Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share

There are stories being told in the background. Rather than guessing what people are attempting to communicate (by perhaps piecing together social cues/posts — and misinterpreting their meaning), let’s capture it.

I *will say* this will work best for music FANATICS, like myself. They’ve got headphones on all the time. (Nerds!) Finding the right song, at the right time, ain’t always easy.

Utilizing the social model that exists, coupled with an Internet OS (see here — this pays artists fractionally, etc), and real-time mutating Apple Genius-like playlists … one could merge perspectives … in real-time. How do you feel? How is everything going? It’s your therapist in the background.

And how exactly does this work or play a role in the existing social media model?

You’re watching videos all day. It’s simply listening in the background. And blending your viewing preferences with AI. Or whatever Spotify/Google/Apple use to feed you sick playlists.

So you’re scrolling through Instagram and watching workout videos and there’s music playing in the background of those videos. You’re being programmed regardless of if you’re aware of it. You have these patterns of watching shit you like. It learns them. It helps you. We all move on.

A key to this idea is the sharing of data — which is why the Apple Genius-like playlists (or YouTube Music’s ‘My Supermix’, if you prefer) are vital, conceptually. You’re reinventing the Genius or Supermix playlist by your participation in this system. You’re digesting a stream of real-time emotions balanced by your emotional “ranking”. We’re co-creating music playlists in real-time.

The interface and adjustments here are totally customizable because it’s based on a decentralized service where the user is in control. So you can say, “Hey, I want some help right now, help me [insert service].” Or, “Hey, I want you guys outta my head for a bit.”

It’s your therapist in the background. And you can choose whether or not you want to see the therapist. So here are some lyrics to echo that sentiment:

Hey, young blood, doesn’t it feel
Like our time is running out?
I’m going to change you like a remix
Then I’ll raise you like a phoenix
Wearing our vintage misery
No, I think it looked a little better on me
I’m going to change you like a remix
Then I’ll raise you like a phoenix

Or, you could just skip all this and go to what Grimes suggests:

My “Artist statement” haha (but I’m serious tho) “If we don’t protect the environment the future of consciousness will be artificial, not biological. Would mental health and wellness even be relevant in a world where emotions aren’t an evolutionary advantage? A.I. Meditations were created by a generative language program that was provided with meditations made by humans and, based on those models, created its own meditations without the guiding aid of human emotion. Personally, I find beauty in this work, but it represents a distinct artistic shift from things written by humans. This work isn’t critical of A.I., but rather a neutral depiction of what the wellness landscape might look like without us.

How to make this easier? In other words, how do you help the computer help you? If you could highlight lines from songs in real-time — like you can like a tweet — everyone could write their own songs.

So how do? Let me introduce you to Sample City.

Replace/reinvent/whatever the Lock Screen widget showing real-time lyrics for every song you listen to, always? Reimagine the ‘Photos’ widget on iPhone: It lives in the Lock Screen of your phone, works in addition to the music functionality you’re already used to, but has more options (like the new, I think, iPhone functionality for Apple TV stuff you’re viewing). I’d almost apologize for the basic Photoshop job, but, alas, I cannot …

So it’s basically an interactive box of lyrics that attaches to the music functionality already built into your Lock Screen. Tap it to ‘like’ the lyrics. Sample City. Works for beats, too. If that’s yo thang …

Need to do the same thing with movies/tv-series/scenes. Literally copy the same Sample City music design above, and when watching shit on tv the movie widget replaces music one (it’s always on your Lock Screen) and you just tap to like. Again. Sample City.

You have to own the operating system to change this. I think. That’s why I mentioned the Internet OS at the beginning.

Anyway.

Because it’s an Internet OS, machines will be talking to one another. So you could translate raw data to music. Machines spit out their code — perhaps you could create an alphabet off this (no different than a code to sync a remote control with your television) — it’s matched to a song; you know how the machine is performing, etc.

This is the Most Beautiful Version of The Internet.

P.S. It is utterly insane that a setting for “explicit only” music options in search and playlist selections on YouTube Music does not exist. GTFO outta here with edited music, bruh. Bro. “I LOVE edited music!1!1111111”

LFG.

P.P.S. Look how happy he looks — that’s me every day listening to songs on repeat.

Connecting the World Through Music was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Know what it is? It’s what North Dakota would look like if its oil drilling lines were aboveground. We’re likely to need something of this scale to prevent total climate catastrophe. And, ahem, spoiler alert, soon.

