PJH Studios

Category: Uncategorized

  • Smart glasses in warfare

    Smart glasses in warfare is a natural application of the technology.

    Depending on the situation, the glasses for either prototype will overlay certain information onto a soldier’s field of view. This might be as simple as a compass or as complex as an entire map of the area, information about where nearby drones are flying, or AI-driven recognition of a target like a truck. 

    The soldier would then speak to the interface in plain language—for example, to order an evacuation for someone who’s been injured or to plan a route taking into account which areas are off limits.

  • The AI assault on the last of the open web

    Anil Dash breaks down the potential end game for the open web, the internet of the 90s and early 2000s.

    The threat to the open web is far more profound than just some platforms that are under siege. The most egregious harm is the way that the generosity and grace of the people who keep the web open is being abused and exploited. Those people who maintain open source software? They’re hardly getting rich — that’s thankless, costly work, which they often choose instead of cashing in at some startup. Similarly, volunteering for Wikipedia is hardly profitable. Defining super-technical open standards takes time and patience, sometimes over a period of years, and there’s no fortune or fame in it.

  • A case for making standard time permanent

    When we change the clocks, we always complain about how it disrupts our lives. Most people prefer daylight savings time – more sunshine to do more things. However, the science behind circadian rhythms suggest that standard time is when our bodies prefer.

    The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), in its formal position statement, has been explicit that permanent DST is not the answer. Harvard sleep medicine researcher Elizabeth Klerman argues similarly that making daylight saving time permanent “is a horrible idea that puts us forever on the wrong time zone.” And there are many others.

    The reality appears to be that the biological clock simply does not catch up with DST, and the misalignment accumulates rather than resolving. While it doesn’t ‘feel’ as acute as when we have actual jet lag (as in, we don’t have the deep disorientation that we get following a long flight across many time zones), the misalignment operates via the same underlying mechanism. And it quietly stacks up, month over month.

  • AI recreates Minesweeper

    Minesweeper is complex enough in its rule set that it needs a little bit of thought in order to program, whoever, it’s not so complex that it needs extra libraries and all sorts of fancy programming tricks. Researchers gave four different AI code assistant instructions to recreate the game, and each delivered different results.

  • The consequences of reality collapsing

    Ted Gioia export the consequences of what happens when a shared reality, or a set of facts, is no longer reliable.

    Most discussions of this issue focus on the technology. I believe that’s a mistake. The real turmoil will take place in social cohesion and individual psychology. They will both fracture in a world where our shared benchmarks of truth and actuality disappear.

    Many people won’t have the toughness or resiliency to survive in this environment. A rise in mental illness is not only expected—in fact it’s already happening. But we also must anticipate new kinds of mental breakdowns never seen before.

    And also a very dystopian business opportunity:

    I can even imagine new career paths. In the near future, people might work as custodians of reality—a kind of high-powered version of today’s notaries. Their job will be validating the actuality of events and media.

    I’m not joking. We will need personal validation of all the things we previously took for granted.

    That might actually be a big business opportunity in its own right.

  • Ninja style obstacle course added to Olympic pentathlon

    A Ninja style obstacle course is added to the Olympic pentathlon replacing the equestrian component.

  • Deleting a second brain

    Joan Westenberg writes:

    For years, I had been building what technologists and lifehackers call a “second brain.” The premise: capture everything, forget nothing. Store your thinking in a networked archive so vast and recursive it can answer questions before you know to ask them. It promises clarity. Control. Mental leverage.

    But over time, my second brain became a mausoleum. A dusty collection of old selves, old interests, old compulsions, piled on top of each other like geological strata. Instead of accelerating my thinking, it began to replace it. Instead of aiding memory, it froze my curiosity into static categories.

    I suppose the challenge is finding a balance of keeping track of ideas and then executing or developing the worthwhile ones.

  • Show #5 – Songwriter Showcase at the Grotto

    Green light bathes the stage. Why? Does anyone look good in green light?

    First guy (Randy Barnett) has at least 2 songs with whiskey references. Self aware and self deprecating “played for a room full of strangers / and they didn’t like our songs”

    He has a ragged country voice that works with the bluesy riffs.

    His last song was written about a girl who worked the door at a bar. It received a few laughs from the crowd and gave the female bartender a reason to smile.

  • Narrow the Gapp

    Gina Trapani built a data driven web app that displays the pay disparity between men  and women, called Narrow the Gapp. It uses stats from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics by job class.  A very simple design with built in sharing functionality that makes the point.

  • Stasis promotes mediocrity

    When things remain the same, in a state of stasis, there’s no pull in any direction for worse or better. Yes. There are some things where you want the stability of stasis–your house’s foundation. But in a job, how many roles thrive on stasis, things inactive? Yes, harmony is good, but if inactive for too long, does a person really grow? Over time, they’ll seek out actions to remain in harmony, or stable, not really growing or changing or stretching themselves to be better. And that’s what mediocrity is–just ok.