#watt week 2023 day 5 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Revenge of the Linkdumps

Next Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On May 23, I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

If you’ve followed my work for a long time, you’ve watched me transition from a “linkblogger” who posts 5–15 short hits every day to an “essay-blogger” who posts 5–7 long articles/week. I’m loving the new mode of working, but returning to linkblogging is also intensely, unexpectedly gratifying:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/02/wunderkammer/#jubillee

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/13/four-bar-linkage/#linkspittle

[Image ID XKCD #2775: Siphon. Man: ‘Wow, it’s true — the water doesn’t flow up the tube anymore.’ Woman: ‘Honestly, it’s weird that it ever did. Why did we ever think it was normal?’ Caption: ‘Physics news: the 2023 update to the universe finally fixed the ‘siphon’ bug.’]

My last foray into linkblogging was so great — and my backlog of links is already so large — that I’m doing another one.

Link the first: “Siphon,” XKCD’s delightful, whimsical “physics-how-the-fuck-does-it-work” one-shot (visit the link, the tooltip is great):

https://xkcd.com/2775/

[Image ID: A Dutch safety poster by Herman Heyenbrock, warning about the hazards of careless table-saw use, featuring a hand with two amputated fingers.]

Next is “Hoogspanning,” 50 Watts’s collection of vintage Dutch workplace safety posters, which exhibit that admirable Dutch frankness to a degree that one could mistake for parody, but they’re 100% real, and amazing:

https://50watts.com/Hoogspanning-More-Dutch-Safety-Posters

They’re ganked from Geheugenvannederland (“Memory of the Netherlands”):

https://geheugenvannederland.nl/

While some come from the 1970s, others date back to the 1920s and are likely public domain. I’ve salted several away in my stock art folder for use in future collages.

All right, now that the fun stuff is out of the way, let’s get down to some crunch tech-policy. To ease us in, I’ve got a game for you to play: “Moderator Mayhem,” the latest edu-game from Techdirt:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/11/moderator-mayhem-a-mobile-game-to-see-how-well-you-can-handle-content-moderation/

Moderator Mayhem started life as a card-game that Mike Masnick used to teach policy wonks about the real-world issues with content moderation. You play a mod who has to evaluate content moderation flags from users while a timer ticks down. As you race to evaluate users’ posts for policy compliance, you’re continuously interrupted. Sometimes, it’s “helpful” suggestions from the company’s AI that wants you to look at the posts it flagged. Sometimes, it’s your boss who wants you to do a trendy “visioning” exercise or warning you about a “sensitivity.” Often, it’s angry ref-working from users who want you to re-consider your calls.

The card-game version is legendary but required a lot of organization to play, and the web version (which is better in a mobile browser, thanks to a swipe-left/right mechanic) is something you can pick up in seconds. This isn’t merely highly recommended; I think that one could legitimately refuse to discuss content moderation policies and critiques with anyone who hasn’t played it;

https://moderatormayhem.engine.is/

Or maybe that’s too harsh. After all, tech policy is a game that everyone can play — and more importantly, it’s a game everyone should play. The contours of tech regulation and implementation touch rub up against nearly every aspect of our lives, and part of the reason it’s such a mess is that the field has been gatekept to shit, turned into a three-way fight between technologists, policy wonks and economists.

Without other voices in the debate, we’re doomed to end up with solutions that satisfy the rarified needs and views of those three groups, a situation that is likely to dissatisfy everyone else.

However. However. The problem is that our technology is nowhere near advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic (RIP, Sir Arthur). There’s plenty of things everyone wishes tech could do, but it can’t, and wanting it badly isnlt enough. Merely shouting “nerd harder!” at technologists won’t actually get you what you want. And while I’m rattling off cliches: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Which brings me to Ashton Kutcher. Yes, that Ashton Kutcher. No, really. Kutcher has taken up the admirable, essential cause of fighting Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM, which is better known as child pornography) online. This is a very, very important and noble cause, and it deserves all our support.

But there’s a problem, which is that Kutcher’s technical foundations are poor, and he has not improved them. Instead, he cites technologies that he has a demonstrably poor grasp upon to call for policies that turn out to be both ineffective at fighting exploitation and to inflict catastrophic collateral damage on vulnerable internet users.

Take sex trafficking. Kutcher and his organization, Thorn, were key to securing the passage of SESTA/FOSTA, a law that was supposed to fight online trafficking by making platforms jointly liable when they were used to facilitate trafficking:

https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-31-sex-lies-and-surveillance-fosta-privacy.html

At the time, Kutcher argued that deputizing platforms to understand and remove which user posts were part of a sex crime in progress would not inflict collateral damage. Somehow, if the platforms just nerded hard enough, they’d be able to remove sex trafficking posts without kicking off all consensual sex-workers.

Five years later, the verdict is in, and Kutcher was wrong. Sex workers have been deplatformed nearly everywhere, including from the places where workers traded “bad date” lists of abusive customers, which kept them safe from sexual violence, up to and including the risk of death. Street prostitution is way up, making the lives of sex workers far more dangerous, which has led to a resurgence of the odious institution of pimping, a “trade” that was on its way to vanishing altogether thanks to the power of the internet to let sex workers organize among themselves for protection:

https://aidsunited.org/fosta-sesta-and-its-impact-on-sex-workers/

On top of all that, SESTA/FOSTA has made it much harder for cops to hunt down and bust actual sex-traffickers, by forcing an activity that could once be found with a search-engine into underground forums that can’t be easily monitored:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/09/more-police-admitting-that-fosta-sesta-has-made-it-much-more-difficult-to-catch-pimps-traffickers/

Wanting it badly isn’t enough. Technology is not indistinguishable from magic.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Kutcher, it seems, has learned nothing from SESTA/FOSTA. Now he’s campaigning to ban working cryptography, in the name of ending the spread of CSAM. In March, Kutcher addressed the EU over the “Chat Control” proposal, which, broadly speaking, is a ban on end-to-end encrypter messaging (E2EE):

https://www.brusselstimes.com/417985/ashton-kutcher-spotted-in-the-european-parliament-promoting-childrens-rights

Now, banning E2EE would be a catastrophe. Not only is E2EE necessary to protect people from griefers, stalkers, corporate snoops, mafiosi, etc, but E2EE is the only thing standing between the world’s dictators and total surveillance of every digital communication. Even tiny flaws in E2EE can have grave human rights concerns. For example, a subtle bug in Whatsapp was used by NSO Group to create a cyberweapon called Pegasus that the Saudi royals used to lure Jamal Khashoggi to his grisly murder:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/nso-spyware-used-to-target-family-of-jamal-khashoggi-leaked-data-shows-saudis-pegasus

Because the collateral damage from an E2EE ban would be so far-ranging (beyond harms to sex workers, whose safety is routinely disregarded by policy-makers), people like Kutcher can’t propose an outright ban on E2EE. Instead, they have to offer some explanation for how the privacy, safety and human rights benefits of E2EE can be respected even as encryption is broken to hunt for CSAM.

Kutcher’s answer is something called “fully homomorphic encryption” (FHE) which is a theoretical — and enormously cool — way to allow for computing work to be done on encrypted data without decrypting it. When and if FHE are ready for primetime, it will be a revolution in our ability to securely collaborate with one another.

But FHE is nowhere near the state where it could do what Kutcher claims. It just isn’t, and once again, wanting it badly is not enough. Writing on his blog, the eminent cryptographer Matt Green delivers a master-class in what FHE is, what it could do, and what it can’t do (yet):

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/05/11/on-ashton-kutcher-and-secure-multi-party-computation/

As it happens, Green also gave testimony to the EU, but he doesn’t confine his public advocacy work to august parliamentarians. Green wants all of us to understand cryptography (“I think cryptography is amazing and I want everyone talking about it all the time”). Rather than barking “stay in your lane” at the likes of Kutcher, Green has produced an outstanding, easily grasped explanation of FHE and the closely related concept of multi-party communication (MPC).

This is important work, and it exemplifies the difference between simplifying and being simplistic. Good science communicators do the former. Bad science communicators do the latter.

While Kutcher is presumably being simplistic because he lacks the technical depth to understand what he doesn’t understand, technically skilled people are perfectly capable of being simplistic, when it suits their economic, political or ideological goals.

One such person is Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called “father of AI,” who resigned from Google last week, citing the existential risks of “runaway AI” becoming superintelligent and turning on its human inventors. Hinton joins a group of powerful, wealthy people who have made a lot of noise about the existential risk of AI, while saying little or nothing about the ongoing risks of AI to people with disabilities, poor people, prisoners, workers, and other groups who are already being abused by automated decision-making and oversight systems.

Hinton’s nonsense is superbly stripped bare by Meredith Whittaker, the former Google worker organizer turned president of Signal, in a Fast Company interview with Wilfred Chan:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90892235/researcher-meredith-whittaker-says-ais-biggest-risk-isnt-consciousness-its-the-corporations-that-control-them

The whole thing is incredible, but there’s a few sections I want to call to your attention here, quoting Whittaker verbatim, because she expresses herself so beautifully (sci-comms done right is a joy to behold):

I think it’s stunning that someone would say that the harms [from AI] that are happening now — which are felt most acutely by people who have been historically minoritized: Black people, women, disabled people, precarious workers, et cetera — that those harms aren’t existential.

What I hear in that is, “Those aren’t existential to me. I have millions of dollars, I am invested in many, many AI startups, and none of this affects my existence. But what could affect my existence is if a sci-fi fantasy came to life and AI were actually super intelligent, and suddenly men like me would not be the most powerful entities in the world, and that would affect my business.”