So what’s a realistic number to jumpstart a decarbonization “space race” worldwide? $20 trillion (collectively)? K. Airdrop that $ into an Internet OS that tracks it all (the funds, the tech; no patents allowed — though, incentives still exist!). Everyone on Earth gets an allocation.

Users & companies will figure novel ways to pool their “allocation”. Let’s propose everyone — on Earth — gets 1 unit of allocation (like 1 Bitcoin).

So say Google joins this worldwide decarbonization space race. One has to imagine they’re probs like totes working on decarbonization efforts already, right? Like totes, bruh. Ok. So they have ~139,000 employees. If you opt your allocation to the company, and that tech becomes fundamental to decarbonization tech that’s deployed worldwide, your allocation increases in monetary value. Value for value. Pretty simple stuff here.

It’s not hard to imagine how companies become banks/stockbrokers here. They’ll function as trustless intermediaries for the allocations from customers, employees, and fans. So you can transfer your allocation anywhere, at any time, but you’ve gotta be smart about it because you wanna make that bank, son! (Dolla dolla bills, ya’ll!!) So you’re incentivized to keep up with the latest advances and re-allocate your shares accordingly.

And you can withdraw any amount over your initial allocation, whenever, as long as your balance is above 1. Initial allocation acts as a placeholder for money to stay in the system and transfer around; this can be relaxed over time as we’ll want money to leave the system... It’s really just copying the concept of cryptocurrencies.

It’s gamifying the decarbonization and green tech initiatives with a massive stimulus fund that everyone in the world gets to partake in (aka subsidizing companies more intelligently — however you want to look at it is like totes fine, bro).

Back to the oil drilling lines in North Dakota. What else could you build by copying this design?

Because here’s what’s happening:

This Isn’t a Heatwave — It’s a Dying Planet

Bootstrapping a Decarbonization Space Race was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ethan Siegel explains here, “… a team from SINTEF in Norway, the largest independent research organization in Scandinavia, published an article about using the same technology they use to keep their fjords ice-free in the winter to basically flip nature’s “off switch” for hurricanes before they ever reach land. The technology is simple: to install a perforated pipe deeper down in the ocean to shoot compressed air into, which will create air bubbles that will then ascend. As they rise, they carry water of whatever the ambient temperature is with them up to the surface … If you were to install a perforated pipe lower down beneath the ocean’s surface, at depths of 100–150 meters (330–500 feet), the air bubbles that rose when you pumped compressed air through it would carry cooler water up towards the surface, lowering the temperatures significantly.”

So let’s do that — let’s install perforated pipe lower down beneath the ocean’s surface. Many devices are needed because storms that create hurricanes are large events. And while the eye of a hurricane is typically about 20–40 miles in diameter — these devices do not need to cover that distance because we’re catching storms while they’re still forming.

What does the device look like? See below.

All the images in this post were generated for a video by a company that’s attempting Arctic offshore salmon farming. Why does this matter? Because “the fish pen is designed to survive the harsh environment of the open ocean while housing up to 600,000 full grown salmon at a time. The pen is also equipped with wireless gauges, live-feed cameras, and even automatic feeders that could give fish farmers the ability to operate it remotely.”

I tried writing about this years ago. The idea was half-baked but the design I eventually landed on came to be almost identical to what this fish pen is.

And that’s it. That’s the device. Now just make it a network.

You can also take this design and make its inner components interchangeable. What? Read on, “And in fact, the history of new technologies shows that apps beget infrastructure, not the other way around. It’s not that first we build all the infrastructure, and once we have the infrastructure we need, we begin to build apps. It’s exactly the opposite. For example, light bulbs (the app) were invented before there was an electric grid (the infrastructure). You don’t need the electric grid to have light bulbs.”

Use the shell of this design as a universal framework. A variety of environmental ills could be fixed with this. (For example, a similar land device could be made to work for tornadoes with modest modifications. Collapse the design, add a tapered roller bearing to the frame, etc.)

A Device for Eliminating Hurricanes was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

But it’s complex.

This operating system will be created in some form, at some point — it essentially *has to be*. It’ll likely be cryptocurrency-based, so that’s where this post focuses its attention.

Now, what is the point of technology? What I mean is, if you could create an endgame product (stopgap product before AI) with no restrictions, what would it look like? Something like this.

“We need a group of the major economies — call it “G Major” — that announces monetary policies in a coordinated fashion.” I’m quoting this op-ed about the evolution of the global financial system. The article doesn’t matter. The point of the quote does.

You need a system to make this happen. So what does it look like? Here’s a proposed sitemap (V1). Keep this in mind as we move along so you get a sense of what I’m talking about. We’ll get into *how* it works a little later — once we cover the why.

