Henry Rollins on Defining Success
"... Henry Rollins [on] not labelling what you do, why he’s not interested in advice, the need to make things constantly, and why he’s never had a creative block." And 4 minute naps.
Posts for 2017/07
Techdirt: Re-Decentralizing The Web
A tour of some projects to restore the decentralization of the web with Jamie King (from the Steal This Show podcast.)
Getting Started with Headless Chrome
Browser automation got a lot easier with chrome --headless.
The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences
Including this interesting self-referential one - the Kolakoski sequence.
The 10 Commandments of Startup Success with Reid Hoffman
Tim Ferris with excerpts from Reid Hoffman's Masters Of Scale podcast, including some interesting bits with Mark Zuckerberg and Brian Chesky (Airbnb).
Civilizations at the End of Time: Iron Stars
Some really "long now" thinking. I love the possible answer to the Fermi Paradox too - that the ETs are hoarding mass & energy to do their computing when the universe cools down and it's more efficient to run their data centers.
Richard Feynman on The True Meaning of Physics
An Omni magazine interview with Richard Feynman.
Escape Pod 581: That Game We Played During the War
An interesting Hugo-nominated short story - war and chess where one side is telepathic...
Nakagin Capsule Tower
"the utopian structure was a fascinating yet wholly anachronistic remnant of a past future". Unbelievably this wasn't a filming location for The Fifth Elelement.
Steven Pinker - The Decline of Violence
A Long Now talk based on Steven Pinker's book The Better Angels of Our Nature and the counter-intuitive fact that we're living in the least violent period of history.
Lawrence Lessig : How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It
Lawrence Lessig with an excellent Long Now talk on money in politics.
Cory Doctorow - The Coming Century of War Against Your Computer
Cory Doctorow giving a Long Now talk on trusting our computers to do what we want.
AI Progress Measurement
An EFF project to show how AI is progressing in various problem domains.
Bruce Sterling: The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole
Bruce Sterling poetically throwing some cold water on the singularity at the Long Now. "the singularity is a place where matters that would be of great importance and interest to futurists become impossible to write about" "the idea that technology is being built too fast for straight people to comprehend ...kind of lacks a business model"
Michael Pollan - Deep Agriculture
A Long Now talk by Michael Pollan on the past and future of agriculture.
Andy Weir - The Red Planet for Real
Andy Weir and Peter Schwartz talking about The Martian and real-life missions to Mars.
Sam Harris - The View from the End of the World
A Long Now seminar by Sam Harris, after the release of The End of Faith in 02005.