I think we need to dig into what is happening here, which is that, when faced with a system that presents itself as a listening, eager interlocutor that’s hearing us and responding to us, that we seem to fall into a kind of trance in relation to these systems, and almost counterfactually engage in some kind of wish fulfillment: thinking that they’re human, and there’s someone there listening to us. It’s like when you’re a kid, and you’re telling ghost stories, something with a lot of emotional weight, and suddenly everybody is terrified and reacting to it. And it becomes hard to disbelieve.

Whittaker sets such a high bar for tech criticism. I had her clarity in mind in 2021, when I collaborated with EFF’s Bennett Cyphers on “Privacy Without Monopoly,” our white-paper addressing the claim that we need giant tech platforms to protect us from the privacy invasions of smaller “rogue” operators:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

This is a claim that is most often raised in relation to Apple and its App Store model, which is claimed to be a bulwark against commercial surveillance. That claim has some validity: after all, when Apple added a one-click surveillance opt-out to Ios, its mobile OS. 96% of users clicked the “don’t spy on me” button. Those clicks cost Facebook $10b in just the following year. You love to see it.

But Apple is a gamekeeper-turned-poacher. Even as it was blocking Facebook’s surveillance, it was conducting its own, nearly identical, horrifyingly intrusive surveillance of every Ios user, for the same purpose as Facebook (ad targeting) and lying about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Bennett and I couldn’t have asked for a better example of the point we make in “Privacy Without Monopoly”: the thing that stops companies from spying on you isn’t their moral character, it’s the threat of competition and/or regulation. If you can modify your device in ways that cost its manufacturer money (say, by installing an alternative app store), then the manufacturer has to earn your business every day.

That might actually make them better — and if it doesn’t, you can switch. The right way to make sure the stuff you install on your devices respects your privacy is by passing privacy laws — not by hoping that Tim Apple decides you deserve a private life.

Bennett and I followed up “Privacy Without Monopoly” with an appendix that focused on a territory where there is a privacy law: the EU, whose (patchily enforced) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the kind of privacy law that we call for in the original paper. In that appendix, we addressed the issues of GDPR enforcement:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy#gdpr

More importantly, we addressed the claim that the GDPR crushed competition, by making it harder for smaller (and even sleazier) ad-tech platforms to compete with Google and Facebook. It’s true, but that’s OK: we want competition to see who can respect technology users’ rights — not competition to see who can violate those rights most efficiently:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/gdpr-privacy-and-monopoly

Around the time Bennett and I published the EU appendix to our paper, I was contacted by the Indian Journal of Law and Technology to see whether I could write something on similar lines, focused on the situation in India. Well, it took two years, but we’ve finally published it: “Securing Privacy Without Monopoly In India: Juxtaposing Interoperability With Indian Data Protection”:

https://www.ijlt.in/post/securing-privacy-without-monopoly-in-india-juxtaposing-interoperability-with-indian-data-protection

The Indian case for interop incorporates the US and EU case, but with some fascinating wrinkles. First, there are the broad benefits of allowing technology adaptation by people who are often left out of the frame when tools and systems are designed. As the saying goes, “nothing about us without us” — the users of technology know more about their needs than any designer can hope to understand. That’s doubly true when designers are wealthy geeks in Silicon Valley and the users are poor people in the global south.

India, of course, has its own highly advanced domestic tech sector, who could be a source of extensive expertise in adapting technologies from US and other offshore tech giants for local needs. India also has a complex and highly contested privacy regime, which is in extreme flux between high court decisions, regulatory interventions, and legislation, both passed and pending.

Finally, there’s India’s long tradition of ingenious technological adaptations, locally called jugaad, roughly equivalent to the English “mend and make do.” While every culture has its own way of celebrating clever hacks, this kind of ingenuity is elevated to an art form in the global south: think of jua kali (Swahili), gambiarra (Brazilian Portuguese) and bricolage (France and its former colonies).

It took a long time to get this out, but I’m really happy with it, and I’m extremely grateful to my brilliant and hardworking research assistants from National Law School of India University: Dhruv Jain, Kshitij Goyal and Sarthak Wadhwa.

I don’t claim that any of the incarnations of the “Privacy Without Monopoly” paper rise to the clarity of the works of Green or Whittaker, but that’s okay, because I have another arrow in my quiver: fiction. For more than 20 years, I’ve written science fiction that tries to make legible and urgent the often dry and abstract concepts I address in my nonfiction.

One issue I’ve been grappling with for literally decades is the implications of “trusted computing,” a security model that uses a second, secure computer, embedded in your device, to observe and report on what your main computer is doing. There are lots of implications for this, both horrifying and amazing.

For example, having a second computer inside your device that watches it is a theoretically unbeatable way of catching malicious software, resolving the conundrum of malware: if you think your computer is infected and can’t be trusted, then how can you trust the antivirus software running on that computer.

Back in 2016, Andrew “bunnie” Huang and Edward Snowden released the “Introspection Engine,” a separate computer that you could install in an Iphone, which would tell you whether it was infected with spyware:

https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection/release/2

But while there are some really interesting positive applications for this kind of software, the negative ones — unbeatable DRM and tamper-proof bossware — are genuinely horrifying. My novella “Unauthorized Bread” digs into this, putting blood and sinew into an otherwise dry abstract and skeletal argument:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Then there are applications that are somewhere in between, like “remote attestation” (when the secure computer signs a computer-readable description of what your computer is doing so that you can prove things about your computer and its operation to people who don’t trust you, but do trust that secure computer).

Remote attestation is the McGuffin of Red Team Blues, my latest novel, a crime-thriller about a cryptocurrency heist. The novel opens with the keys to a secure enclave — the gadget that signs the attestations in remote attestation — going missing.

When Matt Green reviewed Red Team Blues (his first book review!), he singled this out as a technically rigorous and significant plot point, because secure enclaves are designed so that they can’t be updated (if you can update an enclave, then you can update it with malicious software):

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/04/24/book-review-red-team-blues/

This means that bugs in secure enclaves can last forever. Worse, if the keys for a secure enclave ever leak, then there’s no way to update all the secure enclaves out there in the world — millions or billions of them — to fix it.

Well, it’s happened.

The keys for the secure enclaves in Micro-Star International (AKA MSI) computers, a massive manufacturer of work and gaming PCs — have leaked and shown up on the “extortion portal” of a notorious crime gang:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/05/leak-of-msi-uefi-signing-keys-stokes-concerns-of-doomsday-supply-chain-attack/

As a security expert quoted by Ars Technica explains, this is a “doomsday scenario.” That’s more or less how it plays in my novel. The big difference between the MSI leak and the hack in my book is that the MSI keys were just sitting on a server, connected to the internet, which wasn’t well-secured.

In Red Team Blues, I went to enormous lengths to imagine a fiendishly complex, incredibly secure scheme for hosting these keys, and then dreamt up a way that the bad guys could defeat it. I toyed with the idea of having the keys leak due to rank incompetence, but I decided that would be an “idiot plot” (“a plot that only works if the characters are idiots”). Turns out, idiot plots may make for bad fiction, but they’re happening around us all the time.

In my real life, I cross a lot of disciplinary boundaries — law, politics, economics, human rights, security, technology. I’m not the world’s leading expert in any of these domains, but I am well-enough informed about each that I’m able to find interesting ways that they fit together in a manner that is relatively rare, and is also (I think) useful.

I admit to sometimes feeling insecure about this — being “one inch deep and ten miles wide” has its virtues, but there’s no avoiding that, say, I know less about the law than a real lawyer, and less about computer science than a real computer scientist.

That insecurity is partly why I’m so honored when I get to talk to experts across multiple disciplines. 2023 was a very good year for this, thanks to University College London. Back in Feb, I was invited to speak as part of UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law’s annual series on technology law:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/2023/feb/recording-chokepoint-capitalism-can-it-be-defeated

And next month, I’m giving UCL Computer Science’s annual Peter Kirstein lecture:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirstein-lecture-2023-featuring-cory-doctorow-registration-539205788027

Getting to speak to both the law school and the computer science school within a space of months is hugely gratifying, a real vindication of my theory that the virtues of my breadth make up for the shortcomings in my depth.

I’m getting a similar thrill from the domain experts who’ve been reviewing Red Team Blues. This week, Maria Farrell posted her Crooked Timber review, “When crypto meant cryptography”:

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/11/when-crypto-meant-cryptography/

Farrell is a brilliant technology critic. Her work on “prodigal tech bros” is essential:

https://conversationalist.org/2020/03/05/the-prodigal-techbro/

So her review means a lot to me in general, but I was overwhelmed to read her describe how Red Team Blues taught her to “read again for joy” after long covid “completely scrambled [her] brain.”

That meant a lot personally, but her review is even more gratifying when it gets into craft questions, like when she praises the descriptions as “so interesting and sociologically textured.” I love her description of the book as “Dickensian”: “it shoots up and down the snakes and ladders of San Francisco’s gamified dystopia of income inequality, one moment whizzing up the ear-poppingly fast elevator to a billionaire’s hardened fortress, the next sleeping under a bridge in a homeless encampment.”

And then, this kicker: “it’s a gorgeous rejection of the idea that long-form fiction is about individual subjectivity and the interior life. It’s about people as pinballs. They don’t just reveal things about the other objects they hit; their constant action and reaction reveals the walls that hold them all in.”

Likewise, I was thrilled with Peter Watts’s review on his “No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons” blog::

https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=10578%22%3Ehttps://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=10578

Peter is a brilliant sf writer and worldbuilder, an accomplished scientist, and one of the world’s most accomplished ranters. He’s had more amazing ideas than I’ve had hot breakfasts:

https://locusmag.com/2018/05/cory-doctorow-the-engagement-maximization-presidency/

His review says some very nice and flattering things about me and my previous work, which is always great to read, especially for anyone with a chronic case of impostor syndrome. But what really mattered was the way he framed how I write villains: “The villains of Cory’s books aren’t really people; they’re systems. They wear punchable Human faces but those tend to be avatars, mere sock-puppets operated by the institutions that comprise the real baddies.”

