Category: Family and Musings

Hacking out of the box

One of the biggest annoyances in this life is when someone puts you in a box which you don’t feel like applies to you. For example, Insurance companies, governments during visa applications, teenagers picking on each other at high school.

Any tech which helps alleviate this pain is most excellent, which is why I think this product might just be the way of the future for insurance: https://www.sanlam.co.za/gocover/Pages/default.aspx

Being able to pick and choose elements of insurance for your specific needs through a mobile phone sounds a lot less box-like to me than the existing models of insurance.

The most important tech is not always where you think

We are inundated with stories of Google, Alexa, iPhones, VR, AR, and autonomous cars. But the most impactful tech is often less exciting and personal, more functional and industrial.

Take the rather unexciting field of electricity transmission. China is leading the way in implementing technology which is better suited to carry high voltages over long distances (the technology is called Ultra High-Voltage Direct Current, or UHVDC). These high capacity links make the grid greener and more stable than the usual alternating current transmission which works well over shorter distances, but becomes tricky with high voltage and longer distance.

Concerns over pollution have driven the Chinese government to set up coal fired power stations in remote areas away from urban populations. Hence the need to transmit.

This all just struck me as a technology story which is saving the planet, and is happening as we speak – but for some reason it is deemed to be uninteresting compared to consumer tech….which is quite interesting.

Subscription

I am on a constant mission to try to limit the amount of rubbish I read. When I started this mission, the internet was my friend, a whole world of opportunity waiting to be tapped. All I had to do was filter out what was thrown at me through free and easy channels (Twitter, Facebook).

Trying to filter information is a tricky thing, and can have unintended consequences. Online personalization can effectively isolate people from a diversity of viewpoints or content. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook do not work how I want them to work. Maybe it is just a matter of me not spending enough time curating the content, but the  barrage of rubbish just kept coming with seemingly little quality control despite my efforts to block, promote etc.. And so I am coming full circle and subscribing to what I think is quality media.

Paying for content after years of winging it on the internet feels surprisingly good. Whether it is music or news or tv series – the quality of what I am consuming has raised dramatically compared to the old Facebook feed.

Action

I remember asking my parents when I was a teen “Should you focus more on what someone does or what someone says?”

At the time I was talking about a love interest who was playing games with my heart (cue Backstreet Boys song) but the sentiment still is important.

And the answer is that action trumps words every time. Words come and go, but action shows someone something that is undeniable.

The next question of course is, what are you going to do next? What do you want to show to yourself and to those who are important to you?

 

New Year’s startup

I have been away for about a month and barely written anything in that time.

I am trying to get back in the swing of things. So to start with, a simple re-blog. I don’t believe in resolutions every new year, but I do believe in long term behavioral goals. This list sounds pretty good to me:

More creating

Less consuming

More leading

Less following

More contributing

Less taking

More patience

Less intolerance

More connecting

Less isolating

More writing

Less watching

More optimism

Less false realism

From: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Sci-Fi @home – Bitcoin

I have a little bit of money invested in Bitcoin, using BitX as my exchange. It’s a bit of an investment in a possible future.

Today i got a note from BitX telling me about all the stores in South Africa accepting Bitcoin.

The fact that I can trade in a virtual currency and not use a bank is amazing to me. All these options online for me to use the Bitcoin – It’s sci-fi come to life.

Africa is adopting new technologies quickly and will likely leapfrog some older infrastructures as new developments take hold. That is what happened in Kenya with MPesa. It is happening in Rwanda with drones. Maybe it will happen with Bitcoin too.

 

 

Any problem you have…

…is probably fixable.

Think about it. Humans have cured polio. We discovered bacteria. We put people on the moon. We have cell phones which are as sci-fi as you can imagine. They let me talk to someone in China…if I so choose. So progress happens if we want it to, but it is not automatic.

In my personal experience, I am learning that there are two key components of creativity and progress.

First, I have to accept that progress will bring with it unintended consequences. These can be positive: For example back in the day we learned about atmospheric pressure which allowed us to create vacuums which allowed us to create combustion engines to push trains down a track. But they can also be negative: those combustion engines spit out pollution of all sorts. Personally, to become more creative has led me to quit unsatisfactory jobs, to learn about publishing, marketing and blogging. However it has also led me to become super self-critical. This is good sometimes in a work context, but it can impact other areas of my life. I never expected this as a side-effect.

The key for me is that progress is always better than the alternative, which is stagnation. It is a truth which I have had to get my head around. Stagnation is easier but far more destructive to my life. I think this applies universally to our race.

Next, for progress to occur, there needs to be focus. This may be internal – are you sure of what you are trying to achieve? Are you putting in the time and work? Or it may be a matter of collaboration. Do you have another person who will help you progress? I am learning that focus essentially means aligning of habits and habitual behaviour. Mine were all out of whack before I chose to be more creative.

I find it comforting that there are broad rules and conditions for progress. It helps my creativity and keeps pushing me on to fix problems each day. What helps you make progress?

Neophiliacs and commoditisation

Today i have run out of time for writing, so i share two interesting links that I think readers of this blog will be able to relate to.

First is a breakdown of neophilia from 2006. (It is funny to see those old movies and songs). Of course the message is still very relevant. http://www.medialifemagazine.com/the-disorder-of-these-times-neophilia/

Second is Fred Wilson’s analysis of his new phone – which seems remarkably similar to his last phone: http://avc.com/2016/11/google-pixel-xl/