Now that you have an idea of what the system looks like, keep this in mind too, “Today the dream of building a living, real-time network of knowledge and economics exists among a small group of blockchain developers … Think of the apps you know and love, from Netflix, to iTunes, to Spotify, to Facebook, to Twitter. Most of us would be lost without these valuable services. The original web was never meant to be a gated series of mega-communities. It was meant to be open and interoperable … Think of it like this. Big Tech might still have the best papyrus in the library — the apps we know and love — but the building itself, its entrances, exits, and above all the library catalog itself, belong to everyone. In essence a multimedia Library of Alexandria, in cyberspace … “I like to think of it as the card catalog in the library or maybe a phone book, but it’s not an index for phone numbers or books — it’s for all public data” explains James.”

With that said, you may be wondering about the premise of a concurrent global centralized unified monetary policy with the decentralized libertarian crypto movement. You’re sharp! Similar systems are here — without privacy baked in. China’s taking the lead, “Central bank-issued (and controlled) digital currencies are no longer just a pipe dream, as China is set to begin major trials of its digital currency called the e-RMB. Beginning in May, throughout four cities including Shenzhen, some government employees and public servants will be able to receive their salary in the state’s digital currency. China is set to strengthen its position as the global leader in cashless digital payments.”

China’s system data is owned and operated by an authoritarian government and it’s why we have to get ahead of this technology before it becomes a nightmare, and it’s actually pretty easy to do. Because cryptocurrencies act as the transactional processing of information, it’s a system that tracks all the information in the world. So, again, in China’s system, the government owns the data = Bad. Here, you own the data = Good.

So what do I mean when I say cryptocurrencies act as the transactional processing of information? In an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Dr. Ben Goertzel articulates this when describing blockchain’s prospects, “Creating artificial monies is one tiny bit of the potential of what you can do with the whole blockchain toolset. It happened to become popular initially because it’s where the money is and that’s interesting to people. But on the other hand, what it’s really about is making the world computer. It’s about scripting with a simple programming language all sorts of transactions between people, companies, whatever; all sorts of exchanges of information. So I mean it’s about decentralized voting mechanisms, it’s about AI’s being able to send data and processing for each other, and pay each other for their transactions. It’s about automating supply chains and shipping and e-commerce. In essence, just like computers and the internet started with a few sets of applications and then pervaded almost everything. It’s the same way with blockchain technology, it started with digital money but the core technology is going to pervade almost everything because there is almost no domain of human pursuit that couldn’t use security through cryptography, some sort of participatory decision-making and then distributed storage of information … The fact that blockchain began with artificial currencies to me is a detail of history just like the fact that the internet began as like a nuclear early-warning system. It did, it’s good for that, but as it happens also even better for a lot of other things.” Take a moment to watch this snippet, as Dr. Ben’s explanation of blockchain technology is so aptly put.

If you view this system during an era of a functioning Internet of Things (IoT) it makes more sense, too. This does not imply an IoT *has* to exist for this system to work. Rather, this system provides a framework for the IoT. The following tweets reinforce that that system is cryptocurrency — what crypto lacks is a transformational User Interface (UI)! Just read and comprehend.

Check out this post by John Battelle, where he describes the Token Act, among other ideas.

Imagine the economic value unlocked, the exponential impact on innovation such a simple rule would have. Of course we must acknowledge the negative short term impact such a policy would have on the big guys. But it also creates an unparalleled opportunity for them — the token of course can include a vig — a percentage of all future revenue associated with that data, for the value the platform helped to create. This model could drive a far bigger business in the long run, and a far healthier one for all parties concerned.

I can’t prove it yet, but I sense this approach could 10 to 100X our economy. Imagine what would occur if the data was allowed to flow freely. Imagine the upleveling of how firms would have to compete. They’d have to move beyond mere data hoarding, beyond the tending of miniature walled gardens (most app makers) and massive walled agribusinesses …

I’d like to reiterate part of the quote you’ve just read because it offers a key, “… the token of course can include a vig — a percentage of all future revenue associated with that data, for the value the platform helped to create.” Do this right and this system works — teamwork makes the dream work.

Now we can jump into *how* this works. Again, here’s the proposed homepage.

Note the main toggle at the top. A rough idea of its sliding functionality:

• Toggle 1: Monetary
• Toggle 2: Data
• Toggle 3: Real-World OS
• Toggle 4: Medical

The scope of the toggle can be expanded. So you can add categories I haven’t accounted for. Remember that toggle on Google+ that allowed you to filter Search results? It was called “Search, plus Your World.” Video below.