One could read that as a critique, but coming from Peter, it’s praise — and it’s praise that gets to the heart of my worldview, which is that our biggest problems are systemic, not individual. The problem of corporate greed isn’t just that CEOs are monsters who don’t care who they hurt — it’s that our system is designed to let them get away with it. Worse, system design is such that the CEOs who aren’t monsters are generally clobbered by the ones who are.

So much of our outlook is grounded in the moral failings or virtues of individuals. Tim Apple will keep our data safe, so we should each individually decide to reward him by buying his phones. If Tim Apple betrays us, we should “vote with our wallets” by buying something else. If you care about the climate, you should just stop driving. If there’s no public transit, well, then maybe you should, uh, dig a subway?

[Image ID: Matt Bors’s classic Mr Gotcha panel, in which a medieval peasant says ‘We should improve society somewhat,’ and Mr Gotcha replies, ‘Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very smart.’]

This is the mindset Matt Bors skewers so expertly with his iconic Mr Gotcha character: “Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very smart”:

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

(Which reminds me, I am halfway through Bors’s unbelievably, fantastically, screamingly awesome graphic novel “Justice Warriors,” which turns the neoliberal caveat-emptor/personal-responsibility brain-worm into the basis for possibly the greatest superhero comic of all time:)

https://www.mattbors.com/books

Watts finishes his review with:

I’ve never fully come to terms with the general decency of Cory’s characters. Doctorow the activist lives in the trenches, fighting those who make their billions trading the details of our private lives, telling us that they own what we’ve bought, surveilling us for the greater good and even greater profits. He’s spent more time facing off against the world’s powerful assholes than I ever will. He knows how ruthless they are. He knows, first-hand, how much of the world is clenched in their fists. By rights, his stories should make mine look like Broadway musicals.

And yet, Doctorow the Author is — hopeful. The little guys win against overwhelming odds. Dystopias are held at bay. Even the bad guys, in defeat, are less likely to scorch the earth than simply resign with a show of grudging respect for a worthy opponent.

I often get asked by readers — especially readers of Pluralistic, which is heavy on awful scandals and corruption — how I keep going. Watts has the answer:

Maybe it’s a fundamental difference in outlook. I’ve always regarded humans as self-glorified mammals, fighting endless and ineffective rearguard against their own brain stems; Cory seems to see us as more influenced by the angels of our better natures. Or maybe — maybe it’s not just his plots that are meant to be instructional. Maybe he’s deliberately showing us how we could behave as a species, in the same way he shows us how to fuck with DRM or foil face-recognition tech. Maybe it’s not that he subscribes to some Pollyanna vision of what we are; maybe he’s showing us what we could be.

Got it in one, Peter.

And…

It’s also about what happens if we don’t get better.

Writing on his “Economics From the Top Down” blog, Blair Fix — a heterodox economist and sharp critic of oligarchy — publishes a Red Team Blues review that nails the “or else” in my books, and does it with graphs:

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/

Fix surfaces the latent point in my work that inequality is destabilizing — that spectacular violence is downstream of making a society that has nothing to offer for the majority of us. As Marty Hench, the 67 year old forensic accountant protagonist of Red Team Blues says,

Finance crime is a necessary component of violent crime. Even the most devoted sadist needs a business model, or he will have to get a real job.

[Image ID: A chart labeled, ‘With more plutocracy comes more murder. As countries become more unequal (horizontal axis), their murder rates go up (vertical axis).’]

Fix agrees, and shows us that murders go up with inequality.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/#sources-and-methods

Which is why, while the average private eye is a kind of “cop who gets to bend the rules of policing”; Hench is “a kind of uber IRS agent who gets to work in ‘sneaky ways that aren’t available to the taxman.’”

[Image ID: A chart labeled, ‘Was the US prison state the inspiration for cyberpunk? The term ‘cyberpunk’ (which describes a genre of dystopian science fiction) became popular in tandem with mass incarceration in the US. It’s probably not a coincidence.’]

This observation segues into a fascinating, data-informed look at the way that science fiction reflects our fears and aspirations about wider social phenomenon — for example, the popularity of the word “cyberpunk” closely tracks rising incarceration rates.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/#sources-and-methods

(It’s not a coincidence that the next Marty Hench book, “The Bezzle,” is about prisons and prison-tech; it’s out in Feb 2024:)

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

I’m out on tour with Red Team Blues right now, with upcoming stops in the DC area, Toronto, the UK, and then Berlin:

https://craphound.com/novels/redteamblues/2023/04/26/the-red-team-blues-tour-burbank-sf-pdx-berkeley-yvr-edmonton-gaithersburg-dc-toronto-hay-oxford-nottingham-manchester-london-edinburgh-london-berlin/

I’ve just added another Berlin stop, on June 8, at Otherland, Berlin’s amazing sf/f bookstore:

https://twitter.com/otherlandberlin/status/1657082021011701761

I hope you’ll come along! I’ve been meeting a lot of people on this tour who confess that while they’ve read my blogs and essays for years, they’ve never picked up one of my books. If you’re one of those readers, let me assure you, it is not too late!

As you’ve read above, my fiction is very much a continuation of my nonfiction by other means — but it’s also the place where I bring my hope as well as my dismay and anger. I’m told it makes for a very good combination.

If you’re still wavering, maybe this will sway you: the blogging and essays are either free or very low-paid, and they’re heavily subsidized by my fiction. If you enjoy my nonfiction, buying my novels is the best way to say thank you and to ensure a continuing supply of both.

But novels are by no means a dreary duty — fiction is a delight, and after a couple decades at it, I’ve come to grudgingly concede — impostor syndrome notwithstanding — that I’m pretty good at it.

I hope you’ll agree.

Image: Robert Miller (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/12463666@N03/52721565937

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A kitchen junk-drawer, full of junk.]

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claudiajcregg · 2 months

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20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by both @mihrsuri and @unseenacademic 💜💜💜 Thank you so much! I actually wrote up most of the answers the day I was tagged, and then forgot to post them. For over 10 days, probably. Me bad.

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 23! (One of them is a 'collection' of short ficlets, and has 6 chapters. So 28 stories in 23 works so far. Probably about to be more stories in still 23 works.)

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 156,597 words. For now.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently? Just TWW. Who knows in the future!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

They have about 35% of my total kudos, but the first two are ~21% alone. (The first one is the only fic that has over 100 kudos. Then again, any of them getting above 30 is a miracle.)

maybe everything's just turning out how it should be (Big Block of Cheese 2008; CJ & Josh. Posted Feb 2021) [121]

say it's here where our pieces fall in place (Vignettes, 1998-2008. Posted Jan 2022.) [66]

just your smile lit a sixty-watt bulb in my house that was darkened for days (Thanksgiving 2006. Posted Dec 2022.) [55]

nobody knows how to get back home (Missing scene from ITSOTG. Posted April 2023) (wait what. top 4?!) [50]

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it (B4A Campaign Fic, spring 1998. Posted May 2021) [47]

5. Do you respond to comments?

YES. I don't take them for granted, and I like interacting with my readers. Sharing is nerve-wracking and makes me feel so exposed, so any comment makes it worth it. I like to thank peeps for their time! As of late, it's taking me weeks to get back to comments for Brain/spoons reasons (and because I try to do so in order, though not always). I sometimes feel bad I have fallen behind on leaving my own comments, so replying to what I get makes me feel bad. I love getting the rare, long, thoughtful comments, because I love seeing what people pick up on (had to restrain myself from commenting on everything), so if that one's up next… It'll delay everything. I have a harder time letting go of those.

I know replying or not is a hot topic, and I fall on the side of 'whatever the author does is fine' (I see them as being voluntary gifts to the author, kinda, but I understand why some authors can't or won't reply! Especially those who get dozens.). It does feel weird(ly demoralizing) when you see that yours is one of a couple of comments they haven't replied to, though. (Selfishly, as someone who tries to write medium-long comments, lack of anything can sting. It's irrational, it's not what I'm after, but it'd be nice to know whether that hour plus of my time was worth it. It's not transactional and I hate that c4c idea or whatever. Just. weird feelings.)

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

As we've established in previous similar memes (lol, I think I've answered these questions before), my fics don't really have angsty endings! For the most part. I think I said don't want you to go but I'll be okay then, and I can still buy that/definitely popped into my brain. I think some of my late S7 fics have an ominous feel to them, with some references/buildup to the angsty parts of IM, but I wouldn't call them angsty endings.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Um. The opposite is true! still you never took your hand from mine was my first thought, but I feel like oh, and I will be with you to feel the California sun is pretty darn happy. I could have picked almost any of them and I could make a case for them!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I luckily do not. I have gotten a couple of comments that have messed with my brain, and made me second-guess things, but they were not hate.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, but not regularly and not that well. It's usually short, mild scenes at most, but I did challenge myself to write a more explicit one last summer, especially after I got those 'one bed' tropes in the Wheel but didn't go there in the 500-word limit. Streets say it's hot. IDK. I also wrote a smutty continuation to the exchange fic. Best if we forget parts of that one happened. I also started writing one that would be in my S5 pregnancy universe but 🤐

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I don't. But this question confirms to me I have answered this before because I know I've joked about how TV has already done that for me, lmao. See: Bones/Sleepy Hollow.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? (I had to track down this question because it wasn't anywhere.) I don't think so!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! I'm having déjà vu here. I know I have answered this before: I could do it myself! But I have a feeling it wouldn't be as easy as one might think, but I'd be honored.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I don't think so…? If I have, it was years ago, in my forum/LJ days. I've been trying to make it happen for a while now, but who knows if it'll ever happen. WE HAVE IDEAS. We want to make it happen. (Wink wink, nudge nudge. You know who.)

