Futurist

There are 390 posts filed in Futurist (this is page 11 of 39).

Exercise Is ADHD Medication – The Atlantic

Mental exercises to build (or rebuild) attention span have shown promise recently as adjuncts or alternatives to amphetamines in addressing symptoms common to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Building cognitive control, to be better able to focus on just one thing, or single-task, might involve regular practice with a specialized video game that reinforces “top-down” cognitive modulation, as was the case in a popular paper in Nature last year. Cool but still notional. More insipid but also more clearly critical to addressing what’s being called the ADHD epidemic is plain old physical activity.

Source: Exercise Is ADHD Medication – The Atlantic

How I almost invented Wikipedia

Wikipedia Logo

Wikipedia Logo

I sold one of my domain names this month, reliablesources.com. I had that domain longer than I’ve had kids, registering it on 17 January 2000. Two months ago the domain became old enough to drive.

I remember just where I was when I decided to register the domain. I was in my entrepreneurial phase at the time, working with some extremely talented friends at NeTraverse and while I was on a business trip to Austin I dreamed up what I thought would be an innovative website.

I was a regular reader of the Slashdot (which was recently sold) nerd news website back then and was intrigued by its “karma” system of ranking posts. I wanted to apply this karma ranking to the people in the news, giving users the ability to rank what someone in the news says based on that person’s known credibility.

It was inspired by President Bill Clinton’s time in office. The Office of the President carries a lot of built-in credibility, for instance, so right away you’re going to listen to what the President says. But what if the President is caught lying (i.e., “I did not have sexual relations…”)? That should make one skeptical of whatever that President says, knocking down his or her karma score.
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Does Raleigh make room for innovation?

Now that I’ve lived half of my life in Raleigh I’ve been thinking more about how Raleigh grows. There seem to be two fundamental camps, one that welcomes innovation and the trying of new things, and the other that is very cautious about new things.

I’ve always been the kind who prefers when people play by the rules. But what if the rules aren’t really necessary? What if the rules make a situation worse?

My wife and I recently spent a delightful weekend alone in the City of Savannah. Savannah has long recognized the value of tourism (being a sea town. Duh.) and allows people to carry their open containers of alcohol anywhere they please. Savannah apparently does not have restrictions on outdoor seating at restaurants. Now, I was only there for one weekend but it seemed to me that chaos had not broken out. No souls were apparently lost. In fact, people seemed to be getting along just fine. On the other hand, Savannah does have strict laws against panhandling, which seemed to be respected. Overall, though, Savannah seems pretty laissez-faire about rules and restrictions and it looks like it works for them.

I couldn’t help but think of Raleigh while we walked the streets of Savannah, and how “loosening the reins” and seeing what happens doesn’t really come naturally to Raleigh. It’s like we have to be against something before we can be for it. This does not help to spur the innovation that we need to attract and grow world-changing businesses here. We are more reactive rather than proactive.

I imagine what Raleigh could accomplish if, rather than asking “why?”, instead asking “why not?”

The Sexual Misery of the Arab World – The New York Times

A friend recently told me about a former Special Forces soldier who served in Iraq and frequently encountered captured militia leaders. According to him, the laptops of these warlords would inevitably be cram-full of gay pornography. I’ve long heard that the Middle East are some of the biggest consumers of pornography. Google now confirms it.

I’ve heard it said before that the Arab world’s sexual repression is the main fuel of its radicalism. The author points out that the West’s radicalism has the same roots. Seems to me that any religion that damns one for being oneself is not a healthy religion. It’s hard to serve such contradictory masters.

The attacks on Western women by Arab migrants in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve evoked the harassment of women in Tahrir Square itself during the heady days of the Egyptian revolution. The reminder has led people in the West to realize that one of the great miseries plaguing much of the so-called Arab world, and the Muslim world more generally, is its sick relationship with women. In some places, women are veiled, stoned and killed; at a minimum, they are blamed for sowing disorder in the ideal society. In response, some European countries have taken to producing guides of good conduct to refugees and migrants.

Source: The Sexual Misery of the Arab World – The New York Times

Fearing the radio

Console radio

Console radio

News and Observer reporter John Murawski wrote today of a group of electricity customers who fear that the smart meter Duke Energy uses is poisoning them with radio-frequency (RF) radiation.

Andrew McAfee of Raleigh submitted a 45-page filing, noting prominently: “Sent from a cabled computer with the WiFi turned off.”

“Your body basically becomes an antenna,” he said from his landline phone last week. “I immediately feel a tingling, burning sensation on my scalp.”

“These meters are designed to burst a radiation signal out a couple of miles,” McAfee said of smart meters. “Imagine every house in your neighborhood blipping out these things all day.”

Apparently, people don’t understand that radiation of the RF variety is not the same as radiation of the nuclear variety. One is a known carcinogen. The other brings you Fox News (whether Fox News is a carcinogen is post for another day).

