Occasional Musings

Recently read about this long term bet between K. Kelly (techno optimist) and K. Sale (techno skeptic). The best was set in 1995 that by 2020 the world would collapse and tech aspects would have been a major contributing factor in driving the collapse (economic, climate & inequality). Few interesting excerpts from the article here, especially by the arbiter W. Patrick:

Economic Collapse. Sale predicted flatly that the dollar and other accepted currencies would be worthless in 2020. Patrick points to the Dow at 30,000 and the success of new currencies such as Bitcoin. “Not much contest here,” Patrick writes. Round goes to Kelly.

Global Environmental Disaster. Kelly tried to argue that despite worsening climate change, people are still living their lives pretty much as usual. “If this is a disaster, that is not evident to Earth’s 7 billion inhabitants,” Kelly wrote in his four-page argument. But Patrick isn’t convinced. “With fires, floods, and rising seas displacing populations; bugs and diseases heading north; ice caps melting and polar bears with no place to go; as well as the worst hurricane season and the warmest year on record, it’s hard to dispute that we are at least ‘close to’ global environmental disaster,” Patrick wrote in his final decision. This one is Sale’s.

The War Between Rich and Poor. Sale’s book cites devastating statistics on income inequality and the frayed social fabric. If he had written his book after the pandemic, the picture would be even worse. But are the classes at war? Patrick notes that in the decades since Kelly and Sale made the bet, breathtaking economic development has reshaped China and India, among other countries. On the other hand, he points to undeniable social unrest, even in the United States, with Trumpites taking to the streets with semiautomatic weapons, and massive protests against police abuses. He calls this round a toss-up, with an edge to Sale.

Of course, all bets are off. They have not yet resolved the bet.

Read more of this here from WIRED: [The Link]

Genetic editing is a very broad term used for techniques used in various different domains. With recent Crispr tech, this technology, especially in human context is currently in debate/discussion in all forums. One categorization that gives some clarity in this discussion is from a short documentary in Netflix Explained: Designer DNA. This figure explains the design space of editing DNA.

Somatic: DNA does not get passed down to off spring

Germline: DNA passes to next generation

More of this here:  Explained: episode on Designer DNA

Article explaining this in more detail: [Article in Medium]

A mini series in Netflix: Unnatural Selection

The answer to life universe and everything else. Ever since I read Douglas Adams HHGTG, the number 42 has become such an interesting & funny reference to bring up in all contexts. Here is an interesting article from Sciam on various ways number 42 has captured the interest of sci-fi fans.

Few tidbits from the article

“…The author’s choice of the number 42 has become a fixture of geek culture. It’s at the origin of a multitude of jokes and winks exchanged between initiates. If, for example, you ask your search engine variations of the question “What is the answer to everything?” it will most likely answer “42.” Try it in French or German. You’ll often get the same answer whether you use Google, Qwant, Wolfram Alpha (which specializes in calculating mathematical problems) or the chat bot Web app Cleverbot”

“..The number is the sum of the first three odd powers of two—that is, 2¹ + 2³ + 2⁵ = 42.”

“The number 42 is the sum of the first two nonzero integer powers of six—that is, 6¹ + 6² = 42.”

A lot more references to 42 here: [The link]

How to organize an R&D team/department? There is not one answer, depends a lot on industry, culture, type of product, ..etc. An interesting article from McKinsey on some useful principles/guidelines.

• Clearly delineate responsibilities for systems and end-to-end work
• Keep functional interfaces across work sites to minimum
• Synchronize software and hardware development
• Strike balance between old and new technologies
• To be future-read, adopt new ways of working

More of this here: [The link]

An interesting conversation with Yole ceo about current trends in product development in semiconductors (ee design in general). Few snippets below

“..Meanwhile, product development is becoming exceedingly complex, both because multiple processes must occur in parallel, and also because many new products require disparate technologies combined in new ways. So agile companies commonly form teams that bring together specialists with distinct areas of expertise, and it is sometimes a challenge to get them to speak the same language to solve engineering problems at the intersection of different disciplines. ”

” Eloy: Companies try to hire people with the competencies that they lack, and interesting discussions start between people who just don’t understand what the other is talking about. They use the same words, but their meaning differs.

Integration is essential to collaboration, and multidisciplinarity is an essential contribution. If you put one person in the optics department, the other in the electronics department, you are dead, because they will stay in their own silo and not work together. It’s important to show teams working together, solving issues together, never bowed by the challenge of integrating photonics with electronics or whatever. “

“By putting together people with different backgrounds on the same project, you give them the same goal and help them work together. Not on big projects but on small projects where they can have fast results, and move from one success to the other success. It’s more rewarding than trying to climb a mountain where everybody gets exhausted after two weeks. Being successful together instills a team spirit.”

More of this here: [The Link]

Intuitively we are aware of what makes a good idea. It is good to visualize and articulate that explicitly. Here is good representation found in a McKinsey article.

More of this from the article here: [The Link] 

Also interesting, Eight Essential Aspects of Innovation

An interesting review of work from Imre Lakatos on the idea of  how theories/science fail? A crucial aspect for science to be progressive. Also check works from Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and others.

Here is an interesting excerpt from the article …

“…  Lakatos judged a programme to be ‘progressive’ if it is both theoretically progressive – the hard core plus auxiliary hypotheses predict novel empirical facts – and experimentally progressive: at least some of these novel facts can be tested. In contrast, a programme is ‘degenerating’ if it is theoretically degenerating – it doesn’t predict any novel facts – or it is theoretically progressive but experimentally degenerating: none of the novel facts can be tested.”

“….Lakatos merged the distinction between science and non-science, and between good and bad science. If a programme predicts nothing new or its predictions can’t be tested, then it is bad science, and might be degenerating to the point of pseudoscience. Empirical tests serve to refine the auxiliary hypotheses and a programme continues to be progressive for as long as new facts are predicted and new tests are possible. A scientific revolution occurs when a dominant programme has completely degenerated and is unable to respond to accumulating anomalies – creating precisely the crisis of confidence that Kuhn anticipated – until it can be replaced by an alternative, progressive programme. But, according to Lakatos, when the time comes, a revolution is driven by logic and method, not irrational mob psychology: ‘the Kuhnian “Gestalt-switch” can be performed without removing one’s Popperian spectacles’.”

More of this here: [The Link]1

An interesting article in NYT..

“We thought a better way to understand the significance of technological change would be to walk through how Americans lived, ate, traveled, and clothed and entertained themselves in 1870, 1920, 1970 and the present [2016]. This tour is both inspired by and reliant on Robert J. Gordon’s authoritative examination of innovation through the ages, “The Rise and Fall of American Growth,” published this year. These are portraits of each point in time, culled from Mr. Gordon’s research; you can decide for yourself which era is truly most transformative.”

NYT: [The link]