Thrive in the Weirdness to Come
May 13, 2018 Newsletter
You Might Want to Get a War Pug.
Following Google’s announcement of Duplex, a system that can hold “realistic” human conversations, it’s clear we are living in the future. And we maybe have a few months to figure out how to put human concerns first before the machines take over completely. In addition to the ethical issues, the appointment-making demonstration struck me as a bit horseless carriage. Why aren’t we using technology to eliminate purely transactional phone calls? Open Table figured this out 20 years ago.
If you want to go deep on digital ethics, check out what they are doing at the University of Oxford Digital Ethics Lab.
It’s time to swot up your sci-fi if you’re going to survive and thrive in the weirdness to come. The brilliant new podcast Our Opinions Are Correct is a good place to start. The hosts are Annalee Newitz, a science journalist who writes science fiction, and Charlie Jane Anders, a science fiction writer who is obsessed with science. Also, read anything they’ve written. Browse Sci-Fi Interfaces from the co-author of Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction. Octavia Butler’s absolutely essential Parable of the Sower is an all-too-near future dystopia from a black American woman’s perspective. If you haven’t read the source material for Blade Runner, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is like all of Philip K. Dick, terrifyingly relevant to our current timeline. For a break from unrelenting bleakness and an apocalypse more genetic mutant tongue-in-cheek, Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy is a hoot. Get the audiobook for family roadtrips this summer!
And finally, some wag cut David Lynch’s Dune into a montage consisting only of scenes in which an adorable non-canon canine appears. You might want to consider getting your own war pug before it’s too late.
— Erika Hall (@mulegirl)
Into The Trees.
This week marked the 39th anniversary (😱) of The Cure’s debut album, Three Imaginary Boys.
I was introduced to The Cure as a freshman in high school (thanks Dane!) and it was love at first listen. Their quirky poppy-but-not-pop sound was something completely new to me and their sappy lyrics totally drew me in as a pubescent teenage girl. Three Imaginary Boys wasn’t the first I had actually listened to, but it has become one of my favorites of theirs and the only one I find myself going back to these days.
I love this video of their first live TV performance from the same year Three Imaginary Boys was released. Baby vanilla Robert Smith had not yet found his stage look and is unrecognizable from the eccentric gothy man we know him as today. This video of a more garage-punk sounding The Cure is a great one. Oh and in this video from 1981, you can see Robert starting to form his iconic look.
— Amanda Durbin (@fannyburping)
