Is Autism a Bad Thing?
Judging from this, autism mostly means a critical failure of communication inherent in the person’s mind. And from another video I saw, it appears there are some other mental symptoms that accompany it but it’s mostly the fact that autistic children perceive the world through a completely different matrix than other people do. And maybe it’s because of that literal, direct-only perception that some can be incredible savants. What Michael Barton says in the article is that with his part of the spectrum comes, with some failure to grasp idioms and analogies, a heightened ability to focus, stick to things and better analytical skills. Which, to some definition, makes him a nerdy super-geek! And my first thought is that sounds cool. Wouldn’t you wish you had the ability to just focus on one task for hours with out a break, to grasp and hold complicated design and mechanics in your head? I think that’s awesome. My second thought is that maybe some of the great minds of history, all the way from Einstein down to Newton and Aristotle, were technically undiagnosed autistic people. That would explain a few things, like Tesla and others tendency to isolate themselves from society to focus on their projects, and then producing leaps and bounds of technological breakthrough. My third thought is that, although it might be cool to have unlimited technical potential, it seems you have to sacrifice some part of the human connection and some artistic understanding. I’m a high tech person, basically Continue Reading →
Posted in Humanity, Less Interesting News, Philosophy, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
And here is my entire “Company Loyalty” point in a nutshell
Google fucked up too, I’m not saying they didn’t. But somehow, their fuck ups seem diminutive compared to other fuck ups. When they introduced Buzz, they had privacy issues which they solved by putting a “Turn off Buzz” button. When they rolled out Events, people were flooded but there worst case was an annoyed Robert Scoble who had to delete events from his calendar one by one. Their worst fuck up I can think of right now is collecting wifi traffic data and not being transparent about it but even that was mostly a moral issue of privacy. Here, in one of Facebook’s fuck ups, they practically erased user data! If I had anything on Facebook besides my name and birthday, I would be seriously pissed right now and on my way out the door. If you’re not, may I please know why? (And I’m sorry, the “Everyone is on Facebook” argument just isn’t good enough anymore).
Posted in IT, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
פיראטיות תלת ממדית
In Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, pretty much every household had their own molecular assembler which they could use to make just about anything, paying only for the raw material the device required. The precursors of that, the 3D printers, are already becoming something that a single person could buy for their home. They are still quite complex, small and expensive but the day in which you could just get one from the store the same way you get a microwave or a toaster oven is not far away. Seeing this coming, the people behind The Pirate Bay have offered a new category which they call Physibles. That is, 3D design files to be fed into a 3D printer to print… well, anything you can design. I just looked at it now and people are offering anything from Mark Zuckerberg’s head through a nerf gun and up to a Warhammer 40K Space Marine. I think this is insanely cool and I hope two things: One, that I would be able to print my own… anything in the near future. And two, that Old Manufacturing (paraphrasing Old Media) companies won’t go bananas with copyright and try to stop the revolution but instead try to follow it and work with it.
Posted in Geekdom, High-Tech, IT, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 1 comment.
Document Writing, Calendar and Sattelite TV
Three thoughts I’ve just had. Well, one is about a week old but still. I’m writing this from the waiting room of our garage in Haifa, waiting for Bessie to get her check up and polish. There’s a TV here showing a movie on Yes1 and it jumps and struggles and jitters a whole heck of a lot more than my two year old computer playing a 1080p movie. And people wonder why we don’t have a television connection, just a monitor for movies and games. Right now, when classes are finally over and I am moving into exam season, my calendar is freeing up and for the first time in several months I can see into next Monday. That’s kinda cool. I know this is always presumptous to say but _I am_ writing a book. For those of you who know it, it’s the one I started here and took down for a serious rewrite – Nathanel’s story, which I think could really work as a full length novel. The point is, I had it on Google Docs because I thought it was comfortable to keep it there where it allows me to write from anywhere. But a while back, with Google Drive and the, to my opinion, quite horrific terms of use, I decided to move it to Dropbox. I know Dropbox isn’t completely secure and I should probably encrypt it but I can access it, with full WSIWYG editing, through my Office application here on my phone. Continue Reading →
Posted in From the Writing Desk, High-Tech, Practice, School, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
What Would a Machine Say?
New Scientist had a contest, asking people what a conscious machine’s first words would be. My first thought: “Feed me…” What do you think?