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Spaceships are so cool. Atlantis was the first space shuttle I saw in person (and also the one I've seen the most) and it and its exhibit are awesome. I'm only missing Discovery out of the four space shuttles, because I didn't go to the second National Air and Space Museum location in Virginia back in 2015. And once the new exhibit center is completed, I'd love to see Endeavour again.

(In all seriousness, I don't have one. Booth and Brennan will forever and always hold a special place in my heart, but I love CJ and Danny so much, writing for them, their journey. Pls don't make me pick.)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I am a big 'never say never' person, because I end up picking stuff up (and maybe rewriting it to fit my current style/ability) if I remember an idea… But I'm guessing many of them won't get finished. Probably some of those that are deep in my notes app or on the drive.

16. What are your writing strengths? I (try to) dig into the emotion of a scene as best as I can.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else? I know it sounds like an excuse (at least to my ears), but writing in your second language is hard. I know my writing sounds limited because of it – my descriptions will never be as evocative as I wish they were, my dialogue won't be there. I am not the most imaginative person, either.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

If it makes sense, and won't take the reader out of the story, go for it! (A few words, or a line or two, might work if there's appropriate context.)

But also, as a non-native speaker, I'll always recommend using pals who might be fluent in that language and checking with them! I know that, throughout my many years in fandom, I've read quick things in Spanish within English fics that weren't entirely correct in the context they were being used (i.e. character's fluency, smaller details), and they took me out for a second. (I know, I know – pot, meet kettle. If anyone has read an unedited story of mine, they've found me making up English phrases.)

19. First fandom you wrote for? Bones. In Spanish. (I also think I wrote some ficlets in English that are probably hidden in some random LJ comm I created for my writing. They're probably 14-15 years old.)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I honestly cannot pick! And maybe it's yet to come. But basically, if I've gone through the embarrassment of having someone edit/beta a fic and catch all the avoidable mistakes, it's because it genuinely has something I like about it and that I think others will like, too. (Perceived quality aside.)

Off the top of my head, and out of the posted fics (obvious recency bias, sorry). I have a story for all 23… Also, let's consider I've mostly not read them since they were posted so I might be off. (Would love to hear what everyone's favorite is, if you've read any and are reading this!) Obviously, that top 5 by kudos has great ones. There's a reason

don't want you to go but I'll be okay: I just remember finishing it and knowing it was something special. Felt like many things coming together. I wanted to write angstier, a break from the endgame of the IM AU I've yet to post, and I think it works. I had had that quote as inspo for a while, and I think the trip to Berlin put it back on my mind. (The first haunted by the notion draft is from around this time, too!)

your love is a secret I'm hoping, dreaming, dying to keep: the structure is likely a tad repetitive, maybe (but also, the point of 3+1s, sort of?) but I love writing in that s7 period, and there should be more fic with the press corps. I think the stuff I wrote while editing (which included an overhaul of the +1) is even better than what was there.

oh, and I will be with you to feel the California sun: recency bias, yes. I love a good early Cali story, and even if this was nowhere the story I sat down to write originally, I love how it turned out. It's silly but fun, and so sunny.

still you never took your hand from mine: I will always have all the soft spots for my memoir stories, even if two of them have yet to be posted. This one doubled its size a year and a half after “finishing” it because I realized what it was missing. It's sappy, probably unrealistic re: the publishing industry, but damn it if it's not one of those that have made me cry while editing them.

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it: I had to include an oldie but goodie from my first year, and this one is so special to me. (Along with BBC 2008, which I also absolutely adore. That was the fic I always wanted to post. Hilarious it was third. But it's also my most popular fic by a huge margin.) Seeing it recommended on Tumblr? God. I love campaign stories and all their potential. I love that I took a random line from some unposted story and it evolved into this fic.

nobody knows how to get back home: I almost added the most recent one because of how fun it was to write (or, as I mentioned above, Big Block of Cheese) but I like how bittersweet this missing scene one is. I find CJ's internal struggle so interesting to explore, and this is one of her most vulnerable moments. I also wanted to see a hug so badly.

#20 questions for fic writers #ask games #god this is so late #hopefully I make up for it with my rambling #tagging whoever wants to do it - everyone I know was tagged in one of the rounds with me #in between writing most of this and posting it I hit 900 kudos woo

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kp777 · 1 year

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by Katharine Viner

The Guardian

June 1, 2023

On 5 June 2022, Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips were killed for protecting the Amazon rainforest. A new collaboration aims to continue what they started

Forest defenders should not be killed for exposing crimes. Journalists should not be killed for reporting facts.

But, one year ago, the Guardian was devastated by the awful news that in the Amazon rainforest, two lives had been taken on the frontline of the battle to protect the planet.

Bruno Araújo Pereira, a renowned defender of the rights of Brazil’s Indigenous peoples, and Dom Phillips, an outstanding reporter, long-term Guardian contributor and friend to many who work here, disappeared while researching a book on how to save the rainforest.

In the weeks that followed, when their bodies were discovered and our worst fears of their deaths confirmed, everyone at the Guardian was horrified. And from that horror was born a determination to continue the work they were doing, covering what our global environment writer, Jonathan Watts, has called “the global war against nature”.

Today, we launch the Bruno and Dom project, a year-long collaborative investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories that involves more than 50 journalists from 16 media organisations in 10 countries around the world.

Together, we have worked with three aims in mind.

First, to honour and pursue the work of Bruno and Dom. Bruno was totally committed to the traditional peoples of the Amazon and defending their ways of life, and Dom’s brave and humane journalism did so much to bring the stories of Brazil and Latin America to a global audience. We have picked up the threads of their unfinished stories, chased down leads and tried to carry on doing what they can no longer do.

Second, to remind everyone of the beauty, importance and fragility of the Amazon. Watts, who moved to live in the rainforest in 2021 and is the Guardian’s first journalist to be permanently based there, has written about it being the heart of the world – “not the lungs, as is often mistakenly claimed”. But now it beats much less strongly than it did, and than it must, if human beings on this planet are to have a future.

Third, to suggest ideas for how to save the Amazon, and, in time, inspire positive change. This was a central focus in all of Dom’s work, and something that much Guardian journalism strives for.

The Bruno and Dom project, over four days of publishing, will include:

The latest in the criminal investigation into their deaths, including the perspective of friends and family. Three men are currently being held in prison, and police have named a fourth as the alleged mastermind, while the former head of Brazil’s Indigenous protection agency under President Jair Bolsonaro has been charged on the basis that he ignored warnings over the risk of bloodshed in the Javari valley.

The last photographs taken of Bruno and Dom before they were killed, and what they tell us.

A wider exploration of how organised crime, including illegal fishing, hunting, logging and mining, is taking over the Amazon.

An investigation into the global companies making billions from extracting raw materials from the rainforest, including how beef is eating up the Amazon, and the extent of deforestation.

A detailed analysis of solutions for how to save the rainforest.

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jackkelley3714-blog · 8 months

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Top 5 Selling nfl jerseys 2023

Most of the NFL’s $50 million men had shaky days, though two ended up on the winning side. The Packers, Dolphins, 49ers and Rams were impressive. The Cowboys dominated despite an average offensive performance. Eight of 14 games Sunday finished under 40 points combined and 12 teams scored fewer than 20. Nine road teams won, including five underdogs.

But after Week 1, who are the top dogs in the eyes of the fans? We took it to sportswear giant Fanatics to see which jerseys were flying off the shelves. Below are 5 of the top-selling jerseys after Week 1.

Josh Allen （OK. Maybe Week 1 wasn’t the best for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen. But his jersey is still a top seller.）

TJ Watt

He’s one of the few linebackers on nfljerseyscheap.co ‘ top-seller list, and for good reason. T.J. Watt is a force to be reckoned with for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Lamar Jackson

SHOP HERE

Jason Kelce

SHOP HERE

The Philadelphia Eagles center is a six-time Pro Bowl selection, and one of the most popular guys in the league.

Ja’Marr Chase

SHOP HERE

Cincinnati Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase is one of the top receivers in the league. And despite a 3-point showing from Cincinnati in Week 1, this jersey is one of the most sought-after of the 2023 season.

#nfl football

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shop-korea · 1 year

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BOX VAULT - SELF STORAGE

SHARED BLDG - SAME - YES

PARKING - ACCESS - 6A/10P

24/7 - ACCESS ADD - $24.99

NO INSURANCE - $11 - YEAH

THE - WHARF - DRINKS AND

BOTTLES - HAPPY HOUR - A

BAR - NEXT 2 MIAMI - RIVER

A - LANDMARK - UGLY DEEP

DAYS - UNTIL - 3A - ALSO 1A

STARTS - 4P - ALSO - 12P SO

GREAT - MUSIC - LOUD TOO

B 4 - 10P - THE WHARF - YES

USES - OUR - PARKING - LOT

VALET - PARKING

PARKING - 'TIME - SHARING'

