NevBlog

Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain

Neville

Netflix quote

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“The customers are giving us their money, and it’s our job to turn that money into joy.”
–Reed Hastings – CEO of NetFlix

Soundbyte from A16Z podcast (episode here).

random thoughts on what will be disrupted next

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it’s kind of fun to watch things get “disrupted” really fast.

In my lifetime some memorable things I’ve seen disrupted or replaced were:

  • Floppy disks sort-of-slowly got replaced with CD-ROM’s.
  • VCR’s slowly got replaced with DVD’s.
  • Music from analog, to digital-through-a-disk, to pure digital.
  • In college they completely removed every book from this massive library and turned the whole damn thing into a computer lab and co-working space that was laptop friendly.
  • Buying software from a store.  WTF??  Can you even DO that anymore?
  • Having to “search” for knowledge.  It used to be a chore, now it’s incredibly accessible.

There’s usually some “outrage” in the beginning of any disruption (“But encyclopedias are an institution! You can’t replace them with this “computer” thing!”), then in like 6 months no gives a shit anymore because the new technology is soooo much better and everything adapts in short order. I

Every single one of those “disruptions” I witnessed allowed humans to be more productive, lead better and more fun lives, and allowed people who previously couldn’t afford something (such as being able to store gigabytes of information) completely accessible.

  • Wired headphones are dying right now.  Soon as I got Apple AirPods and used them for a week, then tried clunky-ass wired headphones I was disgusted by them.  There’s like…WIRES and crap hanging all over me.
  • I think eyeglasses are going to be the next big industry to get some serious competition from tech companies.  I’ve used Google Glass, the SnapChat Spectacles etc……and while those products aren’t insanely useful at the moment, once battery, computational power, and visualization projections shrink just a TAD more………”useful eyewear” will become a thing.  This trend will play out just like watches: Digital watches have been around forever, but then in one fell swoop Apple released one that was truly functional, and literally the next year they were the 2nd largest watch maker in the world.  And the technology keeps iterating better and better.
  • Screens. This one is a bit away, but eventually when everyone has some sort of digital eyewear, you won’t really need giant TV screens or phone screens.  Your entire field of vision could be a screen.  I think screens will get so thin, so durable, so crisp, and so cheap that they’ll be used to emulate scenery on walls like it’s a window.  Imagine being able to live in a lame white-walled square room, but you slap some screens on the wall that truly make it seem like you have a penthouse view of Manhattan!
  • Cars you drive yourself.  I can’t wait for this.  Instead of a Mercedes, I would rather own a crap-tastic 1979 Toyota Minivan with a hole in the floor IF IT DRIVES ITSELF.  Driving is lame and dangerous and a huge burden and waste of time.  It’s already clear Tesla is the dominant leader in this, and every single car company on the planet will transition shortly after.
  • Software. Right now humans write software.  Eventually you’ll be able to describe a problem you want solved to a sufficiently clever AI, and it will design the software FOR YOU.  For example you can say: “Hey Siri, make me a software that let’s users register an account and then tracks all their social media accounts from one app” and it would do it. This would take a human a while do drum up….but a computer could do it in a few seconds complete with human-simulated testing and re-iterations of the software for maximum speed and usability.

As I get older I think the thing that will leave me behind is virtual worlds.  By the time VR/AR is prime-time ready I’ll be at least 40+.  For me it will be a novelty, and I would use it a bit, but the kids being born at that time will just THINK THIS IS THE WAY YOU LIVE.  They will likely grow in some sort of hybrid real/virtual world where they can “travel to space” from the safety of their home or talk to their friends like they’re in the room.

Just like kids now just expect TV’s to be thin, and phones to be these durable pieces of glass you can play with and access any information, the kids of the future will “see” and experience the world in different (and way cooler) way.

End rant :)
-N

 

Death Calculator – When Am I Going to Die (and how)

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WHEN DO YOU WANT TO DIE?

If you die on . You have left to live.

