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  • 2 min read

Daemon

Irrespective of how you pronounce the title of this novel, Daemon tells the story of a near future distopia where AI runs amuck. It’s light-weight but engaging and you can probably finish it in a weekend despite its length (I read so much dense nonfiction that I forget how quickly time passes while reading an engaging novel). Okay, so the plot will hold your attention, but is it believable? Without giving too much away, there appears to be a computer program reaching into the real world from the virtual world and causing real harm to real people. The fundamental problem I have with this premise is that the apparent artifical intelligence runs without bugs and requires zero human intervention or support. In fact, it may have been designed by just a handful of people and set loose on the Internet. And in what seems like an incredibly short amount of time, it has developed an entire supply chain that employs human automatons who, with plans from the AI, have constructed an entire army complete with robotic cars and advanced weaponry.

The idea that just a handful of individuals could build such a robust application, in secret, with such a vast scope of capabilities strikes me as preposterous. Furthermore, even if such an AI could eventually be developed, the idea that such a system would somehow subvert all of the technological security mechanisms currently deployed on the Internet pushes me well past my ability to suspend disbelief.

There’s a bunch of disappointing stuff about character development and protagnosists as well, but I’ll leave that conversation out since it gives too much away. All of that said, I’m still going to read the sequel. On to Freedom™.

(Amazon.com)

  • 2 min read

Mindstorms

I’ve never really thought about how we, as a society, have used computers to aid learning. What makes learning with computers better than learning from a book or a lecture? It turns out, nothing. We’ve been doing it all wrong. The tradition of deploying computers to schools and classrooms as digital textbooks and interactive testing machines hasn’t produced dramatically better outcomes. Sure, early exposure to computers has produced students better prepared to enter the workforce as “knowledge workers” and spend 8 hours a day manipulating digital interfaces. But, at a very fundamental level, the model of educating alongside computers has missed an enormous opportunity.

Mindstorms is more than 30 years old, but the ideas and concepts are more relevant than ever. Particularly in light of the recent push to make programming the new literacy, Mindstorms explains why programming is not merely career preperation for the 21st century, but rather an amazing tool that teaches us how to learn. One specific aspect of programming described in the book that is also integral to our learning process is the idea of debugging.

Debugging is an essential part of programming computers and our natural learning ability yet it remains a concept mostly omitted from traditional education. Debugging allows developers and learners alike to methodically approach the correct solution to a problem by proposing and testing answers that are less and less wrong. Traditional education, however, depends on toxic absolutism: answers are either right or they are wrong. On a test you might get credit for showing your work, but there’s no opportunity for instant real-time feedback that might allow you to better understand where you went wrong. This is the power of debugging: instant feedback that leads to a virtous cycle of analysis, adjustment and understanding.

Overall, a great book that convincingly explains how much greater an impact computers could have in education. The proposed learning methodologies aren’t all that controversial, actually, it's the idea that we need to undertake a significant overhaul to the education system in order to put those methodologies in place that would be contentious. Indeed, in one example shared in Mindstorms, the power of programming depended on a dramatic role reversal: the teacher stepped down from being the keeper of knowledge to become another learner, debugging alongside the students.

On a tangential but related note, check out the work of Bret Victor. His work on creating tools that help us understand is simply amazing and it was his call to action that got me reading Mindstorms in the first place.

(Amazon.com)

  • 1 min read

Negotiate With Confidence

As much as I am an avid reader of nonfiction, normally I try to steer clear of what appear to be “traditional” business/management books (yes, I sometimes judge books by their covers). Negotiate with Confidence was recommended by a colleague and I have to say, it exceeded my expectations. Isaacs’ perspective, as veteran of the AEC industry, results from firsthand experience dealing with the same type of clients that we work with regularly. His  concrete, easy-to-implement strategies for improving negotiations when pursuing projects resonated with the challenges that we face ourselves. In particular, the discussion of doing anything, i.e. way too much, in the interest of maintaining the client relationship felt especially relevant. I also appreciated that his guidance is not intended to promote a win-at-all-costs negotiation strategy, but rather interest-based negotiation that seeks positive outcomes for all parties.

Overall a quick read and easy to recommend for those in this industry.

(Amazon.com)

  • 1 min read

The Master Switch

I really enjoyed this book from Tim Wu. It worked especially well as a follow-up to The Idea Factory in that Wu presents a much darker side to Bell Telephone’s unprecedented monopoly. Wu recognizes that Bell was a source for an enormous amount of innovation, but is appropriately critical of the many instances where innovation was squelched in the interest of maintaining the Bell monopoly.

The Bell example is just one of several prominent “information empires,” industries built around products and services the control the creation and distribution of information. Movies, radio, and television are each discussed with strong examples showing how these businesses and technologies fit into Wu’s big idea: The Cycle. Wu explains that every technology built to distribute information goes through a cycle of great openness at the early stages that reverts to massive consolidation as the technology matures.

Wu’s discussion of the Internet and Net Neutrality is both timely and prescient. At the moment, the Internet appears to be at an inflection point in The Cycle: ahead lies more consolidation and control by the major ISPs like Comcast. If the history of information empires plays out again as it has in the past, the Internet of the next 20 years will be far different from what we know today.

Highly recommend.
(Amazon.com)

  • 1 min read

From Poverty to Prosperity

I’ve never given up on a book before. From Poverty to Prosperity brought me the closest I’ve ever come to doing that. I did, after many months, manage to slog through it, so I still haven’t given up on a book. Why didn’t I like this book?