Incorporating a feature like this creates multiple new and different systems disguised as one. Toggles could be even more integral to this interface than I currently imagine.

So four toggles— four interfaces — but you only see one interface at a time thanks to the toggle, so they effectively function as one. We’ll get to what these interfaces do in a bit. We’ve got a Search box; to the right of Search is a toggle for public/private; the left list is the President’s Budget, and to the right is Craigslist’s interface. (Note: Do not be rigid in your thinking about using the Craigslist interface as an example — that’s all it is, an example — this UI is programable. Also, you’ll notice the two interfaces furthest right have no Presidential Budget and that’s because in toggle 3 the functionality flips from passive to active — acting as more of a graphical user interface in the sense of an IoT — and in toggle 4 it becomes functionally useless. I think there are a few different ways to tackle *how* to combine these interfaces into something that functions really smoothly. This seems to be both the least and most important thing here. It helps to imagine something that’s going to function as a glorified version of a cross between the AppStore and the settings app on your phone.)

Monetary toggle: This UI works as a tracking and voting system for all federal government spending. Sounds boring and dumb, right? What if you had read-only api access to every penny spent in the federal budget? That’s what you can do here. Still boring? Probably not. And if it is, you’ll probably end up getting paid to use it in the form of a tax break or UBI, because you’re partly in control of the settings, theoretically. The UI could be made open source with a cool voting system run on Tezos (or whatever). Bully comes close to nailing it with this tweet.

Data toggle: It’s an adjustment center for your personal data across all platforms, generally. Have a look at this. It’s kinda the nuts of the whole thing. It invisibly operates in the background.

It’s Battelle’s “Mapping Data Flows.” Battelle goes on to describe it as such, “This tool breaks down and compares each company’s privacy and data use policies, with a goal of giving both ordinary consumers and academic researchers insight into the architecture of control currently dominating our economy’s relationship to data.”

Real-World OS toggle: This will probably look more like a crossbreed between Craigslist & Apple HomeKit. Why? Well, one of the goals here is to make mobility seamless. An example of how this *could* work: You have a permanent setting for how you like the lighting in a restaurant, this UI allows restaurants to pull from your OS and adjust the lighting in real-time. Or it sends you somewhere new — on an adventure — perhaps! (Wow! This is getting exciting! LOL.) It sends you somewhere where strangers share an 85% light likeability range rating, and you’re more likely to hit it off and strike up a conversation — if that’s your thing. The need for interstate checkpoints is virtually eliminated. Etcetera.

Force standard protocols from all this shit that is going to plug into the IoT. If you don’t: digital device anarchy (this is where we are now). Think of how this improves device security too, “The software that is on these devices, it’s based on an operating system, that’s a general-purpose operating system in many cases, and often it’s built and sent out as cheaply as possible with very little done to check the security of the underlying software … The concern is that someone will be able to figure out a way to gain access to that and use these devices for malicious purposes.”

Medical toggle: Siddhartha Mukherjee writes “Medicine is a system for delivering care and support; it’s also a system of information, quality control, and lab science … and a central part of that system is broken. Patient records that once were scribbled on clipboards now sit in electronic medical-record (E.M.R.) systems, many of them provided by the Wisconsin-based software company Epic. A standardized digital database of patient-care records, searchable across hospital and medical-care systems, could be an invaluable way of identifying effective approaches to a novel disease — like moving from a patchwork meteorological system where towns keep their own records of wind and rainfall to a national weather-tracking grid.

“…We should reimagine the continuous medical record as its founders first envisaged it: as an open, searchable library of a patient’s medical life. Think of it as a kind of intranet: flexible, programmable, easy to use. Right now, its potential as a resource is blocked, not least by the owners of the proprietary software, who maintain it as a closed system, and by complex rules and regulations designed to protect patient privacy. It should be a simple task to encrypt or remove a patient’s identifying details while enlisting his or her medical information for the common good.”

You don’t say?

Want to quickly anonymize your medical data— voilà — done. All we have to do is rewrite a little bit of law and hit that toggle button, baby. This whole system provides full end-to-end encryption on all digital data, including transactional data. No backdoors. No exceptions. Ever. The government wants data? Build a case, take it to a judge and get a warrant (emphasis mine because it’s stolen from a now-deleted tweet). Don’t overthink this stuff. K?

Moving on.

