This Week #12

Thington, an Internet of Things start-up that I’ve been following along with, released their concierge app and it appears to be a lovely, well thought out approach to interacting with a series of disparate devices and seems like a great way to solve the vendor lock-in problem that looms over any smart device purchases.

The app seems to masquerade as a conversational bot, but it’s not freeform in the way that most chat bots tend to be. You converse, but you’re presented with explicit actions, not an empty field that leaves you guessing — it’s the same sort of approach that Google is taking with Allo – and it’s something I wish Apple would adopt as an interface to Siri.

I have to confess I’m a bit lost when it comes to connected devices. I am a nerd, I want to play with this stuff, however the only compelling reason I can find to buy any of it is that it would be fun to mess around with. Sure, I could make my lights change colour using my phone, but that’s not really something I care about all that much and it seems to come at the expense of simplicity. It’s hard not to imagine that I’d spend a whole lot more of my time dealing with this:

Is there an internet of things that works alongside my present? Lights that work with my existing light switches? Or do I have to build a house from scratch to take advantage of this stuff?

Countries that do well on PISA tend to be countries that don’t have much difference between schools, that try to level the playing field between schools as much as possible, whether they have private schools or not. The more social segregation you see between schools, the kids at the bottom do worse than they would otherwise.

The Saturday Paper examines some the stuff that’s been swirling around my head regarding the funding and cultural inequities in Australia’s school system. And The Age looks at the massive surpluses that many private schools are running with the help of government funding. Here’s hoping we start to see a shift back in the direction of investment in public education.

This terrifying video comes from the Washington Post feature on the horrible dangerous practices surrounding cobalt mining in Congo.

I enjoyed the somewhat-contentious discussion on this week’s EconTalk with Cathy O’Neil on our misplaced trust in the algorithms that we let rule our lives. O’Neil’s book, Weapons of Math Destruction, is definitely on my to-read list.