SW NORTH RIVER DR

CROSS - SW 2 ST

OTHER SIDE - FR - OUR BLDG

SAW - TENTS - BELONGS - TO

A COUPLE - OR - BLOND GIRL

LARGE - DOG - GIGANTIC -

PLANTERS - REAL - NICE -

NEXT - 2 - PARKING - LOT -

WHITE - SERVICE - CARS -

FLOOR - REAL NICE NOT -

REGULAR - CEMENT YES -

SIDEWALK - LIKE HOTEL -

GROUND - TILED FLOOR -

2 NIGHTS AGO - GIRL ME -

SAW - PUBLIC - LIBRARY -

SHE - GAVE - ME HER XO -

SPOT - SW 2 AV - CROSS -

SW 2 ST - CARS ALL YES -

HRS - MALE - LOOSERS -

HISPANIC - ENGLISH FL -

SPEAKER - 'I'LL - B SAFE -

ON - THAT STREET' - I'LL -

BET - DOMINICAN - GIRL -

SHOWS LOTS OF BREASTS -

HIS - ROUTE - THIS - AM AT -

3:35A - UMBRELLA FACING -

ME - TRIPOD - PRIVACY - HE -

ALL HISPANICS - 'CRAZY -

FR - PHILIPPINES' - THEY -

WORK - TOILETS - TOXIC -

DEATH - WORK GARBAGE -

METROMOVER - MAIDS -

HOUSES - HOTELS INNS -

LOUSY WORKERS - NOT -

VERY - CLEAN - SO - HE -

WANTED - 2 - TALK 2 ME -

3:35A - PASSED - BY - TO -

SEE - ME - SLEEPING XO -

UNDER - TARP - FOREIGN -

BLK - GIRL - LIKE - ALL AS -

THEY - TALK - OUTLOUD -

OF - INJUSTICE - ANGRY -

TALK - 4 - HRS - TONIGHT -

TRANSFERING - RAINS -

ME - UNDER - TARP AS -

ROSS - DRESS - 4 LESS -

SELLS - BEST - TARP -

$3.99 - $4.99 - $5.99 -

WATERPROOF - AND -

TEAR - RESISTANT 2 -

CORRECT - AMAZON -

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ROSS - TARP - REPELS -

WATER - $3.99 - QUITE -

GOOD - MOVING THERE -

TONIGHT - DOMINICAN -

REPUBLIC - GIRL - SAID -

TENT - ALLOWED THERE -

MON - FRI - 09 JUN 2023 -

THAT - SIDEWALK BEING -

CLEANED - SANITIZED -

WILL - SMELL - GREAT -

R SIDE - 2 - EAT THERE -

RIVER - VIEW - MISSING -

SEE THRU - LAKES - OF -

LAKE TAHOE - NORTH CA -

CALIFORNIA - FORGOT MY -

ORDER - 80 WATTS - FOOD -

MAKER - GETTING - NOW -

BEACH - YESTERDAY - AS -

WINDS - STRONGER 3:30P -

MORE - SO - 5:30P - WHEN -

NOT - 2 - LEAVE - MIAMI -

BEACH - 3P - 3:30P - FOR -

TRAFFIC - HEAVY - BACK -

2 - DOWNTOWN - MIAMI -

OTHER - SIDE - EMPTY -

120 MAX - 2 - AVENTURA -

DISPLAYS - BEACH - MAX -

40 MIN - EXACT - R SIDE -

CLOSE - ROSS - DRESS 4 -

LESS - TOP - FLOOR -

LEAVE 6:30P - BUS S -

NOT - 5P - 5:30P - ON -

SINDAYS - HISPANICS -

ILLEGALLY - WORK FL -

DAILY - 5 DAYS - USA -

WORK - LAWS - THUS -

PRAYED - CAME 2 THE -

UNDERLINE - CALLED -

TEXT NOW - RECEIVED -

REPLY - YES

HOPED - GOT - FEMALE -

PILIPINAS - 02 JUNE THE -

RETURN - WINDOW - I YES -

COMPLAINED - NEAR - TIE -

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RIPPED - TOP - IN - HALF -

EDGES - 2 - CAME - OFF -

TAPED - ALL - LAST WEEK -

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UMBRELLA - FLEW - HOW -

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COUPON BOX VAULT -

OVER $46 - EXCITED

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greensparty · 1 year

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Album Reviews: Record Store Day releases from Wilco and The Stooges

Sat. April 22 is Record Store Day, my favorite fake holiday. What could be better than a day to celebrate independent record stores? As with each RSD, there are some special exclusive RSD releases you can only buy on RSD and at participating stores. I was lucky enough to get to review some of tomorrow’s releases.

Wilco Crosseyed Strangers: An Alternate Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

album cover

Last year to celebrate the anniversary of Wilco’s masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (originally released in 2001, so it was actually a 21st anniversary, but who’s counting), the band released a Super Deluxe Edition. It had loads of demos, rarities and live recordings. I included it in my Best Reissues of 2022 list. For RSD, they are releasing the LP Crosseyed Strangers: An Alternate Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which is highlights of last year’s YHF Super Deluxe Edition. This particular collection was first released as a CD in the Sept. 2022 issue of Uncut magazine and it’s now being released on vinyl for the first time.

I’ve been lucky enough to get to review the band’s Ode to Joy and Cruel Country albums and they certainly are one of the greatest American rock bands of the last 25 years. Hands down! As much as I enjoyed last year’s Super Deluxe Edition, I didn’t buy it for $75-$200, I just listened to it online. So if you didn’t splurge on that box set, this is kind of a cool highlights collection, mixing early cuts of “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” and “Camera” along with alternate takes of “War on War” and selections from a 2002 St. Louis concert and a 2022 NYC concert. An incredible band giving us their best album in a new way!

For info on this RSD release from Wilco: https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/15890

4 out of 5 stars

Iggy and The Stooges Raw Power RSD Essential Gold

album cover

Technically speaking, this is not an RSD release. Legacy Recordings released this on March 31 as an RSD Essential, so it makes the cut of this week’s RSD reviews. But I digress. Michigan’s The Stooges (also known as Iggy and The Stooges) were the emerging out of the same scene as The MC5 and by the time the band released their third album Raw Power in 1973, they had already been through some line-up changes. The album was produced by lead Stooge Iggy Pop and his pal David Bowie. It is one of the greatest albums of all time! You can see the influence it had on all of the punk scenes that came out of London and NYC in the years that followed. You can understand why Kurt Cobain named it one of his favorite albums. Legacy’s recent release is a double album of the 1973 David Bowie mix and the 1997 Iggy Pop mix for the CD reissue. Did I mention the vinyl is gold?

This album is pure raw rock and roll the way it was meant to be played. Garage rock, punk rock, glam rock, hard rock - call it what you want, but the title Raw Power says it all. This album is one I got into in the mid-90s when I was going through an Iggy Pop phase and it stands head and shoulders as the best work of him and his bandmates. 50 years later this runs circles around much of the “punk music” being released today. The 2016 Stooges documentary Gimme Danger shows how influential the band was after their 1974 break up and before their 2003 reunion. I was lucky enough to catch the reunited Stooges (Pop, the Ashetons and Watt) in 2004 at Little Steven’s Underground Garage Festival in NYC and was blown away that these AARP-age rockers basically mopped up the floor with bands half their age who played earlier that day. The highlights of that show were indeed the Raw Power hits. With this 50th anniversary release, it is cool to hear the original and the remastered, but either way you listen, this rocks!

For info on Raw Power: https://www.legacyrecordings.com/2023/02/03/iggy-the-stooges-raw-power-50th-anniversary-legacy-edition-out-today/

5 out of 5 stars

#record store day #wilco #the stooges #iggy pop #album reviews #reissue albums #music nerd #David Bowie #rsd

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whatsonmedia · 1 year

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Thursday Thrill: This Week's Amazing Events!

Events Editor Nicole Newman has some incredible events coming up this week. Don't wait to slip on your sneakers and have some fun this week; we've picked some of the top activities for you. Here are some of the highlights from those events. A STATE OF TRANCE UTRECHT 2023 3 Mar This is a One Day festival taking place in Utrecht in the Netherlands. A dance music offering that's going to be an explosion of the finest trance music for true trance lovers. Delivering on every high level of production, DJs and an atmosphere to be felt to the core of your soul. The line-ups are Ferry Corsten, Cosmic Gate, Giuseppe Ottaviani, Armin Van Buuren, Ben Gold, and many more. Tickets and more info festival.astateoftrance.com ABROADFEST 2 – 4 Mar This year is a celebration of 10 years of Abroadfest holding its ground in one of the fragile climates. This year will be bigger and better with 3 days of a full-on music program, set in the beautiful surroundings of Barcelona again festival goers can expect a unique production with the best artist line-up. Letting your sense run wild as you enjoy this quirky experience. This is a weekend for music lovers. The festival is spread across two weekends so take your pick! The line-up features Party Favor, Malaa, Sidepiece plus many more Tickets and more info new.abroadfest.com JUST FOR LAUGHS 2 – 5 Mar London's iconic O2 campus is hosting a star-studded event of stand-up comedy's finest talent. Stretched across 4 days this is a festival that's sure to be non-stop laughs. Bringing a line-up of international and some of the UK’s fumiest comedy elite including live podcasts, cast panels, multi-comic performances, and a menu of headline acts featuring Ryan Reynolds, Graham Norton, Katherine Ryan, Reggie Watts, Aisling Bea, Richard Curtis, Alex Horne, Adam Buxton, Craig Robinson, and many more Tickets and more info london.hahaha.com Read the full article

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ender1821 · 3 years

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CsjLam’s Masterlist

Last Updated: 17/5/2024

SIX:

Phantom thief au - Discontinued

[ch.1] [ch.2] [ch.3] [ch.4] [ch.5]

[ch.6] [ch.7] [ch.8] [ch.9] [ch.10]

=+= =+= =+=

TBHK au - Discontinued

[ch.1] [ch.2] [ch.3]

=+= =+= =+=

DBH au

Intro/Cast

The detective’s lunch

=+= =+= =+=

12 days of six fics - Completed

[Day 1] [Day 2] [Day 3] [Day 4]

[Day 5] [Day 6] [Day 7] [Day 8]

[Day 9] [Day 10] [Day 11] [Day 12]

=+= =+= =+=

One shots

Purely Coincidental (Jane and Cathy centred fic)

Halloween but with the actual undead (Halloween fic)

Fly me to the moon (Parrward)

Two dumbasses with a fork (Anne Squared)

=+= =+= =+=

Collaborations

Six fate swapped au

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

AU Arena - Discontinued

Teaser

[ch.1]

