Chris Anderson's New 'Maker' Vision - Forbes

Via Forbes:

Much as we now take for granted the “print” button on our computer,  and the desktop laser printer or ink jet that allows pixel prefect graphic rendering,  he predicts a near future when our home computers will have a “Make” button.  That button will allow you to print to your 3D printer,  or send a 3D file to be created for you at a long print shop or in mass quantity in software enabled factory. hris Anderson's New 'Maker' Vision - Forbes

A book worth considering, but basic Internet searching will likely yield the same information for free. As with The Long Tail, when Chris Anderson writes about a trend, it's already well underway, and you're about to miss it. If someone can figure out cost-effective supply chain interconnections between independent fabricators, this can rewrite how we manufacture things.

Why I got Fired from Facebook (a $100 Million dollar lesson) - Noah Kagan's Okdork.com

Via Business Insider:

Matt Cohler (early LinkedIn, FB and now Partner at Benchmark) called me a “liability” as they let me go that day in the coffee shop on University Avenue.

Why I got Fired from Facebook (a $100 Million dollar lesson) - Noah Kagan's Okdork.com

Basic lessons we all know. The real lesson comes from the statement: Matt Cohler (early LinkedIn, FB and now Partner at Benchmark) called me a “liability." Do we have the gumption to be straightforward with people at work? How do we speak the truth in love, that is, for the other person's benefit?

Thoughts for military people contemplating transition

Via Forbes, a few things to factor when thinking about taking up civilian life:

  • What you can be the best in the world at (and, equally important, what can you not be the best in the world at)?
  • What drives your economic engine?
  • What you are deeply passionate about?

Here’s a better way that couches it in terms you can do something about:

  • Skills: What skills do you have and what must you develop?
  • Personality: Who are you really? You won’t be able to change it, so find the field where your personality is an asset.
  • Intelligences: What are your God-given talents. Some psychologists say you have different kinds of intelligences. For example, good athletes have kinetic intelligence.
  • Needs: What are the world’s need the other elements of this acronym help you meet?
  • Experiences: How have your experiences prepared you?

Put them together, and you have SPINE, the backbone of your job search.

Should I worry about losing my job to a robot?

Sort of, says Andrew McAffee, but leaves us wanting more reasons or examples about why it's not as bad as it looks.

Points:

  • Wrong question: Is technology replacing workers?
  • Projected demand for workers is less than projected growth of available workers.
  • Technology will continue to increase in its ability to take over functions traditionally associated with uniquely human skills.
  • Even generalists and creatives may be at risk.
  • Future economy won’t need that many human workers.
  • We can still be optimistic about utopian, not dystopian, futures. Why?
  • Religion, empire, and intellect haven’t mattered much. Technology development has been the engine of social change, a repeat of Kurzweil’s singularity idea.
  • Technology is benefiting the bottom of the economic pyramid. Technology therefore has the potential to reduce poverty, misery, and drudgery even more significantly in the future.
  • Technology will also lead to a much smaller ecological footprint.
  • Because technology is taking our jobs today, we will be free to do new things tomorrow.

So you want to write about military topics

Found this video via Business Insider. If you want to practice writing on military topics, try this exercise. Research the experience so you have an idea of what's going on and then try reproducing the intensity of the experience in words:

How to be the Avengers all rolled into one with some Harry Potter thrown in

Here’s a small roundup of articles about various robotic/prosthetic body parts and functions that interface with people’s brains (sometimes called thought or mind control of the parts). Put them together, and we’ll soon have a fully functioning body that can reach beyond itself:

Your body:

Got telekinesis?

Interface:

How would you depict one-point perspective in your writing?

Writers will sometimes hear they should describe scenes in a way that shows but doesn't tell. To do that, they hear, imagine the scene as a movie and try to convey that imagery in words. In that spirit here's an exercise to try. Check out Stanley Kubrick's use of one-point perspective and try to reproduce that effect with words:
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