Bruno also took it as a challenge and decided to explore the many different ways that he could wish me happy birthday. This is the result. I bow before you, master.

With friends like these, who needs stalkers?

If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain
If you’re not into yoga, if you have half a brain
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape
I’m the love that you’ve looked for, write to me, and escape

I, for one, never payed much attention to the rest of the lyrics and therefore was just another person that associated this song with a romantic setting (as it is used in general in pop culture).

It was only once I got acquainted with the Jack Johnson’s version of the song for The Secret Life of Water Mitty‘s soundtrack (great OST by the way, fully recommended), that I started paying more attention to it (because it’s now part of one of my frequent Spotify playlists that I use for working).

It’s actually a story about a guy that wants to try hooking up with someone else because his current relationship has become routine. The song’s chorus is really the text of a personal ad in the newspaper that caught his attention and that ends up being the reason that he goes to meet the ad’s author at a bar, only to find that the woman is actually his current partner.

You can look at this through the eternal romantic’s eyes by saying: “oh, but in the end they found out that they really were made for each other!”. Sure, but they were willing to cheat on each other first.

So romantic, right?

This technology is still in its early stages, but if the companies behind this endeavour actually achieve their goals, this can have a massive impact on the planet. Consider the following:

• Environmental impact – the production of clean meat does not use the excessive amount of water, food and land that is used in animal farming. Considering that animal farming is pointed as one of the main elements affecting climate change, this will be hugely impactful.
• Ethical animal-based products – the production of clean meat does not require killing an animal since only a very small amount of cell tissue (and blood) is used from the animal. This also means that there’s no need to farm the vast amounts of animals that are farmed today, which is the reason why animals are so barbarically treated (for the sake of efficiency and cost reduction).
• Health benefits – the end result of clean meat is that it is actually cleaner, because lab-grown meat does not carry bacteria or need antibiotics.

This is of course the promise of the science behind clean meat. Nobody can really guarantee that these companies will be able to reach the necessary levels of efficiency that will enable the production of tasty and cheap clean meat.

But what if they do? Will this be enough to change the minds of people like vegans? Considering that the large majority of vegans point these 3 reasons (environmental impact, cruelty to animals and health reasons) as the motivations behind choosing that way of life, would a technology like this make them go back?

Would you as a vegan change your mind?

Sure, it looks rubbish now but you have to look at it with the eyes of a small kid from the 80’s who didn’t have that much to watch on TV.

My favourite character was Major Matthew ‘Hawk’ Masterson because he was the one that could fly. I remember sticking a set-square with some rubber bands in the back of one of my G.I. Joe action figures to emulate this great character.

I wonder what TV shows my sons will watch know that will look completely dumb 30 years from now. My money is on Uncle Grandpa (hint: it’s already a dumb show).

But there’s one song in particular that always leaves me floored. The live performance of The Nitty Gritty:

What amazes me in this live performance is not the fact that it’s a complex tune, from the drums point of view (he has other tunes that are a bit more complex) or even the perfect combination of percussion with the horns section. It’s the fact that so much of Buddy Rich’s personality is ingrained in the performance.

Buddy was also well-known for his temper and the lack of patience he had for band members that could not keep up with him. In this performance, you can clearly see that he regrets the tempo that he chose to start with and keeps increasing the pace throughout the song. Considering that he didn’t have that much love for practicing and rehearsals, it’s simply amazing how the rest of the band is able to keep up without losing a beat.

If you have 4 minutes to spare this weekend and you can manage to enjoy this song with some good headphones, just do it. It’s quite something.

This is a normal reaction. It’s the same with sharks. Even though they are responsible for a very small fraction of human deaths in the entire world per year (less that vending machines), people still have that image of the relentless killing machine from Jaws. So, the same concept applies to artificial intelligence and the image of the impending robopocalypse.

Then, when I say that that kind of artificial intelligence (the kind that could represent human-level intelligence in all its forms) does not exist and won’t exist in the near future, people will always reply with the usual suspects:

• “Well, tell that to Kasparov!” (or the more recent advances in the Game of Go)
• “I can tell my phone assistant thingy to show me pictures of my daughter without me having to say which pictures are those. How does it do that?”
• “Have you seen the new Google Assistant demo? It even talks like, hmm, a person!”

And, again, these are normal reactions. These are instances of artificial intelligence. But they are very narrow instances of artificial intelligence. Sure, Deep Blue is great at playing chess. But tell it to perform a more creative-based or meaning-detection task and it won’t perform better than my 2 year old son. We humans are not very good with tasks that require high amounts of processing power, but we are great at performing other tasks that require lesser-defined forms of intelligence like asserting the mood of a person or appreciating a fine piece of music.

