bookofjoe

William Gibson debunks the singularity

He spoke on October 16, 2011 at the Chicago Humanities Festival about "how technology is changing our day-to-day lives and whether we need to be self-conscious about it."

Wrote Aaron Leitko in today's Washington Post, "'Look at the Victorians. For some reason, they had a need to deny that sex existed,' he [Gibson] says. 'When we're the Victorians, I think that people will say, 'For some reason they had a need to distinguish between what they thought of as the real and the virtual.'"

More: "The author takes a moment to debunk 'singularity' — the theory that man and machine will eventually merge in some kind of climax — calling it 'the geek rapture.' In Gibson's opinion, the biggest changes will sneak into our lives gradually, the way Walkmans morphed into iPods, then iPhones. 'There's not going to be any 'future,' because things are changing too quickly,' he says. 'It’s just going to be... stranger and stranger, and as it happens to you, you will be in the present moment, and it will be weird.'"

Optimus Popularis Keyboard — It's what Steve Wozniak wants for Christmas

From the website: "Optimus Popularis is a compact keyboard with each key displaying any image and being assigned any function."

"Optimus Popularis is engineered for any layout, language or symbols: Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabian, music notes, numerals, codes, math functions, images, special symbols, and so on to infinity." 

"Optimus Popularis is an indispensable tool when it comes to high performance in any creative field and will be appreciated by designers, typesetters, traders, musicians, video designers, photographers, and others."

"The upper portion of the keyboard — between the numeral keys and the Function keys — is reserved to display a custom range of the most important information. The Fn key (bottom left) switches the functions, bringing up upon request a set of tools that full-size keyboards usually have to the right."

More photos and details here.

$1,086.

Human Face Masks

From TOXEL: "The Japanese company REAL-f

makes three-dimensional replicas

of human faces."

"For $4,000 USD, you can have an extremely realistic mask

that looks — and feels — like your face."

Apply within.

Do-it-yourself Cat Four-Poster Bed

Ki Nassauer offered an easy-to-follow, copiously illustrated tutorial on how to build your own from odds and ends in a May 21, 2009 post on her site, JUNK CAMP.

I should note that Gray Cat is sitting here in front of the computer, occasionally glancing at me as if to ask,

"And the reason you're not making one for me is...?

Nice color scheme too.

[via Pembe Ruj]

Sir Isaac Newton's personal annotated "Principia Mathematica" — finally, online

It only took 324 years.

From The Guardian:

Cambridge University is putting the papers of Sir Isaac Newton online for the first time, including his own annotated copy of his greatest work, Principia Mathematica [published July 5, 1687], with notes and calculations in his handwriting revising the book and answering critics.

Grant Young, the university library's digitisation manager, said: "You can see Newton's mind at work in the calculations and how his thinking was developing. His copy of the Principia contains pages interleaved with the printed text with his notes."

"The book has suffered much, pages are badly burned or water-stained, so it is very delicate and rarely put on show. Before today anyone who wanted to see these things had to come to Cambridge and get permission to see them, but we are now bringing Cambridge University library to the world at the click of a mouse."

[via Sir Richard Kashdan]

Diamond Porcelain Ring

By Oslo-based ceramicist Bea Hustoft.

[via Fancy]

Doctors' Strike

[via MadmoiZelle]

Banana Flask

Is that a banana in your pocket or...?

Enameled metal with screw top; holds 4 oz.; 7" x 2" x 1.5".

$24.