CRAIGSLIST. DOES. SO. MUCH. SHIT. Andreessen Horowitz managing partners Jordan & Coolican explain this well, “One of the holy grails in the newco world is to build out a digital platform that successfully serves the needs of a broad number of adjacent verticals, and become the definitive platform in its space. We know the now-canonical early examples of this: Amazon, eBay, Craigslist. And we also know that once that holy grail of a new digital platform is attained, competitors quickly come a’ callin’. One of the most effective forms of that competition often comes in the form of newcos who aspire to take chunks out of that emergent platform by better addressing the needs of a specific vertical within that platform — by creating a user experience or business model that’s much more tailored to the unique attributes of that vertical … In fact, this strategy can sometimes be so powerful that some of these new businesses are not only bigger than the original vertical they disrupted, but bigger than the platform as a whole.”

Case in point.

Just because a bunch of companies took what Craigslist does and captured an audience on their own platforms doesn’t mean that *what it does* can’t be reimagined into a new UI, while coexisting with an app ecosystem. This UI just sits on top of all of it. We’ll need something like this if we want any shot at *successfully* implementing an Internet of Things.

Coordination. This system could provide real-time maps for logistical and policy decision making between WHO, CDC, and the FDA, for example.

How? Take a look back at Craigslist — it’s not that Craigslist is some hugely innovative breakthrough, and I’m just fuckin’ psyched to keep talking about it (to myself LOL). It’s the simplicity and how it never got away or hid from *how* it works. The innovation here is the ability to easily and perpetually break down a system by locality. You can cross-reference this usability with the data behind “Mapping Data Flows” and because the features in the two photos below will be melded together, you can see how this works, “Search results, instead of coming back as a block of text, are rendered as an interactive visualization. The cases take the form of bubbles, arranged by date. Landmark cases are nice and big; lesser cases are smaller. Lines join the circles, showing you how the cases are interrelated. You can filter these visual results in a number of ways, separating out, for instance, which rulings came from district courts, which came from circuit courts, and which were handed down by the Supreme Court itself (emphasis mine).”

Let’s break this down a little further by using a catastrophic disaster as a thought experiment: “Catastrophic disasters have become familiar experiences in our contemporary world, and they require planning by government leaders so that they can provide an efficient and effective response. These disasters range from natural ones such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and epidemics to terrorist attacks involving improvised explosive devices and nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Emergencies and disasters begin and end locally, and most are wholly managed and resolved at the local level. Some incidents require a unified response from local agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. Some require additional support from neighboring jurisdictions through mutual aid agreements.1 Most disasters are likely to cross multiple political jurisdictions and geographic boundaries and require a coordinated public health and medical response.

“In catastrophic events, the response becomes even more complicated, requiring decision makers across multiple levels of government to allocate available resources quickly, efficiently, effectively, and fairly to optimize and synchronize resource distribution to save lives and to mitigate suffering and morbidity. The decision-making process used by federal leaders during catastrophic events is dynamic, often based on limited situational awareness and gestalt, and can be strengthened by a structured, ethically-based process.”

No single company *can* own this service.

Designing a User Interface for an Internet Operating System was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Nature Photography was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Because SpaceX is rapidly increasing access to space, the smart money is on investing in the machines that will build the machines.

By that, I mean space printers. Really advanced space printers. That said, we should start thinking about what to build in space. This sums up the thinking here:

From the article, “We can manufacture a structure that couldn’t support its own mass if it were on Earth … The only practical limitation you have is how much material you’re providing to the system.”

So we can build anything? Great. Then let’s build a megastructure.

The idea with these space printers is a few orders of magnitude conceptually larger than SpaceX’s Starlink network. The Starlink network is low latency routing in space. SpaceX got the gist down and executed it, so let’s now expand it. Watch this video for visualization.

This would very likely include previously nonexistent earth-based infrastructure to boot. What could it look like? See below.

Humanity’s Biggest Machines Will Be Built In Space — So What Now? was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Jeff Weiner has no idea how to leverage LinkedIn as a platform. “But he sold to Microsoft! For twenty-six billion fucking dollars!” you declare. Ooook. I won’t argue with you there. Good job, Jeff. You made the acquisition happen, and as a user, I couldn’t be more proud. We’re eleven years into your reign and counting, and now it’s time to step aside and let someone else run the company. I know that won’t happen, and I really don’t care if it does, because your network is genuinely a piece of shit, but it’s what would be best for the company and its users. Call a spade a spade. The company needs a new direction.