Total Years left:
Total Months left:
Total Days left:
Total Hours left:
Total Minutes left:
Total Seconds left:

Use the death calculator here.

The date that’s automatically entered is when I would like to die (November 17th, 2067). That will be my 85th birthday, and if I’m not dead already by then, I’ll make it happen.

I can’t recklessly kill myself at 85 though, there will be a small set of rules around it:

  • I can’t cause extra work or inconvenience for living people (so no crashing a car at 120mph off a cliff, some team of people would have to spend money & time cleaning that up).
  • Completely wrap up all family and business affairs.
  • I can’t hurt anyone else in the process.
  • Can’t do it in a way that bums people out.

 

The current coolest way I can think to do this (and adhere to all rules) is:

  • Skydive into an active volcano.

I was born Zoroastrian (a really small religion), and a neat thing about the ways Zoroastrians in India handle dead bodies is they leave the body out for vultures to eat.

The theory behind this is your body goes back into the Earth.

I always thought this was kind of a neat solution.

By skydiving into an active volcano I would:
-Go back into the Earth.
-Wouldn’t hurt anyone.
-Would also get to SKYDIVE INTO AN ACTIVE VOLCANO which let’s be honest…..sounds awesome!

This idea has been with me for a really really long time. The way death is handled and discussed is currently pretty lame.

Think about it:
Every single person that has ever lived in the history of Earth…..has so far died. Therefore I think this “dying” concept is something that warrants some conversation, and maybe even a more humane way of doing it.

There’s many reasons I am a proponent of legalized euthanasia:

1.) You can’t control when you’re born, but you can control when you die. This can make a lot of people’s final years much more enjoyable and comfortable.

2.) By controlling the date of your death you can correctly forecast how much money you will need to live out your life. If you don’t know the date, you could live for 1 year or 30 years more. Those two different options require vastly different sums of money and planning.

3.) I equate the mental construct of “knowing my expiration date” to cramming for a test:
If you have a geography test in 6 months, you will probably not care too much at this moment and goof off. However if you have a geography test in three hours, you will probably buckle down and study like crazy!

For me personally, knowing the expiration date helps me do more things while I’m alive.

Some background about where this idea came from:
1.) I read a lot of books in middle school and high school that discussed this subject, and it made perfect sense that people should plan for their death. It almost sounds silly NOT to.

2.) On trips to India I’d see people being kept alive that in all honesty should just be put down. If someone’s life is full of misery and pain with no end in sight (in fact it’ll probably just get worse), why not put them down comfortably and in a humane way? We put down our beloved dogs like that because we want them to be comfortable, why not us?

3.) In high school I volunteered in an Alzheimers ward. It truly showed me how humans are mechanical machines that like all other machines tend to break down, require more and more maintenance, and at some point, need to be decommissioned.

Believe it or not I was heartless enough NOT to be affected by the patients with Alzheimers. I could handle that. What I DID feel was when the families of those patients would come to visit the Alzheimers ward, and the patient wouldn’t even recognize their own daughter or son or grandkids. Watching those people break down in tears from their loved ones not even recognizing them….I get slightly teary just thinking about it.

Common retorts to this argument:

“What if medicine advances and at 85 years old it’s like you’re 20?”
In that case I would modify the decision based on those new life circumstances. The equation I’d use is simple:

If life is sucky = Get ready for that volcano jump!
If life is great = Maybe keep on going.

“Don’t you want to live forever?”
Meh. Not really. I’d like to enjoy my time on stage, and then exit when the time feels right.

“How do you KNOW you won’t chicken out and not do it????”
This is an action I intend to take over 50+ years into the future, there’s no way to know for SURE this will still be my decision at the time. However at the moment, with the current state of technology, it is.

Sincerely,
Neville Medhora (1982 – 2067)

P.S. If you’d like to see how much time (in years/months/days/hours/minutes/seconds) you have to live, there’s a working Death Calculator at the top of this post!