3.8 billion-year-old gadget lust

Gadget lust IV

Human beings – evolution’s cutting edge, at least in our experience and overlooking our possible supersession by machine culture – have recently evolved an insatiable lust for gadgetry, much of it iGadgetry. But is this in fact something new? 

No. Gadget lust first emerged somewhere between 4.5 and 3.8 billion years ago

Plus ça change

Science has concluded that 3.8 billion years ago or even earlier, life on Earth – a vast variety of microorganisms – … Read more

Pandemic digital bugs

Smartwatch dementia

If her Polar smartwatch tells her she slept like a baby last night, Sara asks, how can she feel the way she feels this morning?

I’ve had similar experiences with my Apple smartwatch. One morning it will report, on the basis of four different measures, I should be all bushy tailed and ready to rock, never mind I can hardly drag my butt to the teapot. The next morning it claims I had no “deep sleep” at all, … Read more

Pandemic lockdown bright sides? No.

So has my Muse fled the scene forever, or is she merely suffering pandemic burnout?

Psychologists are reporting a rise in “pandemic burnout” as many people find the current phase of lockdowns harder, with an increasing number feeling worn out and unable to cope.

The Guardian

So here I’ve parked, this past year, largely confined to home with computers and ideas for books on all sides, shielded from such distractions as a social life. Liberally supplied with food, water, tea … Read more

Global panacea: Shift into virtual realities?

As predicted, the worlds described in MOM and Genesis 2.0 lie just down the road. I wrote this “science fiction” in full knowledge it might soon be better described as history. And I was right. Consider the exponential advances of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nanotech; see what transformations they have already wrought. 

Read the MAGIC CIRCLES novels for a preview of how the human condition might soon be further shaped, for example, by a global pandemic — one far … Read more

A la mode du jour

Aphorism du jour (hot off the press)

One good thing about blogging: you can present nearly any proposition you like, and nowhere is it written you must provide hard evidence to support it. 

So I’ll let the following rip just because I’m in the mood and because I don’t have to please academic supervisors or my mother or anybody.

A few weeks ago we saw how our preferred books, movies, music and choices of underwear, rather than being determined by … Read more

Altered states, alternate realities

This week’s post follows on from last Thursday’s look at the selfie culture found within coffee shops of a certain standard. 

Trying to account for what I witnessed, I was stuck by the notion that many of my fellow citizens seek refuge in new and improved realities. And these realities are socially and digitally engineered according to criteria that remain opaque to mere humans – including, arguably, the IT whiz kids responsible for the tech underlying these new cognitive dimensions. … Read more

Realities we inhabit: A bestiary

Alternate universe #1

Cutsie coffee shops: Where do they all come from?

After many years in the trendy Ari Samphan area, I’ve moved to quite another flavor of Bangkok neighborhood. Like Ari, however, this one comes replete with fashionable coffee shops, and, as with the Ari area, the trendier the physical plant the cuter it is – the more it’s garnished with flounces and flowers and filled with comely young ladies dressed to the nines and brandishing camera phones. … Read more

Pandemic pandemics

It’s nice to see Joe Biden tackling so many urgent issues right out of the starting gate, for one thing issuing executive orders that veer away from the previous administration’s willful abdication of any responsibility, past, present or future, for climate change.

It’s also encouraging to see him elevate his top science advisor to cabinet rank.

True or false? Respect for the authority of those with specialized training and experience is declining in inverse proportion to increasing respect for authoritarian … Read more

Fashion statement du jour: IoT wrist monitor

In line with much of the general population, I rarely get a full night’s sleep. Neither a world leader with many responsibilities nor a wild young lad, I’m merely an insomniac.

Recently – yielding to Sara’s incessant advice that I buy a smartwatch – I acquired an Apple Watch. I still wasn’t too sure why I’d done this, so Sara badgered me into loading it with an app called AutoSleep. Every morning, now, AI independently verifies my latest defeat in … Read more

THE BEST OF TIMES

Compared to 2020, all previous years, even the Disco Era, were the golden age of human existence.

Dave Barry, Washington Post

Good riddance 2020. The year from Hell, right? So everyone says. But it’s really only a matter of how you look at it. 

NY Times Andrea Chronopoulos
“What Makes You Think 2021 Will Be Better?” by Wajahat Ali

Whatever. Here’s something from a collection I call “Leary’s Laws,” call it a gloss on Dave Barry’s above comment.

Things

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