Ask yourself, what does LinkedIn actually do? What utility does it provide its users? I’ve written about this social network before because there clearly is a use case for it. Since then, not only have they failed to make any functional changes, they forwent an enormous opportunity to shift to a service with the usability of something like Slack. This was before Slack even existed — the opening was there. And AngelList serves the investment community (and has its own set of problems, but I won’t get into that here). So…what the fuck?

Well, let’s look to LinkedIn’s vision which is to, “Create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.” The mission is to, “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” While it’s not my job to determine the direction of LinkedIn, in its current form, it’s not only useless but also detrimental to its users and the internet as a whole. It should infuriate you that a social network like LinkedIn even exists. Why? Because human beings are legitimately wasting precious hours of their lives on something that is an illusion. The whole thing is a charade. Users have been lulled into a sense of complacency of expectation. That’s dangerous. Do you know anyone whose life was changed by using the service? Or heard of anybody who heard of someone whose life was changed by service? As far as I can tell, LinkedIn’s greatest asset is harvesting user data. Yay. Powerful.

Additionally, anecdotal observations of the network reveal something to me: there is this mirage by those who use it, it’s as if they’re assuming the information they’re receiving is somehow enlightened; like a network can exist detached from the rest of the internet with the emotion and politics removed. It bleeds through the tone of the feed. It haunts the spirit of the network. After I stopped taking LinkedIn seriously, over the years I posted some outlandish shit on there (by LinkedIn standards) just to fuck with the network. I thought (and still think) it was fucking HILARIOUS. I’m not claiming it had any impact at all — only negative impact on me, I’m sure. Since then, I’ve stopped using it almost entirely. My brother deleted his LinkedIn years ago. So why write this? I’m perturbed that LinkedIn has failed to evolve in any meaningful way, a generation of users is lost, and they’ve created a vacuum of trust in the whole concept of what they’re trying and failing to be.

Brb gonna go be a good boy and rejuvenate my professional career on LinkedIn for a few hours. No way anyone on there could or would search for and inspect my Twitter which is, oh, ever so carefully crafted to please the masses, and my mommy.

If you think I’m writing this to be an asshole or to get the satisfaction of a brutal takedown of LinkedIn, you’d be mistaken. And I’m not going to offer further solutions because I’m not going to do LinkedIn’s fucking job for them. I’m writing this because it comes as naturally as breathing.

I’ll leave you with this story:

Krasinski and Anderson have known each other for quite some time, and the “Quiet Place” actor-director shared with The Times a valuable lesson the Anderson taught him about the only right way to react to seeing a movie. The two men were at Krasinski’s house for his 30th birthday party discussing a movie Krasinski had just seen. Krasinski told Anderson, “It’s not a good movie,” to which the “Phantom Thread” director nicely chastised him.

“He so sweetly took me aside and said very quietly, ‘Don’t say that. Don’t say that it’s not a good movie. If it wasn’t for you, that’s fine, but in our business, we’ve all got to support each other,’” Krasinski said. “The movie was very artsy, and he said, ‘You’ve got to support the big swing. If you put it out there that the movie’s not good, they won’t let us make more movies like that.’”

Why LinkedIn is Bad for the Internet was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Scan the titles of the three articles listed below (preferably read them) and use your imagination. Pay particular attention to the third article.

• Here's what a 'very likely' sequel to California's 1862 megastorm would look like
• Chicago Dug the World's Biggest Flood-Stopping Tunnel. What if the City Got It Wrong?
• The Abandoned Plan That Could Have Saved America From Drought

We don’t have a clue how we’re going to deal with climate change. This remodeling of Ralph Parsons vision is something we should consider. There’s no reason to think this won’t work for other parts of the world. Let’s get down to the brass tacks.

In “The Abandoned Plan That Could Have Saved America From Drought”, Michelle Nijhuis writes, “The solution Parsons devised, a continental-scale plumbing project called the North American Water and Power Alliance, or NAWAPA, was never built, but it’s never quite gone away, either. Today it persists as a fantastical vision that could have been, and might in some form still be.”

“For those of us who work in the water world, NAWAPA is a constant presence,” says Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute. “It’s the most grandiose water-engineering project ever conceived for North America. It’s both a monument to the ingenuity of America and a monument to the folly of the 20th century. In a sense, we measure all other ideas against it.”

What Parsons proposed is genius, and I want to add to it because we face new challenges. To summarize, this will require an enormous water-engineering project to deal with drought and flooding. Look at enclosing the tunnels in a conductive material, and repurpose the concept of Project ELF to work in conjunction with this project (because we have plans in space — see here. Essentially using the tunneling system as an antenna, maybe something even better). You could throw a Hyperloop on top of the whole thing — the construction is already taking place, leverage it.

