Tag Archives: Scott Adams

Scott Adams: Future of your phone

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This post by Scott Adams illustrates why I think owning a smart phone is important. He makes some predictions about future applications:

WHATS-HIS-FACE: This application would let you discreetly take an iPhone photo of an acquaintance whose name you can’t remember then it uses face recognition to search for the name online. Someday everyone will have a Facebook-like web page, so searching for faces will be feasible.

DOCTOR-IN-A-BOX: Someday you’ll be able to take an iPhone picture of your suspicious moles, abrasions, fungus, or whatever and get an instant automated diagnosis and suggested treatment.

WHAT’S-IT-LIKE-THERE? Imagine wondering how long the line is to an event, or what a particular forest fire looks like, for example.  You send a query through your iPhone for anyone who is in that area, according to GPS tracking, and ask for a look. A kind stranger takes your query, sets his phone to stream video, and gives you the view from his perspective. You would have eyes anywhere there are people.

BRAIN-EXTENDER: Google and Wikipedia are already brain extenders. You can find almost any information you want and quickly. But imagine how much cooler it would be if your iPhone headset was continuously monitoring your conversations and answering your questions as they arise, or whispering suggestions in your ear. That application seems likely to me.

Before dismissing these, think about how unlikely it would have sounded if someone had told you it was possible to have have your phone “listen” to a song and tell you the name and artist.

As I get more familiar with the iPhone, I find myself thinking more about my use of –and relationship with– The Web. More and more of my time is spent in “the cloud.” Typepad, Gmail, Flickr, YouTube. My laptop, desktop and phone have become a means to “get to” and interact with my stuff out there.

The iPhone makes you aware of how much time you were not connected. Even with the MacBook at my side.

I overheard some of the regulars at the Towne Grill trying to come up with the name of some actor in a TV show. I couldn’t remember either but looked down at the iPhone and thought how easy it would be to google the answer. But that wouldn’t have been in the spirit of the discussion.

Putting aside the warnings of the The Matrix, Terminator and countless other movies and books… I find myself thinking of the web as one big old computer that we all use. And when it becomes smarter than we are (and self-aware) I want to be connected. All the time.

Scott Adams: Recession

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“No one wants the economy to crumble. But having a reason to love your neighbor a little better doesn’t suck. If we can feed everyone – and I think we can – things will be fine. And as I have said here before, some kid in a garage has already figured a way out of this.”

–Scott Adams Blog

Scott Adams: Israel Defeats the Entire Middle East

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Scott Adams thinks Israel will eventually create the technology that will make oil irrelevant:

“The oh-my-God moment came when I realized that Israel can destroy all of its local enemies by inventing solar technology that makes oil uneconomical. Such an invention would do more harm than any military attack. And it’s all legal and moral. The politicians and business people in Israel have all the right incentives times a thousand. Their very survival is at risk. Israel is one patent away from crushing every oil producing country in the world.”

In his post, he links to the article that provided his ah-ha moment.

Scott Adams on draft dodging

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“If a person is relatively certain that going to war will end his ability to enjoy the rest of his life, one way or another, and the war does not present a plausible threat to the homeland, is such a person unpatriotic for dodging the draft to save himself?

The obvious answer is yes, he is unpatriotic. If your country calls on you, you need to go. End of story.

On the other hand, what is the point of a being patriotic to a country that intends to kill you for its own marginal benefit? Such a country would be your natural enemy, not your friend, so any question of patriotism would be nonsense in this particular situation.”

Like most of Mr. Adam’s posts, this one is well written and thought provoking. You need to read the full post before answering the (for the time being) hypothetical question.

A less-hypothetical quesion: Are you willing to sacrifice your son or daughter because George W. Bush wanted to prove something to his daddy?

Scott Adams: Money or Bombs

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“I don’t know how many nukes the United States has pointed toward China, but one would be too many. China isn’t going to attack its biggest customer. And in the unlikely event that some other country attacks China, we’d offer military assistance in a heartbeat. There’s too much money at stake on both sides.”