First: it simply fails as a book. The authors present a very brief theory/vision/explanation for the future of the global economy and then proceed to fill the pages with loosely related interviews from prominent economists. The content just doesn’t suit the medium and it’s left to the reader to reassemble these disjointed opinions into a coherent narrative that supports the authors’ views.

Second: those views, the fundamental premise offered by the authors, that “Economics 2.0” will be built on the infinite availability of grand ideas and won’t be constrained by the inconveniences of limited resources, strikes me as overly simplistic and impressively naive. The tone of the entire book is one of academics who have never experienced the harsh realities of scarcity, corruption, and poverty (not that I have either, but I’m not writing a book that proposes solutions to all three). If it were as simple as the authors claim, to transition from “poverty to prosperity,” surely many more struggling countries would have already taken the necessary steps to do so.

(Amazon.com)

  • 1 min read

The behaviours that make us human are not

> “The behaviours that make us human are not professional. Honesty, frankness, humour, emotionality, embracing the moment, speaking up for what you believe, affection, sincerity. Quoting extremely offensive trolls. These are all things that will make some people love you and others hate you.”
— [Allen Pike](http://www.allenpike.com/2013/unprofessionalism/ "Unprofessionalism")
  • 3 min read

Another year, another iOS, the alarm UI is still broken

Last year I wrote about the broken UI for the alarm feature of iOS 6’s clock app. That post was really a follow-up to my tweet from the year before noting that iOS 5’s clock app had a broken alarm UI. Well, this year iOS 7 launched to much fanfare but the UI is still broken—though slightly improved.

Fundamentally, the problem I have is the inability to determine whether or not an alarm is currently snoozed. I run into this issue every single day (well, actually, it happens less and less because I’ve been training myself to wake up at the right time without an alarm—that’s a whole other blog post—but I have to believe this affects a huge number of iOS users on a daily basis). The scenario unfolds like this:

My alarm goes off at precisely 7:06 AM and I blindly reach over to my bedside table, fumbling with unknown objects in the preconcious state that makes me only vaguaely capable of operating my hands. Finally I find the familiar feel of that chamfered aluminum and cold glass, grasp the phone reflexivly and click the lock button once. I don’t even have to open my eyes. The alarm is now snoozed.

I fight the gravity of sleep, attempting to rouse myself from that preconcious state into someone more capable of starting the day. After what feels like hours of fighting my way back from the precipice of unconciousness interspered with several real and possibly imagined snoozings of the alarm, I sit up. I am awake.

As has become the routine in this modern age, I pick up my phone again to check Email/Twitter/Facebook. I press the home button once and here I find the only positive change to iOS 7’s alarm UI. Where before there was no indication that I had snoozed an alarm, I am now presented with a countdown at the top of my lockscreen notifications indicating that I have 6 minutes and 43 seconds before the alarm goes off again. Progress!

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The timer is gone!

I swipe to unlock, open the Clock app and look at my alarms. Everything is still set.

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(2) An alarm that is currently snoozed should show a reset button rather than the standard switch. Tapping the reset button would return the alarm to the appropriate state. If it’s a recurring alarm the switch is shown again in the on position. If it’s a one-time alarm, the switch is shown again in the off position.

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Here’s hoping iOS 8 takes another step forward. In the meantime, I’ve now surpassed last year’s record for using the word “snooze” in a single document.

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  • 1 min read

On the one hand i love driving im passionate

> “On the one hand I love driving, I’m passionate about it. On the other, yesterday morning at 4:30 when I woke up, if someone had said R2D2 would drive me to the airport. I’d probably have said yes.”
— [Chris Harris](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VuU-qDqCXc "Chris Harris On Cars")
  • 2 min read

Guns, Germs, and Steel

All I could think about while reading this book is that a much more appropriate title would be “Plants, Animals, and Geography.” Alas, I bet the publisher would have vetoed such a bland choice. In the end, those are the three key factors that influenced the long term success of every civilization on the planet. Ultimately, yes, guns, germs, and steel allowed one civilization to “engulf” another but the reason the dominant civilization had guns, germs, and steel in the first place was due to prehistoric luck. It found itself with plants that were amenable to farming, animals amenable to domestication and geography that enabled the extension and expansion of the young civilization when it was ready.

History unfolded the way it did, paraphrasing Einstein, not because any one civilization has (or had) smarter people than the others. But rather, the aforementioned plants, animals, and geography, provided a sort of head start to the civilizations that, in hindsight, appear “better” and they were able to spend more time working on the problems, challenges and technologies that ultimately developed into guns, germs, and steel. This is a reassuring conclusion. It means that if we could teleport prehistoric hunter-gatherers from one region to another we would still find that a civilization based in Europe ultimately engulfs much of the world. And more importantly, this conclusion renders racism that proclaims the superiority of one genetic group over another baseless.

Following the high-level but thorough analysis of how the modern world came to be, Diamond couches his conclusions a bit. He recognizes that there are some notable outliers that don’t fit the pattern he describes. China, in particular, which stepped backwards from its position as technology leader suggests that plants, animals, and geography were only a starting point. There were and still are a multitude of factors that impact the longterm success of a civilization.

After spending quite a bit of time on this book (it’s dense, dry and long) I’m left wondering about the utility of this knowledge. The author’s conclusions about racism are heartening and the discussion of technology/idea diffusion seems relevant to the distribution of information in large organizations—something he talks about a bit in his second edition follow-up. Something to ponder…

(Amazon.com)