Updating NAWAPA was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve been so excited about this that I couldn’t figure out how to explain it. Craigslist.org is the Internet’s operating system equivalent. Craigslist is the missing link in the battle to becoming the first website to successfully implement a full fledged Web 3.0 experience. It’s easy to use, it’s simple, it’s genius. When Craigslist came out everyone rolled over and “couldn’t” compete; because Craigslist was free.

Straight from the Craigslist Wiki:

Craigslist is a centralized network of online communities, featuring online classified advertisements — with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, resumes, and discussion forums.

I think Craig Newmark may have invented Web 3.0 when he brought free classifieds online, sixteen years ago, and nobody knew it. In fact, most websites are striving to include much of what Craigslist.org has had the entire time: everything.

Here is Wikipedia’s definition (by the way, isn’t Wikipedia getting pretty?) of a social network:

A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called “nodes,” which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

The social network that’s going to win everyone over will look a lot like Craigslist. Now, you may think I’m crazy by saying that. But think about it. You’re saying “no” because Craigslist doesn’t have the visual appeal/feel of a social network like Google+ or Facebook. As far as it’s technical design, it’s a better version of both of them. And it was established before them. Let’s say Google wanted to buy Craigslist right now, assuming it could be bought. Integrating what Craigslist offers, into what Google+ is, would put Google in the drivers seat of the social network battle. It fell off people’s radar because the founder of Craigslist, philanthropist Craig Newmark, does a straightforward job of honestly running the site.

Staying on Google, for this example, Google Coupons would be immediately wedged into every local community in the United States. And that’s one product from the book Google offers. I mention money only to prove the immediate ROI a Google owned Craigslist-Google+ combination would offer.

This could improve local governments, national governments, and the world as a whole if implemented properly. It may even reboot our economy. And yes, I may be entirely over thinking this, but am I? Real community discussions in one centralized arena. Why is our nations education system failing? Because we are not politically involved in our communities. This is the chance to do just that. Craigslist integration into Google+ offers that. A real platform for communication.

Getting local business tied into such an advanced network, could bring the “main street” inventor to the world. With Google Coupon’s integrated, local businesses would COMPETE for their daily deal to appear on search pages. Rather than Google having to ask them if they’d like to advertise a deal. Social media and advertising are scary to a lot of people. Simplify it, “craigslist it”.

Maybe the reason Google+ is having so much early success is because everyone sees its potential but can’t quite figure out what to do with it right now. Taking it a step further, rather than thinking of a Google+/Craigslist combination website as a social network, think of it as a world profile.

When someone searches for you on Google you want to control what they see, with this all-in-one profile you can control what they see. You own your data, don’t let it own you. Instead of searching Google for “Brett Favre” and getting 13,500,000 results you would be brought to one page. If you’re looking for the former NFL quarterback, the profile you’re looking for should be obvious. You click Brett Favre’s profile and everything associated with that Brett Favre is brought up in an organized page, like Craigslist’s design. But, if Brett Favre himself was logged in, it would act as a dashboard to him. If you’re not looking for the former Packer great, the page will act like a filter.

I’ve read that the future Internet will be similar to how the Twitter app works on the iPad. If that is the case (it is a nice design) you can find the less popular Brett Favre (you’re presumably looking for) by filtering down what information you know about the Brett Favre you are searching for. The point is, you wouldn’t have to worry about not finding the right Brett Favre or missing out on any information about the person named Brett Favre you want to find. Everyone in the world would be tied into this network and all of the information related to that specific Brett Favre would be integrated in his world profile; control what information is displayed about yourself, on the web, in a simple manner. They don’t have to actively update the profile. They do not have to use it.

This is why subdivisions of your profile would still remain a necessity. By subdivisions I mean plugins, other integrated accounts. Choosing what information you interact with others on is why all of the other internet services, besides Google, will not die. Twitter would remain an integration of your account, if you so choose to use Twitter. You can update your Twitter and forgo an update to your “world profile”. Separate networks would act like circles.

You can stay local with your information or you can go global. You have control over all of it. That’s slightly off topic and just came to me, so I don’t know about the world profile part. Am I wrong? Am I saying anything new here?

Here’s a quick mock-up I made (see above); maybe it’ll relay the message a little better. I’m not sure I did. It uses Facebook as the login example, I know. Actually, it’s a poor/earlier example. If you can understand why this would be awesome, combine Craigslist with Google+, and your brain might explode. Literally. Probably not though. This is as simple as it can be narrowed down, visually speaking. I didn’t feel like doing a Google+ example, yet.

