Non Forbes

Robocars, Flying Cars and Hyperloops, oh my! The not so fictional future of the city

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2018-04-23 12:25

The primary purpose of the city is transportation. Sure, we share infrastructure like sewers and power lines, but the real reason we live in dense cities is so we can have a short travel time to the things in our lives, be they jobs, friends, shopping or anything else.

Sometimes that trip is a walking one, and indeed only the dense city allows walking trips to be short and also interesting. The rest of the trips involve some technology, from the bicycle to the car to the train. All that is about to change.

Topic: 
Futurism
Robocars

How to attack the social media incentive and privacy problems

Submitted by brad on Fri, 2018-04-20 12:10

A huge opportunity awaits a young social media company that is poised to take advantage of the fall of Facebook (and Twitter). Is somebody out there ready to carry the ball and make it happen. It probably has to be somebody already with most of this done, or even operating.

Topic: 
Internet
Privacy
Solve this
Tags: 
data deposit box

HODL is bad for Bitcoin

Submitted by brad on Fri, 2018-04-06 12:34

You've probably heard the catchword in the bitcoin/crytpocurrency world of "HODL!" Based on somebody's typo, it is an encouragement to hold on to your bitcoins rather than sell them as the price ramps up to crazy levels. If you're a true believer, you will HODL. Don't cave in to the temptation and pressure to sell (SLEL?) but be sure to HODL. (Previously I wrote about the issues which occur should Bitcoin's price actually stabilize.

Topic: 
Technology
Tags: 
bitcoin

The decline of blogging, and what replaces it?

Submitted by brad on Thu, 2018-04-05 15:37

You, by definition, read blog posts. But the era of lots of individual personal web sites seems to be on the wane. It used to be everybody had a "home page" and many had one that updated frequently (a blog) but I, and many other bloggers, have noticed a change of late. It can be seen in the "referer" summaries you get from your web server that show who is making popular links to your site.

Topic: 
Free Speech
Internet
Media

Can we reduce "fake news" with anonymous group shaming?

Submitted by brad on Tue, 2018-04-03 13:21

I have many things to discuss on the problem of "fake news" (which is to say, deliberately constructed false reports aimed to be spread to deceive) and the way it spreads through social media. This hot topic, seen as one of the largest threats to democracy to ever arise -- especially when combined with automated microtargeting of political propaganda -- is causing people to clamour for solutions.

Topic: 
Free Speech
Governance
Internet
New Democracy

Blog now using HTTPS/TLS secure web by default

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2018-04-02 21:53

Boring administrative announcement: In a move long overdue for me, access to this blog and my other large sites will now be exclusively through "https" (ie. encrypted web.)

I set up this, of course, using the great tool Let's Encrypt which was created with support from the EFF. This project and the tools around it take a big step towards making the internet encrypted by default. Let me know if you experience any problems. But then I guess you aren't reading this if you are. Oh well!

Topic: 
Announcements

Tesla model X fatality in Silicon Valley had Autopilot turned on

Submitted by brad on Fri, 2018-03-30 21:38

Last week, buried in the news of the Uber fatality, a Tesla model X had a fatality, plowing into the ramp divider on the flyover carpool exit from Highway 101 to Highway 85 in the heart of Silicon Valley. Literally just a few hundred feet from Microsoft and Google buildings, close to many other SV companies, and just a few miles from Tesla HQ. I take this ramp frequently, as does almost everybody else in the valley. The driver was an Apple programmer, on his way to work.

Topic: 
Robocars

How does a robocar see a pedestrian and how might Uber have gone wrong?

Submitted by brad on Fri, 2018-03-30 12:10

How does a robocar see and avoid hitting a pedestrian? There are a lot of different ways. Some are very common, some are used only by certain teams. To understand what the Uber car was supposed to do, it can help to look at them. I write this without specific knowledge of what techniques Uber uses.

In particular, I want to examine what could go wrong at any of these points, and what is not likely to go wrong.

The usual pipeline looks something like this:

Topic: 
Robocars

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