WE ARE THE TIGERS:

We’ve gone too far to go back now (Zombie AU) - Completed

[ch.1] [ch.2]

=+= =+= =+=

One shots

If I say “I’m fine” enough, then I’ll believe it (Eva vent fic)

With the Stars and Us (Post-canon Kate x Eva x Annleigh)

Farrah’s Foolproof Guide To Summoning The Dead (watt x six au)

one last time, please (Annleigh-centric songfic for WATT Week 2023 prompt: Reunion)

=+= =+= =+=

Collaborations

The One In Which Annleigh Is A Shipper - Discontinued

(A crack fic based on Annleigh’s line in IDK)

[ch.1] [ch.2] [ch.3] [ch.4] [ch.5]

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

We Are the Broken Ones, Who Chose to Spark the Flame - Discontinued

(WATT DND AU)

[ch.1] [ch.2] [ch.3] [ch.4] [ch.5]

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

A False Freedom - Discontinued

(WATT DBH AU)

[ch.1] [ch.2] [ch.3] [ch.4] [ch.5]

[ch.6] [ch.7] [ch.8] [ch.9] [ch.10]

[ch.11]

RIDE THE CYCLONE:

you feel like city life, apple pie baked just right (Coffee shop AU) - Discontinued

[ch.1] [ch.2] [ch.3]

BLUE LOCK:

The Chains That Bind (Yukimiya-centric fic)

OVERWATCH:

When the World Stops Moving (Mekamechanic)

MCYT:

Phobos’ Interlude (Cheater duo - Limited Life)

dear fellow traveller (under the moon) - shiny duo/gempearl fics

brewings of a not-too-distant past (HC s8 x ESMP s1)

no longer a danger to herself or others (Post-DL)

gold shimmers in her hair (HC s9 x ESMP)

I vowed not to fight anymore (if we survived the Great War) (alt. SL finale)

I don't know anything, but I know I miss you (HC s9 x SL)

skin scarred and sun-kissed (SL one shot collection)

cast a spell on my heart (Modern LARP AU)

the sun can’t break the habit of going down (alt. ESMP s1 finale)

planting roses in foreign waters (Modern HC s10 AU)

she’s absolutely smitten (she’ll never let you go) (HC s9)

overnight delivery (HC s10)

#Ender writes

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mortallycoralluminary · 4 years

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Mike Tyson returns to boxing at 54 on Saturday looking and sounding different

Mike Tyson was in the passenger seat of a black Cadillac Escalade one recent morning, making the 45-mile drive from his home in Southern California to Tyson Ranch, a cannabis company he founded a few years ago.

“I could always use a buck like everybody else can,’’ Tyson told USA TODAY Sports during a phone interview. “This is so much bigger than that.’’

What this is: Tyson, the erstwhile "Baddest Man On The Planet," getting back into the boxing ring at the age of 54.

He is scheduled to fight Roy Jones Jr. in an eight-round exhibition match Saturday night at Staples Center in Los Angeles — more than 15 years after Tyson’s last, inglorious fight. On June 11, 2005, he quit before the start of the seventh round against journeyman Kevin McBride.

“My last fight, I didn’t want nothing to do with that stuff,’’ Tyson said. “I have so much more desire than my last fight."

So what is fueling Tyson’s desire now?

MIKE MOMENTS: 10 victories that helped define Mike Tyson

5 QUESTIONS: For Saturday's Mike Tyson-Roy Jones Jr. fight

“I look at it like I’ve got to test myself,’’ Tyson said. “Isn’t that weird? Why do I have to test myself and constantly push myself?"

Or is it that Tyson, who after the loss to McBride said, "I'm just fighting to pay my bills,'' still needs a buck after making an estimated $685 million in his career?

But there may be a deeper meaning than money, according to Tyson.

“Why am I who I am, and why do I react the way that I do?’’ he asked. “Why do I think? Why am I on the phone with you saying what I’m saying right now? What is causing me to say that? What’s causing me to breathe? What’s causing me to want to survive?’’

Tyson explained he is “doing research on myself’’ in his search for answers in a life full of whys.

Like, why did Tyson, who has struggled with addiction for more than two decades, stop using cocaine less than three years ago?

“I don’t use the word amazing too much, but it was really something,’’ he said. "No cocaine, no marijuana, nothing."

And why, after Tyson had a boxing ring built at Tyson Ranch, did he often work out three times a day, up to six days a week, during a sixth-month period leading up to his fight Saturday night?

In part, Tyson suggested, because the intense training has given him a high he can’t get from cocaine, marijuana or any other drug. But he is not doing this for free.

How the fight came together

Azim Spicer, Tyson’s brother-in-law and business partner, said he got a call this spring from Bob Sapp, a 6-5, 329-pound fighter best known as a kickboxer and MMA fighter.

Sapp said he wanted to fight Tyson in an exhibition match and that Tyson would be guaranteed a multimillion-dollar payday, according to Spicer.

“At first I just thought he was nuts and didn’t really take it too seriously,’’ Spicer said. “But these guys kept calling and calling me with some other guys overseas. Had a lot of money and just a bunch of money on the table, and so I reached out to Mike.

“I thought I had to tell him at this point, because if it was me and that money was available, honestly I would want to know regardless of what I had to do for it. So I told Mike, and Mike said, ‘I’m not fighting again.’

“So then Mike called me back five minutes later and was like, ‘How much were they offering?’ ”

About $20 million, Spicer said.

“Then he called me back maybe 10 minutes later and said, ‘And who do they want me to fight?' And I told him Bob Sapp. And he started laughing hysterically."

Sapp, 47, has a combined fight record of 24-39-1. He also has worked as a professional wrestler and actor. But Spicer said Sapp’s people failed to deliver on promises, and so the fight was off – but the idea of a Tyson comeback was gaining momentum.

Through a business partner, Spicer said, they got connected with Sophie Watts, a media executive from London who has worked with the likes of Elton John, Beyonce, Madonna, U2, Paul McCartney and Mariah Carey.

Watts agreed to be the financier, and the search for someone to fight Tyson continued.

They reached out to Evander Holyfield, according to Spicer. During their fight in 1997, Tyson infamously bit off a piece of Holyfield’s ear and this would be a chance to pit them in the ring together for the first time since then.

“We tried the Evander thing but unfortunately we just couldn’t get a deal done," Spicer said.

Next up was Tyson Fury, the two-time heavyweight champion. Spicer said talks got leaked to Top Rank, Bob Arum’s boxing promotion company, and Arum wanted to be part of the deal. Which meant no deal, Spicer said.

About that same time, according to Spicer, he got a call from Roy Jones Jr., who at the peak of his career was considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in boxing. Now 51, he had fought professionally as recently as 2018 as a cruiserweight.

Jones heard Tyson was interested in an exhibition fight and wanted to know if it was true, according to Spicer, who arranged a phone call between the two fighters.

After that conversation, and with the blessing of the California State Athletic Commission, the fight was on. With a twist.

A league for legends

Tyson and Watts, the financier, came up with an idea: The Legends Only League, which would stage events featuring retired superstars such as Tyson who would participate in pay-per-view events. Tyson’s fight with Jones would launch the enterprise.

In explaining the league’s genesis, Tyson said he was watching a TV program about Jerry Rice, the Hall of Fame wide receiver. Tyson said he learned from the program that Rice couldn't find a job in the NFL after the 2004 season with the Seattle Seahawks because he had lost some of his speed.

“They said just because he’s a few seconds off, he can’t play no more,’’ Tyson said. “And I feel like, ‘Are you crazy? He’s a few seconds away from his world-class speed and he can’t play anymore?’

“I’ll bet you right now there’s more people that would like to see him at wide receiver than to see the guys that’s the wide receiver now for the (Seahawks)."

The idea behind the Legends Only League is to create a platform for Rice and other retired superstars who, like Tyson, want to climb into the ring again – at least metaphorically.

“Imagine a one-on-one game with Dennis Rodman and Man of Peace,’’ he said, referring to Metta World Peace, who won an NBA championship ring with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2010 and now goes by the name Metta Sandiford-Artest. “Imagine those two awesome athletes, those guys playing a game of 21. Who do you think will watch that?

“Can you imagine John McEnroe playing Serena (Williams) or her sister (Venus Williams)? Holy moly!"

Watts, who is partnering with Tyson, declined to identify other athletes they have spoken to, but she said the Legends Only League has four events scheduled for 2021 and plans to hold six events in 2022 and six more in 2023.

“This is a league for champions to come together and have a story about their life on screen as a special one-off,’’ Watts said.

But Tyson isn’t necessarily one-and-done.

'I hate being happy'As his fight against Jones approached, Tyson indulged discussion about whom he might fight next. He said he’d be interested in fighting the top contemporary heavyweights, such as Fury, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder.

But he said it's unlikely those fighters would agree to an exhibition match unless they set aside the priority of maximizing their earning potential. It's unclear how much Tyson and Jones will make, but probably far less than the top heavyweights would generate fighting each other or other boxers in their prime.

“Sometimes in your life you're going to have to face your maker,’’ Tyson said. “Not from dying, but just being conscious of him. Does that make any sense? The consciousness of him should make you want to do that (charitable act).

“What am I really going to do with so much (money)? I’m closer to God than I am to being a billionaire, something like that. What am I going to do when I meet God? What am I going to tell him?’’

Tyson and Jones are not giving away their fight.

The pay-per-view fee is $49.99. And the fight has led to business deals.

On Nov. 17, GameOn Technology announced a partnership with Tyson to for the Mike Tyson Bot, an interactive feature with Tyson-related content on Facebook Messenger.

And on Monday, Smart Cups, a company that makes the “first printed beverage," signed on to become the title sponsor of “Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson,’’ his podcast.