The Internet Meets the Internet was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The approach Google is taking with Google+ is genius. And it’s exactly the reason Google circles are a MAJOR evolution (I still don’t understand how some folks don’t see that) in what the Internet is becoming. I’ll assume Battelle is correct with a point he recently blogged (because I believe he is):

What’s clear is this: All the companies involved in this great data spat are acting in what they believe to be their own self interest, and the greatest potential loser, at least in the short term, is the search consumer, who will not be seeing “all the world’s information” but rather “that information which is readily available to Google on terms Google prefers.”

The key to that last sentence is the phrase “what they believe to be their own self interest.” Because I think there’s an argument that, in fact, their true self interest is to open up and share with each other.

Let’s pretend the data from all parties involved (Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.) was shared, right now. What would we have? The most amazing social network to ever exist. Why?

That’s essentially what exists now — but it’s fragmented to the nth degree. Here’s another point, from the same post (by Battelle).

Thanks to Google’s inclusion of Google+ in its search index, that light has now been shone, and what we’re seeing isn’t all good. I’m of the opinion that a few years from now, each and every one of us will have the expectation and the right to incorporate our own social data into web-wide queries. If the key parties involved in search and social today don’t figure out a way to make that happen, well, they may end up just like The Industry Standard did back in 2001.

But not to worry, someone else will come along, pick up the pieces, and figure out how to play a more cooperative and federated game.

Not only is the assumption that he makes correct (IMHO), it should serve as a “kick to the face, wake up call,” to all of the companies it’s aimed at. We’re never going to get to point we want to be at without cooperation — data cooperation. For some background on Big Data, this link may help.

IF all of the data we produce (or a significant amount of data, at the very least) is shared within the framework of the Internet — not just the framework of the World Wide Web — we could actually get some shit done (I would assume that was the point for creating the Internet; to make the world a better place, which it has undoubtedly already done…). The Internet and World Wide Web wouldn’t work properly if they was broken (much like that sentence doesn’t work because it’s grammatically broken). Why would social or search (well, what search is becoming, not your grandfather’s search) be any different? SOPA is a perfect example of how “censorship” breaks the web. Rather than censorship, what we’re dealing with now is non-cooperation from the involved parties. The same parties that would have a shit storm if SOPA became law are, essentially, doing the exact same thing with data that SOPA would do to the web — breaking it.

To get to a point that’s communicated within the title of this post (“For a Predictable Future”) I’ll use an example: For this example, I’ll use the average eight year old — five years from now — that’s just starting off using social media. Presumably, I (average eight year old) have no idea how to use social networks. (Also, presumably, the major players in this social game are sharing data.)

Rather than promoted tweets, or suggestions for whom to follow (I’m obviously referring to Twitter here), you will automatically follow individuals or brands. While at the same time, you will automatically unfollow people or companies. (This is also the point where Google circles come into play, significantly — we would have a pretty humongous mess without circles.) Your friends are auto programmed into circles, based on how often you interact with them, to what regard you interact with them, in real life, and online. Now, based on location: the data collected from where you go (school, Toy’s R Us, vacation — a signal for your parents income) can be used as a predictor for what you’re going to buy, where you’re going to buy “it”, and where you will vacation, in the future. Based on all of this real-life data, your circles will auto generate who’s in them. And they will constantly make adjustments. Don’t talk to that person much anymore? They’re dissolved to a lower tiered circle.

Fast-forward a few years. Now, you’re looking for a college to go to. Wait, no you’re not. Because there are three schools that have already sent you letters, begging you to attend there. Those schools are the only ones that can send you letters (or emails, bear with me) because any other school sending you letters would be considered spam. And there’d be legal ramifications for sending you spam. The question is, “Why those three schools?” Because they’re the perfect match for you, everything about you; intelligence level (based on what you read online, test scores, etc.), income level (can you afford it? — will you be able to pay back the loans? — the school already has a pretty good idea if you’ll be able to, and how long it’ll take you), your preference for distance from home (need to bounce outta town? home buggy?), etc.

That’s where shared data could bring us, to start. And we can always change our minds. You know what? I don’t like those three schools. Send me three more choices that differentiate the collective intelligence of the current student body a little better.

I imagine, at that point, we won’t have to concern ourselves with such trivial matters, as often as we do now. Matters like, “Should we really share data? I don’t know, what if Twitter leveraged it better than us? Then we’d have to come up with something new.”

Interpreting Big Data, For a Predictable Future was originally published in @awwsullivan on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.