome that I witness seemingly more and more. To that point, perhaps unintentionally, Mr. Thompson quotes an engineer on a related Research Labs project called Lifebrowser; a tool that lets you train it by rating different things. The engineer poignantly states, "No one ever needs to remember what happened at the regular Monday staff meeting." Exactly. So why keep it? The point was made that freeing our brains from trying to remember all of these miniscule events actually helps us to be more productive and creative. Remember the chord that Fight Club struck? Throwing it all away is refreshing too. In fact, Mr. Thompson describes some of Mr. Bell's more frustrating moments when he grasps for emails that just don't seem to be there or tries to find photos with tags that end up returning all sorts of documents that are not relevant to what he's looking for. That sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone. Mr. Bell observed that the more he used the tools to replace his memory, the more he relied on them and the weaker his natural memory seemed to become - just like anything else that atrophies in our bodies.
My final thoughts:
Hope you don't forget your password.
Memory hacking. Sounds interesting.
Memory "enhancement" sounds more interesting. That strikeout you made as the last out... try game-winning hit! That strikeout you made with Sara... try...
person 1, "I didn't say that!"
person 2, "LET'S GO TO THE TAPE!"
(As if politics could get any worse)
eraseher.com - $10/mo. to filter and remove all traces of her
"August 29, 2033 After 7 delays in as many months, Microsoft announces that its new operating system will no longer support the .mem format ..."
Mommy, I can see her boobies.
- My son watching Matron Mama Morton (Queen Latifah) in Chicago
My wife and I spent last weekend enjoying Autumn's glory on the campus of Michigan State University. I love traveling simply because, to paraphrase my brother-in-law , "if you want to have new thoughts, you've got to do new things." So here are some of things hanging around in my head since the trip:
The Starbury. Worn in the NBA and always only $14.98. No comment from Nike, Addidas, or Reebok.
My impression after driving a PT Cruiser: fun to drive but I wouldn't buy one (it definitely prefers cruising to passing). Though I'm always impressed with the details that Chrysler engineers seem to focus on.
Michigan speed limits: how can you set a limit of 75 for cars and 55 for trucks? Lowest common denominator rules...
If Technology is a flattener, and software-as-a-service extends the metaphor, why is it hard to offshore parts of SAAS?
Why is nearly every mom we know a "sales mom"? How come we never knew about this racket? Another sign of a flat world..?
I'm seeing more and more about biofuels. How come I never see anything addressing the water supply that will help create biofuels? Won't water be much more scarce and in critical supply? Maybe it's not simple. Maybe changes to government, corporate subsidies, water law, and the iconic American farmer are involved. Maybe not. But it's time to start being frank and honest about the environment.
Airport security seems to be much more efficient and less congested when it's dispersed to locations near each terminal rather than centralized in one or two main areas. (Distributed systems rule)
Crushing a beer can in Michigan is offensive. Apparently the can machines need the barcode to pay back the $.10 deposit (or something like that). The general public response to the crush can be quite startling actually.
When I was in college it never, never, occurred to me that I might be talking to a married person in a bar near campus, and that their spouse might be right over there.
Saturday night I took in a concert the likes of which I haven't enjoyed in a loooong time. I saw Kasabian (and here) with Mew and onethousand pictures at the Gothic Theatre in Denver. I'd never seen or heard really any music from any of the bands, aside from the annoyingly short blurbs on iTunes. But being a top-rated band from Leicester, England, and supporting act for Oasis, I'd heard quite a bit of buzz surrounding Kasabian and I liked enough of their annoyingly short sound to check them out. The concert came at an appropriate time, having read Britpop! just two weeks earlier.
I went through a period of about two or three years in college where I tried to cram in as many concerts as possible. Four concerts in five nights was not out of the question: Rollins Band with Sausage and Helmet, Sheryl Crow, Lemonheads with Better than Ezra, and The Cranberries (absent Suede). And I've always been pretty enamored with British bands. Maybe it's their understated stage presence and overwhelming sound, or maybe it's just because they're relatively hard to come by in Denver/Boulder. In any case, save David Grey (technically) and some group of Asian chaps rocking the The Dublin Castle, I haven't been touched by the British sound in about ten years.
Kasabian were awesome and that's just about all I can say. The Gothic is a small venue, holding maybe 500 people (300 of which approximately in attendance), and Kasabian absolutely blew the doors off the place, blew me away, and took me back to my first Brit-band show with Radiohead. It was amazing. And I usually don't look forward to opening acts, but both bands were talented in their own right and really caught my attention. Especially Mew with their abstract visuals playing on a huge screen behind them along with their abstract vocals - almost uncategorizable. Could one expect less from the top-rated band out of Denmark? But Tom Meighan, lead singer for Kasabian, was the star of the night... by far. He came off to me as a mix of Mick Jagger and Liam Gallagher of Oasis. A good friend that saw Kasabian a year ago mentioned it's apparent that Meighan's been influenced heavily by Gallagher in the year they've been touring. In any case, I felt lucky to be that close to the stage on that night.
Concert Quote of the Night, toilet wall scratches: God loves, Man kills
When I asked my four year old son what he learned at school (daycare) today, he said they were learning about water.
"Hey Dad, do you know what water's made out of?"
(Me, thinking, "well, I know what it's made out of but I can't possibly imagine what you're about to tell me.") "No buddy. What?"
"Um, two H's and an O."
(Me, thinking, "I can't believe you just said that; there's no way he knows what that means.") "Huh!"
10 second pause
"Yep. Two Hydrogens and an Oxygen."
(Me, thinking, "I cannot believe you just said that! Unbelievable!") "Wow! That is really interesting!"
"Yeah Dad."
(Me, thinking, "wonder if I should get him started on 'Six Easy Pieces'...")