But Tyson knows that no amount of money can give him peace of mind – something that eluded him for many years. Now he has a new problem.

“I hate being happy,’’ he said. “I’m happy all the (expletive) time.’’

'A great burning desire'Tysonreflected on his growth since he was a troubled kid growing up in Brooklyn and then at 19 became the youngest heavyweight champion inhistory.

Told people were terrified of him back then, Tyson replied, “I was afraid of me too. No, really. How do you think that feels?"

Now he is far more beloved than feared, highly engaging and approachable, yet still required by law to register as a sex offender. In 1992, he was convicted of rape and served almost three years in prison.

Today his top executive assistant is one of his former cellmates, David Barnes.

Tyson is married to Lakiha “Kiki” Spicer, his third wife, and they have two children – a 12-year-old daughter, Milan, and a 9-year-old son, Morocco. The family splits time between Newport Beach and Henderson, Nevada, outside of Las Vegas.

“I’m just at peace with conducting my responsibilities with my family," said Tyson, who has other children from previous relationships. “This is something that I never did. This is what, 11 years married? Can you believe that?

“I can’t live with me for 11 years. How can anyone else live with me for 11 years?"

For his upcoming fight, Tyson has brought in Billy White, who, like Tyson, grew up under the tutelage of Cus D’Amato, the late trainer credited with rescuing Tyson from the streets of Brooklyn.

White, who has been helping oversee Tyson’s training, said in the spring he got a call from Tyson, who disclosed his plans for a comeback.

“At the same time, we said in unison, ‘Cus said age is nothing but a number,’ " White recalled. “We said it together on the phone. So that was pretty cool that we said it unison."

White said he has relished watching Tyson train and noted that Tyson has been waking up between 3 and 4 a.m. most days to run.

“Old school, just like he used to,’’ White said. “It’s a great burning desire in him once again.

“It’s amazing to see. It’s beautiful, you know?"

#usa #tags

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magzoso-tech · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/flying-cars-to-hyperloop-a-review-of-tech-predictions/

Flying Cars to Hyperloop: A Review of Tech Predictions

Predicting the future is hard, even for the people with the most power to influence it. In 2013, Jeff Bezos said he expected Amazon.com Inc. would be delivering packages by drone in four to five years. Here we are seven years later, the flying delivery robots Bezos envisioned are still at the testing stage and have just started to get regulatory approval in the U.S.

Corporate fortune telling is a common practice in the technology industry, and executives tend to choose round numbers as deadlines for their technological fantasies. So, as 2019 draws to a close and we approach a new decade, let’s take a look back at how some of the tech industry’s predictions for 2020 fared.

1. Computer chips will consume almost no energy

Gordon Moore was famous for his foresight about the development of cheaper and more advanced computers. Intel, the company he co-founded, stayed in the prognostication game years after Moore retired, with mixed results. In 2012, Intel predicted a form of ubiquitous computing that would consume almost zero energy by 2020. The date is almost here, and phones still barely last a day before needing a recharge. The i9, Intel’s latest top-of-the-line computer chip, requires 165 watts of energy. That’s more than twice as much as a 65-inch television.

2. Nine out of 10 people over age 6 will own a mobile phone

In 2014, Ericsson Mobility estimated that 90 percent of people on earth over 6 years old would own a mobile phone by 2020. This is a hard one to measure, but a visit to developing countries suggests we are nowhere close. Research firm Statista puts global penetration at 67 percent. One milestone achieved this decade is the number of mobile subscriptions exceeded the world’s population for the first time, according to data compiled by the World Bank. The statistic is skewed by people who use multiple devices. Concern about the potential harmful effects of video game and social-media overuse by children may mean this never happens. There’s now a national movement in the US encouraging parents to wait until kids are in the eighth grade (age 13) before letting them have a smartphone.

3. Jet.com will break even

Jet.com was an embodiment of the startup unicorn, before that was even a term. Marc Lore started the online retailer after selling his previous company to Amazon. Jet would challenge Lore’s former employer by offering cheaper prices on products with a subscription that substantially undercut Prime. To do that, Jet quickly started burning through the more than $700 million (roughly Rs. 5,000 crores) it had raised from venture capitalists, and critics said the startup had no path to profitability. In response, Lore said on Bloomberg TV in 2015 that Jet would break even by 2020. Walmart swooped in a year after that interview and bought Jet for $3.3 billion (roughly Rs. 23,571 crores). According to news site Vox, Walmart is projecting a loss of more than $1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,142 crores) this year for its US e-commerce division, now led by Lore.

4. The first 60-mile hyperloop ride will take place

In 2013, Elon Musk outlined his vision for a new “fifth mode of transportation” that would involve zipping people through tubes at speeds as fast as 800 miles per hour. Several tech entrepreneurs heeded Musk’s call and went to work on such systems inspired by the billionaire’s specifications. In 2015, one of the leading startups predicted a hyperloop spanning about 60 miles would be ready for human transport by 2020. Rob Lloyd, then the CEO of Hyperloop Technologies, told Popular Science: “I’m very confident that’s going to happen.” It hasn’t. His company, now called Virgin Hyperloop One, has a 1,600-foot test track in California and hopes to build a 22-mile track in Saudi Arabia someday. Musk has since experimented with hyperloops of his own, and even he has had to scale back his ambitions. Musk’s Boring is building a so-called Loop system in Las Vegas, starting with a nearly mile-long track that consists of a narrow tunnel and Tesla cars moving at up to 155 miles per hour.

5. Google’s cloud business will eclipse advertising

Selling cloud services became a big business for Amazon, Alibaba Group Holding and Microsoft over the last decade. Google executive Urs Hölzle saw the shift coming and in 2015 predicted Google’s cloud revenue would supersede advertising by 2020. Alphabet’s Google has inched closer to Amazon Web Services since then, but it’ll take a lot to outgrow Google’s cash cow. The cloud is expected to represent almost 15 percent of revenue for Google this year, compared with 85 percent for ads.

6. Huawei will make a ‘superphone’

Here’s what Huawei Technologies said in 2015 predicting a “superphone” by 2020, according to ZDNet: “Inspired by the biological evolution, the mobile phone we currently know will come to life as the superphone,” said Shao Yang, a strategy marketing president of Huawei. “Through evolution and adaptation, the superphone will be more intelligent, enhancing and even transforming our perceptions, enabling humans to go further than ever before.” It’s not entirely clear what that means, but it probably hasn’t happened yet. In the interim, Huawei found itself in the middle of a trade war, and the Chinese company is focusing largely on mid-priced phones for its domestic market.

7. Toyota will make fully self-driving cars

Auto and tech companies alike became convinced this decade that computers would soon be able to drive cars more reliably than people. In 2015, Toyota Motor made a companywide bet that it would have autonomous highway-driving cars on the road by 2020. It didn’t take long for the hype cycle to veer off course. In 2018, a pedestrian died after colliding with an Uber self-driving car. In 2020, Toyota’s Lexus brand will introduce a car capable of driving autonomously on the highway, but executives acknowledged that auto companies “are revising their timeline for AI deployment significantly.”

8. A Bitcoin will be worth $1 million

John McAfee, the controversial computer antivirus mogul and an influential voice in the cryptocurrency community, predicted the price of Bitcoin would reach $1 million (roughly Rs. 7.14 crores) by the end of 2020. McAfee posted the estimate in November 2017, about three weeks before a crash would erase 83 percent of value over the next year. Bitcoin has recovered somewhat, but the current price of about $7,200 is far from McAfee’s magic number. Like other Bitcoin bulls, McAfee is standing by his unlikely prediction. If he’s wrong, McAfee said he’ll eat an intimate body part.

9. Dyson will sell an electric car

It was barely two years ago when the maker of blowdryers and vacuum cleaners said it would sell an electric car by 2020. Dyson canceled the project this year, calling it “not commercially viable.”

10. Uber will deploy flying cars

When Uber Technologies pledged to deliver on a promise of the Jetsons, it gave itself just three years to do so. It’s safe to say you will not be able to hail a flying Uber in the next year. The company continues to explore the concept with regulators. This year, Uber added a form of flying vehicle that’s not particularly cutting edge: It’s booking helicopter rides in New York City. Last Friday, Uber said it was working with a startup, Joby Aviation, to develop “aerial ride-sharing” and set a new deadline of 2023. Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi tweeted: “Getting closer …”

#Miscellaneous

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componentplanet · 4 years

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Meet GM’s Cruise Origin of the Autonomous Species

Cruise Automation, the GM self-driving-car subsidiary, showed off its latest and most solid self-driving car yet this week, the Cruise Origin. The Origin is both electric and autonomous. The Origin is equally defined by what the vehicle is not: your personal self-driver you put away at day’s end. Instead, it’s meant to be a six-person taxi for ride shares in and around urban areas such as San Francisco, the company’s HQ and site of the unveiling Tuesday. It is also not going to have a steering wheel, meaning the Cruise Origin goes straight to Level 5 (or Level 4 within defined areas) autonomous driving.

The event was not, as well, an Elon Musk Tesla revival-tent unveiling or a Donald Trump rally. Instead, it was relatively low key and there were no big promises. Cruise executives only said prototypes, not production cars, are due “in the near future” and cautioned that “our work is far from done.”

Cruise Origin concept in a city setting.

The Cruise Origin shown this week is a boxy, van-like vehicle and there is a clear difference between front and back, in part to help other cars with retro features (that is, human drivers) cue themselves into the direction a stopped Origin would take upon moving off. There is a flat floor. There is no steering wheel or pedals. There are lots of lidar and sensor pods at the four corners of the vehicle.

