Life in Pixels

haud ignota loquor

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  • The Collapse of Moore’s Law and the Future

    The big talk around the interwebs at the moment is the so-called “collapse” of Moore’s Law. This fundamental tenet of modern computing, established by co-founder of Intel Corp Gordon E. Moore at the dawn of the digital era, sort of guided the way we think about the future of technology. However, lately, this idea has been challenged by physicists and digital professionals who say that Moore’s Law cannot, in fact, keep up with the exponential pace of technological advancement. In other words, the future doesn’t rest, as we’d always expected it to be, within the realm of silicon-based microprocessors.

    This is an interesting notion, because after all, as we’ve seen with the rise of social media and the “second coming of the Internet” (Web 2.0), technology actually evolves according to the zeitgeist of contemporary life. It’s almost like an organic thing, something that needed initial human intervention to kick-start it, and then was able to grow as we grew.

    I think the next few years are going to be quite interesting in the technological realm. Whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to start speculating about human-like robot butlers, I think that the parallel advancements in technology and science, with new discoveries in both quantum mechanics and materials engineering will allow for the creation of systems that can truly go beyond the scope of the notion Gordon Moore had of an exponentially-evolving computing landscape.

  • Pale Blue Dot

    This is a sobering rumination by one of my all-time favourite scientists and thinkers, Carl Sagan, about our existence in this universe. It really puts things into perspective… (taken from his sequel to the brilliant Cosmos, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.”)

    We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

    – Carl Sagan, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”

  • Airports

    There’s something about airports that make them such interesting spaces to be in. Perhaps it’s that continuation of the classic air travel tradition that has captured our curiosity since Kitty Hawk in 1903. There’s always a pulse beating at the heart of this nexus, a gateway to the skies and a link across time.

    Whilst some might see it as merely a necessary service to connect us with cities, I see it as a hallmark of our civilization, a critical system that is vital to the rhythm of today.

    (And yes, I wrote this while waiting for a flight at an airport. Hey, when inspiration strikes – you write, right?)

  • Social Media: A Weapon of Mass Disruption?

    There is a massive shift happening in our world. A transition of sorts, from becoming complacent with the state of things – or, in some cases, too afraid to voice our frustrations at the way things are run – to finally fighting back. This is the decade of the protester. Of the liberal mind. Of the thinker and the blogger, the creator of media that strives to kindle the fires of instigative thought. Of the shaper of a social landscape where the voice of the people can truly be heard.

    And, I don’t know about you, but frankly, it can be quite a frightening world to live in. The social media frenzy can drive masses into delusion at the expense of false belief. It happens on an on-going basis throughout the Internet: an abuse of the true power inherent in this medium of communication.

    Disruptive thought is a potent mechanism. It’s the machine that initiated the now ubiquitous Arab Spring revolts that are transforming Middle Eastern nations on a scale of unprecedented proportions. But disruptive thought isn’t something totally new to the human experience. It’s been around for some time: it was that notion of the Cosmos – of a grander vision of life – brought about by Ancient Greek astronomers as they gazed upon the heavens and wondered why. It was those fiery words written by the Bard on pieces of parchment, transformed into engrossing drama, and inspiring independent thought amongst the crowds at the Globe. It was provocative ideas by eighteenth century scientists that challenged preconceived beliefs. These thoughts shook the very fabric of the human intellect, yet it is in this age that we see this disruption happening at an accelerated rate. We see this happening through the notion of the “collective mindset” – the power of thousands of intellects connecting together through the platforms provided by social media to generate a single, sonorous voice.

    That voice can be both powerful and drowning. The chatter generated by social platforms like Twitter – whilst powerful in initiating revolutions – can spur frenzy. Think of it as “digital mob mentality”: thousands of people expressing their frustrations under a #hashtag, influencing thousands more in the way they perceive the situation. This is the scary part: this kind of influence-disruption can turn us into mental clones of an ideology.

    Social media is more than a tool to connect friends across long distances. That much is apparent. We know that it can be used to plot revolutions, “leak” scintillating political secrets, and keep nations informed of global crises. But when you give a toxic chemical to one crazy person, it won’t be long before said crazy individual conceives a method to replicate that intoxication, producing, en masse, global delusion. And when that happens, my friends, the world becomes a lot more formidable.

    Thus comes the need for the Discerning Internet Citizen: an individual that is able to block out the chatter – often mindless, mind-numbing drivel – and filter data received from each social platform almost instinctively. Scientia est potentia as the Latin saying goes: knowledge is power. But the way you use the knowledge you acquire is far more important than simply holding it in cache. Via mediums such as Twitter, we receive data constantly. It’s very easy to start, over time, becoming conditioned by the thoughts of others; our absorbent minds are vulnerable to involuntarily adopting others’ ideologies. In other words, it’s easy to have our own thinking processes disrupted by the intrusion of social media. A discerning mindset is perhaps our last and final defence in an age that is edging rapidly into the cyberverse, living our entire lives in the Cloud.

    The thoughts of an individual have the potential for mass disruption. It’s your choice – be influenced, or influence discerning change.

  • Read Better with Evernote Clearly

    As the world gets increasingly more digital, we find ourselves engrossed in reading online more than in the “traditional sense”. Articles, journals, even full books can be read on a digital screen today without much effort – except for those pesky adverts and distracting links that can so easily sidetrack the reading experience.

    I’m sure you’ve experienced it before: you click through to a blog to read what looks like an interesting post – but just a few paragraphs in, you suddenly find yourself on a different webpage. The reason? You were distracted, by a multitude of things: links, adverts, embedded multimedia.

    Enter Evernote Clearly: a free plugin for Firefox and Chrome that lets you dim-out those distractions, and focus on the actual reading. I’ve found myself using this tool a lot lately, and it’s great. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to be more productive when browsing the web, and reading articles.

    You can get Clearly from the Firefox “Add-ons” window (in Firefox: Tools -> Add-ons) or from the Chrome web store. Let me know what you think of it in the comments below!