That’s why this new idea of a centaur emerges to represent the next step of evolution of the human race. Not in the literal way of the old concept of the mythological beings that had the body of a horse and had the torso and head of a human (thus combining the speed and stamina of a horse with the skill and intelligence of a human), but in the application of the concept of an hybrid being to this new era of massive technology advancement. The goal is to merge “transistors with neurons” so that we won’t be conquered by our new robotic overlords… because we will be the robotic overlords.

And if you think that this is a dumb idea that will never work, I recommend that you read this great piece by Tim Urban on Neuralink (the most recent Elon Musk endeavour). Not only will you learn a lot about the way the brain works, you’ll also become acquainted with the state of the art regarding human-machine interfaces based on direct and indirect brain connections.

What about you? Do you like the idea that one day we’ll become cyborgs? What do you think are the consequences to the planet of such a change in humanity? Will this mean that we’ll live forever? Will this mean that we’ll loose the essence of what makes us humans? These are all great questions that are better answered (or discussed) over some drinks

But one of the things that I like the most about podcasts is the freedom they give to content creators to go back to one of the most interesting features that radio broadcasting used to have: telling smaller less-known stories about individuals or places that you may not have heard before. And I’ve been focusing more on listening this kind of podcasts.

One example is 99% Invisible podcast’s story about the Gander International Airport. I had no idea that such a place existed and was once one of the most important airports in the world (bonus content at the end: you’ll learn what the numbering on airport runways means). It’s always interesting to learn about these stories and learn new stuff every day.

Here are some other podcasts I’ve recently listened to and found interesting:

• 99% Invisible (weird but fascinating stories, mostly focusing on design and the influence in our lives)
  • Making It Rain
  • Fordlandia
  • Border Wall
  • The Nut Behind the Wheel
• Freakonomics Radio (the hidden side of everything, as the authors call it)
  • The “The Secret Life of CEOs” series
  • Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Money (But Were Afraid to Ask)
• Hidden Brain (one of my favourites, ranging from sociology and psychology to technology and art – fully recommended)
  • Romeo and Juliet in Kigali
  • Crickets and Cannibals
  • The Mind of the Village
  • Counting Other People’s Blessings
  • Lost in Translation
  • Kinder-Gardening (awesome for parents)
• Invisibilia (stories focusing on human behaviour)
  • I, I, I. Him.
  • Emotions (this one is really tough to hear)
• You Are Not So Smart (focuses mostly on psychology and related sciences)
  • Belief Change Blindness
  • Active Information Avoidance
  • Tribal Psychology (this one is really cool)
  • Machine Bias

Other interesting podcasts:

• StarTalk Radio
  • by Neil DeGrasse Tyson – no further introduction needed, he’s a natural entertainer in the world of science
• TED Talks Daily
  • just what the name says – get access to interesting TED talks every day
• Today, Explained
  • small episodes explaining current events, usually politics
• Too Embarrassed to Ask
  • just as the name hints, they answer embarrassing questions, mostly about technology
• The Infinite Monkey Cage
  • BBC Radio 4 program with cool interviews focusing on science
• ID10T
  • former Nerdist, great if you like that kind of conversation-based interviews with famous people

Living in the shadow of the great Sean Connery meant that many didn’t consider him a worthy James Bond, but he sure made the 70’s and 80’s Bond look cool (and very much entertaining). He’s the first Bond I watched and therefore he embodied that persona in my head. It hasn’t until a few years later (when my father told me that there were other actors impersonating this British spy) that I became acquainted with these other iterations of the enigmatic “Bond, James Bond” character. But at that time, the Roger Moore’s take on James Bond had already stuck in my head and everything else felt short in comparison.

So, it’s sad to see him go, but it’s a good thing that he left this great body of work for all of us to enjoy.

R.I.P. Mr. Moore. Now you can drink as many martinis as you want.

The first movie I watched was X-Men: First Class. Entertaining, for sure, but a certain scene left me confused: in one moment the heroes were all inside a plane flying over a Cuban beach and in the next scene (without a single explanation) they were on said beach and their plane was a mere blur of destruction in the back shot. At first, I thought that maybe something must have escaped me, but then I realized this is just idiotic in-flight movie censoring to avoid disturbing individuals travelling on a plane by watching a plane crash. I find it unnecessary but I see their point. It might get someone nervous to the point they become a problem (like having a panic attack).

What I don’t get is what happened in the next movie: The Martian. Right at the beginning of the movie (SPOILER ALERT), the character portrayed by Matt Damon – Mark Whatney – sees himself stranded on Mars with no (apparent) possibility of survival. The scene in itself is quite powerful and I very much remember the build-up (since I read the book) to the point in which the character realized his doom and verbalizes it as any one of us would: with exclamative profanity.

But not in this in-flight entertainment system. Here, as Whatney realizes that he’s all alone in a planet with not enough food and with no possibility of escaping and with the next probable mission to rescue 4-years away, he just says: “Fudge”. I repeat, he says “FUDGE”. For fuck sake.

Happy birthday!

I’ll try to treat you better. I promise!