Scott Adams presents his “Money or Bombs” theory

Vacation calculus and parenthood

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“…most vacations are about memory upgrades. You become a different person after each trip, literally, as your brain takes on new shapes and chemistry from each experience. I think the selective memory phenomenon is what makes three bad days of planning and travel a worthy trade for two good days of actual vacation.” — Scott Adams

I’ve long held to a similar theory about parenthood. One might dislike everything associated with being a parent… might even dislike children… yet the second their child is born, they change. “I can’t explain it. You’d have to be a parent to understand this feeling!”

The common explanation is that the blessed event transforms you and erases any previously held notions you had about children and parenthood. I believe it has more to do with the species protecting itself. If the new parent did not change… well, you can finish the thought.

And even then, I wonder how many parents –in some dark corner of their hearts– occasionally wonder, “If I had it to do over again…”

But there are no do-overs in this game. So I hope every parent gets that molecular make-over that transforms them into loving, caring parents.

Scott Adams: War

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“One view of the near future is that terrorists will get nukes and set the atmosphere on fire, or global warming will kill us all, or bird flu will create a pandemic, or the world economy will melt down, or all of those disasters will happen at once. I suppose that’s possible. But I think it’s more likely we are entering a golden age.

My Golden Age prediction assumes technology will continue to surprise us, especially in the energy realm. The high cost of oil has generated a seemingly endless parade of energy technology research and subsequent breakthroughs.

Wars appear to be shrinking too. World Wars I and II will probably be the final wars between major powers. The biggest powers of today are more interested in being trading partners than foes. As nations become more connected, via economics and the Internet, the risk of war decreases. All war requires a certain degree of lying to the citizens, and the Internet will continue to make that harder.”

[Full post]

Scott Adams: Religion and Politics

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“Why would you vote for a president who has a different religion than you? If you are certain of the rightness of your own beliefs, and equally certain of the wrongness of a presidential candidate’s belief, that proves the candidate has, in your opinion, bad judgment about the most important question in reality.”

“You wouldn’t vote for a candidate who believes in Ouija boards or horoscopes, because such beliefs would be a reliable indication of simple-mindedness. So why would you vote for a candidate who can’t figure out what version of God is right? If he can’t get that right, according to you, how good is his judgment? You probably think picking the right religion is not a hard challenge, because you got it right without much struggle. You want your leader to be at least as smart as you.”

“No one really believes what they say they believe, at least not in the same way you believe you have to open the front door in order to walk through it. There are two sorts of belief. One is the type you act on, and the other is the type you use to feel good about your place in the universe. As long as a president doesn’t use religion as a guide to action, then it has no bearing on his potential job performance. And he is not a liar or a hypocrite if you accept the notion that there are two types of belief, and they don’t need to interfere with each other.”

[Full post]

Scott Adams: Apology to Iraqi people

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“Whatever you think about the reasons for invading (Iraq), everyone seems to agree that we botched the occupation, and the results have been a disaster for the Iraqi civilian population. I feel like I owe them an apology for letting my idiot government screw them so thoroughly.

Your first reaction might be to explain all the rationalizations, and how war is messy, and it was really Saddam’s fault, and blah, blah, blah. But apologies don’t work that way. I could be wrong, but I think the Iraqi people who were minding their own business would like to hear an apology.

But how? My idiot government won’t apologize on my behalf. And if I fire them and get a new idiot government, they won’t do it either, until fifty years are past. That seems too late.

So here’s my public apology to the Iraqi civilians who did nothing to deserve their current situation: I’m sorry I trusted my idiot government to handle things correctly. I should have been watching more closely. To be honest, I never once thought to even ask if there was a post-war plan. That was clearly a mistake on my part. For that, I am sorry.”

Full post at Dilbert.Blog

“I’m sorry for the way things are in China, I’m sorry things ain’t what they used to be.” — John Denver