Blaming RF (which I’ll call by their better-known name, radio) for something is akin to blaming sound: it all depends on what the sound or radio is. Listening to music with your ear placed on the grill of a 1000 watt audio amplifier will likely cause you injury, whereas the same music at a reasonable volume on your stereo at home can be safe and enjoyable.
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Multitasking Is Killing Your Brain | Inc.com

Sort of like dumping a lot of articles on one’s blog, eh? 🙂

Our brains are designed to focus on one thing at a time, and bombarding them with information only slows them down.

MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller notes that our brains are “not wired to multitask well… when people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost.”This constant task-switching encourages bad brain habits. When we complete a tiny task (sending an email, answering a text message, posting a tweet), we are hit with a dollop of dopamine, our reward hormone. Our brains love that dopamine, and so we’re encouraged to keep switching between small mini-tasks that give us instant gratification.

This creates a dangerous feedback loop that makes us feel like we’re accomplishing a ton, when we’re really not doing much at all (or at least nothing requiring much critical thinking). In fact, some even refer to email/Twitter/Facebook-checking as a neural addiction.

Source: Multitasking Is Killing Your Brain | Inc.com

The millennial work ethic – Baltimore Sun

Some of my older friend scoffed at this column, but any mocking comes at one’s own peril, because this is how it will soon be.

The bar has been raised. If you as an employer want to attract the best and the brightest of the millennial generation, you will have to treat your employees a bit better than you once did.

Once upon a time, employment was for life. Joining a company meant you were looked after until retirement and even beyond. Then companies found that having massive layoffs and gutting these generous employee benefits appealed to Wall Street. Generations of workers became expendable to employers and learned wisely. The game had changed and job security was redefined as “how quickly one can get another job.”

Now the pendulum swings in favor of the worker, particularly the knowledege workers building our digital economy. This generation is building our new economy and the opportunities ahead of them and the awe-inspiring imagination they bring are like no other. This generation is responsible for the dizzying, accelerating pace of change in our world. They will hold you to your promises. They won’t play by the old rules. They demand a better way and they have the hustle and moxie to get it.

Laugh now if you choose, but soon you’ll be living in their world. Employers who understand this will help build this world.

Dear Previous Employer,

You may think that you have gotten the best of me, but you have not. I am a millennial. You may think that you have put me in a bad spot, but you have not. I am a millennial. You may think that you can threaten me, but I am not afraid. I am a millennial.

I didn’t write this letter on a program that I installed with a disc on my computer, I wrote it on the cloud. I didn’t grow up hungry during the Great Depression, I grew up safe and comfortable. I didn’t walk to school uphill both ways, I took a bus.

Source: The millennial work ethic – Baltimore Sun

Can changing your mealtimes make you healthier? – BBC News

Fascinating experiment on how fasting longer at night might make you healthier. The only issue is that a pool of 16 subjects does not make for a definitive, scientific result.

Many people want to eat more healthily but find it difficult to change their diet. So what happened when Michael Mosley altered not what he ate, but when he ate?

We’ve known for some time that altering the time at which you eat can affect your weight and metabolism. At least if you are a mouse.

Based on mice studies, it seems the secret to improving your health is to restrict the time window within which you eat, and by doing so extend the amount of time you go without food.

Source: Can changing your mealtimes make you healthier? – BBC News

The 19th Century plug that’s still being used – BBC News

The BEEB covers Apple’s rumored plans to kill off the phono plug. The story includes a quote from an Apple analyst:

“It feels painful because you’ve got hundreds of millions of devices out there that are using the old standard,” says Horace Dediu, a technology analyst with in-depth knowledge of Apple.

… and …

“Studying Moore’s Law and the history of technology, it’s clear we’re not going to stick around with something analogue for long,” he says. “It’s almost puzzling that it’s taken so long.”

Maybe because analog phone jack technology Just Works? Any guesses why an Apple stock analyst might like this move?

The Sum of Us petition is here, if you care to sign it.
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Highlights of 2015: Dix Park, part II

Dix Park proponents at Council of State meeting. L-R, Mayor Nancy McFarlane, City Manager Ruffin Hall, Councilor Kay Crowder, Dix Visionaries member Jay Spain, Councilor Russ Stephenson

Dix Park proponents at May 2015 Council of State meeting. L-R, Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane, City Manager Ruffin Hall, City Councilor Kay Crowder, Friends of Dix Park member Jay Spain, City Councilor Russ Stephenson


2015 was the year that the City of Raleigh finally got the prize it had long sought from the state: the deed to the Dorothea Dix property. In February, the city and state worked out a deal for Raleigh to purchase the property for $53 million dollars. This is far more than the original lease terms (under the first deal that was subsequently torn up by a spiteful General Assembly) and also far more than most state property that gets transferred to local entities. Apparently, Republican leaders in the Gereral Assembly have no problem with burdening people with taxes as long as the urban folk who have to pay.

Anyway, this time the deal got negotiated and signed behind the scenes. The group on whose board I sit, Friends of Dorothea Dix Park (FDDP), was largely kept in the dark about negotiations (though I knew talks were underway). It’s all the same now that the park has been secured, though. I did get to attend the following Council of State meeting on May 5th where the rest of state leaders signed off on the deal. This is my photo of city and Dix Visionaries leaders after the historic event.
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