Posted in High-Tech, Humanity, Less Interesting News, Thinking Out Loud, Weird by Eran with 7 comments.
Sustainability Model
After watching a specific TED talk, I got myself thinking. I wasn’t thinking about rebuilding the health infrastructure, thought that is admirable, I was thinking about The Model. Whenever people talk about starting up, about building a company, they talk about their business model. And when they don’t, I’m always interested. But I find that I don’t care about how they make money. I care about how they sustain their vision. Because I don’t believe in aiming for a lot of money. Me… I’m thinking about making enough money to stop worrying about it. But mostly, I want to make enough money to sustain myself, my family and my vision. So I think that it shouldn’t be called a Business Model. We should redesign this idea to be a Sustainability Model: Not how to make as much money as possible and whatever or whoever’s expense but to make money to finance the ability to support this vision and more to come.
Posted in Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
The Right to Complain Isn’t Free
We tend to take the right to complain for granted. It’s usually considered a basic human right. Sometimes it is referred to as the IDF soldier’s first prerogative. But it’s not that easy. Sometimes, you lose the right to complain. Basically, when you get free stuff. If someone gives you a gift, you can’t really complain. They didn’t have to give you anything. They did it out of the kindness of their heart. And if you complain you might discourage further gift giving in the future. And that is something you definitely don’t want to do. Let’s take Louis C.K.’s example (of a somewhat unrelated issue) of a guy sitting in an airplane complaining that the wifi is unavailable. Yes, you can tell him to shut up because he’s hurtling through the air swiftly and safely (Something unheard of slightly more than a hundred years ago) and he is getting an internet connection while flying on a plane (something quite inconceivable just a few years ago) but he is paying for that right, paying quite a lot actually, and thus has earned the right to complain. Though, I would argue, that his right to complain is reduced if he’s not actually paying and not getting his service. It especially irks me when I hear people complaining about pirated games. I mean, crying about a game not working when it is a cracked version. Dude, you didn’t pay for it, you don’t have the right to complain about its faults. You got Continue Reading →
Posted in Humanity, No Category, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 4 comments.
Syndicate Reboot Didn’t Work
That’s the quote from a release made a while ago by an “EA Boss”. No, you idiot EA boss, I’ll tell you the nature of resurrecting old IP. You need to make the same game but with newer tech and a new story; Not to completely change the fundamental aspects of what made the previous game awesome. You just can’t take a tactical cyberpunk game and make it into a 3D shooting gallery. As was previously said: Those who aren’t familiar with Syndicate will stay away from it, afraid they won’t get it. And those that are will be extremely disappointed with the new game because it’s not the old one. So you can just admit you already had the game and were afraid to venture on a new IP so you took the Syndicate name and a few gimmicks and called it a game. Gibeau further explained that EA has “numerous brands” that he finds worthy of making a comeback. He did not say what any of these properties were, but said it’s possible these franchises could be reborn on next-generation platforms. Translation: As one of the biggest gaming companies on the planet, we own a lot of your childhood memories and will feel free to rummage through them in search of names that will trigger your insatiable nostalgia and then we will make a 3D shooting gallery out of them just to spite you. And they aren’t the only ones committing this sin. But you know what the worst Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 2 comments.
What Struck Earth in 775?
Yes, that’s 775 CE. A huge increase in radiation levels over the course of a year with no known astronomical reason. I smell a secret history story. Anyone?
Posted in From the Writing Desk, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
DOTA 2 will be free to play
After conducting the Torchlight vs Diablo discussion for a bit and after reading this, I have to say that Valve, despite being insanely tardy and negligent on the side of their Half-Life property, still know how to release a game. In summary, it goes like this: “Here is a game, it is of one of the most popular yet least populated (by major releases) genres today. This game is completely free to play. As soon as it launches, you can just go play it. There is an in-game store where you can pay real money for stuff that will make you cooler than others. But if you don’t want to spend money, you don’t have to. The items for sale are just cosmetic, they don’t affect the core gameplay. And you have a creation tool in there where you can extend the game by yourself. We will make your extension official and you will get paid for it if it is good enough.” And they also have a matchmaking multiplayer system, an AI mechanic in case your opponent accidentally disconnects, and tutorial line ups where masters can teach the newbies. I think the only thing missing from this release is a big fluffy bunny you can put on your lap and pet for the enhanced experience.
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 3 comments.