Level 5 automation means a vehicle that can go everywhere without need for a driver, and thus without need for a steering wheel, throttle, or brake pedal. Level 4 is full automation but only on some roads, initially meaning limited access highways such as interstates. Cruise Automation is looking at fully automated vehicles where the set of self-drivable roads is every major street in an urban area. Production cars are at Level 2 currently, meaning the car can drive itself on an interstate but can’t deal with off-ramps, lane changes (some can, some can’t), or stalled cars in the roadway, so there has to be a driver behind the wheel more-or-less paying attention.

Who Is Cruise Automation?

Here’s a quick GM/ Cruise backgrounder to help you come up to speed: General Motors, once the world’s largest automobile company, is rebounding and doing good work on key issues of the 21st century: safety, reduced-emissions vehicles, autonomy, and promoting women to positions of leadership. The new GM finds Asia a huge market, as do other automakers.

The old GM often created its own technology rather than use someone else’s. It has been conceptualizing electric vehicles since 1990 and building them since 1996 (the EV-1 with lead-acid and then nickel-metal hydride batteries).

Cruise Automation early autonomous car based on the Chevrolet Bolt EV.

Cruise Automation is a Bay Area company out of the Y-Combinator startup accelerator; Cruise hoped to retrofit existing cars with semi-autonomous features for highway driving, then shifted to making EVs autonomous in urban settings. Cruise came to the attention of GM circa 2015, this at a time when boastful automakers were talking about self-driving cars in the 2018-2020 timeframe. GM bought Cruise Automation for a reported $500 million to $1 billion when it had about 50 employees. Dan Amman, president of GM (the CEO is Mary Barra), was installed as Cruise Automation president in 2018. Now Cruise says it has about 1,000 employees in San Francisco and 100-200 employees in Seattle. It also has investment money from Softbank and Honda and a value, GM says, of about $15 billion.

At the unveiling this week and in media discussions afterward, it became clearer that GM plans to have the autonomous and EV projects within the company work together. Cruise self-driving vehicles will be electric vehicles as well. But all EVs are not going to be autonomous this decade.

GM Plans 20 EVs by 2023

GM has said it will have 20 new electric vehicles by 2023. That includes a new Chevrolet EV this year and an electric pickup truck by 2021.

Meanwhile, GM has a tie-in with Korea’s LG Chem to create its own Gigafactory, so to speak, in Lordstown, Ohio, with an annual capacity of 30-gigawatt-hours. A gigawatt is a billion watts (10 to the ninth power) and a big EV battery would be 100 kWh, or 100,000-watt-hours, or three days of usage in a mainstream US house. Divide one by the other and you come up with the capacity at Lordstown to build 300,000 100-kWh battery packs a year. Basically, a gigawatt-hour factory supplies 10,000 cars.

That’s the future plan. Meanwhile, EVs are still slow sellers in the US, other than Tesla. GM is about to run out of federal tax credits it can offer; the final $1,875 credit, available a year after the automaker hits the 200,000 sales cap, ends in April. For GM, EV sales are so soft it’s possible to get a $10,000 credit (GM to buyer, not Uncle Sam to buyer) of about $10,000.

So while GM and Cruise Automation are gung-ho on autonomy, within GM there are mixed emotions about EVs. Or there was last fall, when GM president Mark Reuss did an op-ed piece on CNN’s website, “Electric Cars Won’t Go Mainstream Until We Fix These Problems.” The problems are range, charging infrastructure, and cost.

Now read:

For Self-Driving Cars, Lidar Amps Up at CES 2020

Tesla: Claims of Unintended Acceleration Are ‘Completely False’

No need to wait for Tesla: the Chevrolet Bolt is excellent (and already shipping)

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/302323-meet-gms-cruise-origin-of-the-autonomous-species from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/01/meet-gms-cruise-origin-of-autonomous.html

#Meet GM’s Cruise Origin of the Autonomous Species

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businessliveme · 4 years

Text

Flying Cars and Hyperloop by 2020? A Review of Tech Predictions

(Bloomberg) –Predicting the future is hard, even for the people with the most power to influence it. In 2013, Jeff Bezos said he expected Amazon.com Inc. would be delivering packages by drone in four to five years. Here we are seven years later, the flying delivery robots Bezos envisioned are still at the testing stage and have just started to get regulatory approval in the U.S.

1. Computer chips will consume almost no energy

Gordon Moore was famous for his foresight about the development of cheaper and more advanced computers. Intel Corp., the company he co-founded, stayed in the prognostication game years after Moore retired, with mixed results. In 2012, Intel predicted a form of ubiquitous computing that would consume almost zero energy by 2020. The date is almost here, and phones still barely last a day before needing a recharge. The i9, Intel’s latest top-of-the-line computer chip, requires 165 watts of energy. That’s more than twice as much as a 65-inch television.

2. Nine out of 10 people over age 6 will own a mobile phone

In 2014, Ericsson Mobility estimated that 90% of people on earth over 6 years old would own a mobile phone by 2020. This is a hard one to measure, but a visit to developing countries suggests we are nowhere close. Research firm Statista puts global penetration at 67%. One milestone achieved this decade is the number of mobile subscriptions exceeded the world’s population for the first time, according to data compiled by the World Bank. The statistic is skewed by people who use multiple devices. Concern about the potential harmful effects of video game and social-media overuse by children may mean this never happens. There’s now a national movement in the U.S. encouraging parents to wait until kids are in the eighth grade (age 13) before letting them have a smartphone.

3. Jet.com will break even

Jet.com was an embodiment of the startup unicorn, before that was even a term. Marc Lore started the online retailer after selling his previous company to Amazon. Jet would challenge Lore’s former employer by offering cheaper prices on products with a subscription that substantially undercut Prime. To do that, Jet quickly started burning through the more than $700 million it had raised from venture capitalists, and critics said the startup had no path to profitability. In response, Lore said on Bloomberg TV in 2015 that Jet would break even by 2020. Walmart Inc. swooped in a year after that interview and bought Jet for $3.3 billion. According to news site Vox, Walmart is projecting a loss of more than $1 billion this year for its U.S. e-commerce division, now led by Lore.

4. The first 60-mile hyperloop ride will take place

In 2013, Elon Musk outlined his vision for a new “fifth mode of transportation” that would involve zipping people through tubes at speeds as fast as 800 miles per hour. Several tech entrepreneurs heeded Musk’s call and went to work on such systems inspired by the billionaire’s specifications. In 2015, one of the leading startups predicted a hyperloop spanning about 60 miles would be ready for human transport by 2020. Rob Lloyd, then the CEO of Hyperloop Technologies, told Popular Science: “I’m very confident that’s going to happen.” It hasn’t. His company, now called Virgin Hyperloop One, has a 1,600-foot test track in California and hopes to build a 22-mile track in Saudi Arabia someday. Musk has since experimented with hyperloops of his own, and even he has had to scale back his ambitions. Musk’s Boring Co. is building a so-called Loop system in Las Vegas, starting with a nearly mile-long track that consists of a narrow tunnel and Tesla cars moving at up to 155 miles per hour.

5. Google’s cloud business will eclipse advertising

Selling cloud services became a big business for Amazon, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Microsoft Corp. over the last decade. Google executive Urs Hölzle saw the shift coming and in 2015 predicted Google’s cloud revenue would supersede advertising by 2020. Alphabet Inc.’s Google has inched closer to Amazon Web Services since then, but it’ll take a lot to outgrow Google’s cash cow. The cloud is expected to represent almost 15% of revenue for Google this year, compared with 85% for ads.

6. Huawei will make a ‘superphone’

Here’s what Huawei Technologies Co. said in 2015 predicting a “superphone” by 2020, according to ZDNet: “Inspired by the biological evolution, the mobile phone we currently know will come to life as the superphone,” said Shao Yang, a strategy marketing president of Huawei. “Through evolution and adaptation, the superphone will be more intelligent, enhancing and even transforming our perceptions, enabling humans to go further than ever before.” It’s not entirely clear what that means, but it probably hasn’t happened yet. In the interim, Huawei found itself in the middle of a trade war, and the Chinese company is focusing largely on mid-priced phones for its domestic market.

7. Toyota will make fully self-driving cars

Auto and tech companies alike became convinced this decade that computers would soon be able to drive cars more reliably than people. In 2015, Toyota Motor Corp. made a companywide bet that it would have autonomous highway-driving cars on the road by 2020. It didn’t take long for the hype cycle to veer off course. In 2018, a pedestrian died after colliding with an Uber self-driving car. In 2020, Toyota’s Lexus brand will introduce a car capable of driving autonomously on the highway, but executives acknowledged that auto companies “are revising their timeline for AI deployment significantly.”

8. A Bitcoin will be worth $1 million

John McAfee, the controversial computer antivirus mogul and an influential voice in the cryptocurrency community, predicted the price of Bitcoin would reach $1 million by the end of 2020. McAfee posted the estimate in November 2017, about three weeks before a crash would erase 83% of value over the next year. Bitcoin has recovered somewhat, but the current price of about $7,200 is far from McAfee’s magic number. Like other Bitcoin bulls, McAfee is standing by his unlikely prediction. If he’s wrong, McAfee said he’ll eat an intimate body part.

9. Dyson will sell an electric car

10. Uber will deploy flying cars

When Uber Technologies Inc. pledged to deliver on a promise of the Jetsons, it gave itself just three years to do so. The company still intends to hold flight demonstrations in 2020, but it’s safe to say you will not be able to hail a flying Uber in the next year. The company continues to explore the concept with regulators. This year, Uber added a form of flying vehicle that’s not particularly cutting edge: It’s booking helicopter rides in New York City. Last Friday, Uber said it was working with a startup, Joby Aviation, to develop “aerial ride-sharing” and set a deadline of 2023. Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi tweeted: “Getting closer …”

–With assistance from Ian King.

The post Flying Cars and Hyperloop by 2020? A Review of Tech Predictions appeared first on Businessliveme.com.

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