(via Reddit)
Weekend visit to the Naples Zoo
We made a trip to the Naples Zoo this weekend. The photos suggest we spent more time at the playgrounds than looking at the animals.
XOXO 2014 videos
I’ve been watching (listening really) to the videos from this year’s XOXO. There were some some excellent speakers and talks at the festival.
Too Many Cooks
I can’t, in good conscience, recommend anyone watch Too Many Cooks, the 1980s sitcom intro parody. And not just because it’s an 11-minute YouTube video (who has time for that?).
The video has its own brand of weird. I watched it with my wife the other day, and now she’s understandably trying to keep me away from the Internet. But the song and idea of it has been stuck in my head for days now.
Thank you Andy for unleashing it on my corner of the Internet.
AI is coming
Nick Bilton is worried about the threat of artificial intelligence.
Right now these artificially intelligent machines are pretty cute and innocent, but as they are given more power in society, these machines may not take long to spiral out of control.
In the beginning, the glitches will be small but eventful. Maybe a rogue computer momentarily derails the stock market, causing billions in damage. Or a driverless car freezes on the highway because a software update goes awry.
But the upheavals can escalate quickly and become scarier and even cataclysmic. Imagine how a medical robot, originally programmed to rid cancer, could conclude that the best way to obliterate cancer is to exterminate humans who are genetically prone to the disease.
The human capacity for inventing destructive technology has an unknown limit. But so is its capacity for inventing technology that makes life better. The likely progression is that AI will first be developed for use in war, but its masters will lose control, and the emergent superintelligence will become net benefit to humanity.
Emergency compliment
Just in case you’re feeling down, here’s an emergency compliment.
My baby girl’s laugh
I could listen to this again and again.
New Monument Valley levels
There are new levels for Monument Valley coming on Thursday. I can’t wait. I play very few iOS games, but Monument Valley has been, by far, my favorite. The game is simple, yet fun, and the soundtrack is beautiful.
See the music
Jason Kottke posted images of vinyl records magnified 1,000x so you can actually see the music.
EFF secure messaging score card
The EFF published a scorecard that shows which messaging apps keep messages most secure.
In the face of widespread Internet surveillance, we need a secure and practical means of talking to each other from our phones and computers. Many companies offer “secure messaging” products—but are these systems actually secure? We decided to find out, in the first phase of a new EFF Campaign for Secure & Usable Crypto.
I shouldn’t be surprised how insecure most of these are, but I am surprised how obscure the secure one are. (via Daring Fireball)