Creek Jots ~ 28 Feb 14

We can define a second. But time–not so much. Some of you know Jacob.  He’s started telling the beginning of his story at Life, the Universe et Cetera. He will soon be thinking about his place in time. It’s slippery at best–and much harder to wrap his head around than his place in space. We can measure seconds to fifteen decimal places. Your smartphone listens to the atomic clock (or clocks, really.) â–¶ Where Time Comes From – The Atlantic

______________________________________

geographically300I suppose by now there are not many who have not seen the trailer to an upcoming movie filmed in some significant part in and based on a fictional mountain town based on Floyd. I was in town the day they were walking the llamas down the street. Just another wacky day in the Republic. â–¶ ‘Geographically Desirable’ movie trailer 

______________________________________

I’m still gathering web articles on big data, Internet of Things (IoT) and bitcoin. These are vastly significant cultural-societal-technological phenomena that don’t interest my tiny cohort of blog readers, it seems. So I curate quietly and mind my own business. For the most part. Just a few links of interest along those lines then, and I’ll crawl back into my cave.

â–¶ Big Data Breach: 360 Million Newly Stolen Credentials For Sale Hundreds of millions (some of you among them) are yet to be made public. I have one word for you, Benjamin: CASH. No. Make that BARTER. The credit card is dying.

▶ IBM wants to put the power of Watson in your smartphone  And the brain begins is march to join the appendix as a vestigial organ.

â–¶ How The Internet Of Things Is More Like The Industrial Revolution Than The Digital Revolution  Follow the money: many many trillion$ to be made in YOUR lifetime. And some are comparing it to a “second industrial revolution” or having the same impact on humanity (in combination with big data, robotics and AI) as “the coming of the spoken word and the written word” into the human experience.

“It’s really a watershed moment in technology and culture. We’re at one of those tipping points of history again, where everything shifts to a different reality.”

Share this with your friends!
fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

Articles: 3007

4 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  1. I actually sat through (and greatly enjoyed) a 2-hour presentation on Bitcoin and digital currency last weekend. I think ultimately the friction free commerce enabled by it will win. But the establishment that makes its living taking 3% of every transaction, and the governments that are terrified of anonymous currency, are going to make that journey quite painful.

    I have some very serious security concerns with The Internet of Things. A corollary of the network effect is that every new node produces multiple new potential weak points. I won’t be buying a network enabled fridge anytime soon.

  2. Don’t take IBM too seriously. They have done nothing but foul up every single major computer innovation and done their utmost to suppress new technologies and ideas since the invention of the PC. Whatever they propose to do with Watson and smartphones has already been done, sort of like inventing a clone of Facebook a few years too late. If it were up to IBM there would be no PC, no internet. Trust me, Watson is a joke, and when I say trust me, I can speak no further other and hope the NSA isn’t scanning your comments.