We bring you interviews about smartphones hijacking us, an Aziz Ansari interview, how sex robots get intimate, a Trump beating, a famous people painting. Of course we always finish with the best pic/gif online.
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!
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As always, click on the headline to be taken to original source. Sometimes I insert my incendiary comments on article excerpts between [brackets].
I slow down blogging down in the weekends, just some selected links that made an impression to me during the past week. Now only on Sundays!
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Before we get serious with the links, lets all applaud this comment by reader Sam yesterday telling us all about the publicity of the One Mile Conversion at a Time blogger and his lobster roll shocking incident lol. I am still laughing. And that is a joy of blogging you guys, taking the day off from whining woohoo!
Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones. Tristan Harris Wants to Rescue Them
You know this is becoming one of my favorite subjects lately. I have many actually (link on sex robots below hehe). The smartphones are…changing us. This dude, Tristan Harris, is on top of it imho and this is a fascinating interview he gave to WIRED after he became known from his TED talk.
Sometimes our smart phones are our friends, sometimes they seem like our lovers, and sometimes they’re our dope dealers.
…the problem is the hijacking of the human mind: systems that are better and better at steering what people are paying attention to, and better and better at steering what people do with their time than ever before. These are things like “Snapchat streaks,” which is hooking kids to send messages back and forth with every single one of their contacts every day. These are things like autoplay, which causes people to spend more time on YouTube or on Netflix. These are things like social awareness cues, which by showing you how recently someone has been online or knowing that someone saw your profile, keep people in a panopticon.
It’s just that the premise in the war for attention is that it’s going to get better and better at steering us toward its goals, not ours.
Imagine we replace the Comment button with a Let’s Meet button. [Hmmm, I wonder if TBB blog readers Ramsey and John ever meet…grab your popcorn!]
I think we’re going to look at the advertising model—which has an unbounded interest in getting more of people’s time on a screen—and see it as being as archaic as the era when we got all our power from coal. Advertising is the new coal. It was wonderful for propping up the internet economy. It got us to a certain level of economic prosperity, and that’s fantastic. And it also polluted the inner environment and the cultural environment and the political environment because it enabled anyone to basically pay to get access to your mind. And on Facebook specifically, it allows the hyper-targeting of messages that perfectly persuade and polarize populations. And that’s a dangerous thing. It also gave all these companies an incentive to maximize how much time they have of your life. So we have to get off of this business model. And we haven’t actually invented the alternative yet. [TBB gets no revenue from ads, none! I delete numerous emails for sponsored posts and shit like that. I am my own BS filter! Oh I so agree with this! This has caused Kardashian like click bait to carpet bomb the blogs online, sad!]
The interview veers off to topics like coming up with a new business model (good luck!), regulation (not happening in this administration) and, surprisingly to me, mentions Apple could be the company to lead the way to the new world…Time will tell as it always does. In the meantime, control yourselves with your damn phones!
Aziz Ansari on Quitting the Internet, Loneliness, and Season 3 of Master of None
Not sure if this TBB edition should be renamed the interview edition. Because I do have another interview for you! And this one is more fun as it is with the comedian Aziz Ansari. And it gets personal, deeply introspective, provoking and, of course, it is wildly funny in parts. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. We both have more money than we ever imagined. And I was like, Can you imagine if someone called us a few years ago and said, “All right, you’re going to have this much money when you’re this age. What are you gonna do with it?” You would say all sorts of fantastical things, right? No one would say, Oh, I would figure out how to make more money and keep working all the time. Everyone just buys into this, like, Oh, I need to keep making stuff, I need to go make more money. I don’t need to make more stuff. I’ve made a lot of stuff! I’m financially okay. I’m not gonna make stuff just for the sake of making stuff. I want to make stuff ’cause I’m inspired. Right now I don’t really feel inspired.
I got the world by the balls professionally. Personally, I’m alone right now. And when you have the world by the balls professionally, the balls disintegrate and then you gotta find new balls when you’re inspired again. So right now, I have it by the balls, but I’m feeling it slowly going away and I’m worried about finding new balls. But another part of me is like, You don’t need to find new balls. The new balls will come when they need to come. Live your life, experience things, and balls will always come your way. [TBB’s balls do not disintegrate as long as the blog stays up lol]
I hope more people get very successful and then quit. Shouldn’t that be the game? That you make a bunch of money and just move to Italy and live a quiet life? No one does it! You do a bunch of shit and you just want to do more shit. Tom Cruise! Look at that guy! He will not stop! [LOL]
Humans and robots are on the cusp of a sexual intimacy we may never reverse
Okay, we are now going 3 for 3 in interviews so I am officially calling this TBB edition the Shocking Interview chronicles, catchy huh? Okay, if you are a new blog reader, don’t get turned off by a discussion about sex robots okay? Long time readers know my ridiculous fascination about weird things (North Korea, brutalist architecture, smartphone addiction, remote places, drones, photography, art, Trump beatings and stuff like that) so this is not new. You know, there are scientists studying the profound questions surrounding technology, ethics, sex, robots, AI, love, intimacy and…I mean, do I continue? You get the message.
This is an interview of Aimee van Wynsberghe, a professor of robotics and ethics at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and co-founder of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics. She with fellow ethicist Noel Sharkey wrote the influential study titled “Our Sexual Future With Robots”. I find this stuff fascinating. I am weird. Anyways, this topic fits the TBB mission to educate, entertain and…(cough) inspire perfectly, no?
In parallel to the sex robot industry, which is led by the porn industry, you have artificial intelligence exploding. The AI does the facial recognition, the voice recognition, the learning algorithms to try and pick up on how you express emotions, or to collect your physiological data: If your heart rate increases when you’re talking about S&M sadism and masochism, maybe that’s what you like, and the robot could react.
There are already charities that provide sexual helpers to people with disabilities. [What? Come again? WTF, really! Can we get a tax deduction to donate to them? With a travel rewards credit card. I will get the genius TBB marketing staff to work on an arrangement to get 5x on such donations…only if you get the credit cards with my links. GENIUS! TPG staff working on their resumes…RIGHT NOW!]
I’m excited by certain types of robots, and certain capabilities that robots will have. I’m worried about the concept of “moral deskilling”—that we could lose some of what it is to be human. We won’t be as practiced at looking people in the eye, and trying to understand where they’re coming from. Imagine someone going through a tough time is sitting in front of you crying. You’re late for your appointment, but you’re going to sit there and be with them. Increasingly we might not have those opportunities, and if we’re suddenly confronted with them we won’t know how to deal with it. [Wow, she nails it! Maybe I should fly to interview her! Deduct everything of course, legitimate business expenses baby. In a coffee shop in Amsterdam! #brilliant]
Another parallel technology is teledildonics. The “tele” part indicates that there’s a telelcommunications network involved, so the idea is that partners could use devices to have sexual intercourse at a distance. But the kind of information and the amount of information that a dildo can pick up— temperature of the vagina, length of time before getting to an orgasm, all of these things that a company has access to—that’s very personal information. And right now there is no sort of policy or best practice on whether a company is allowed to collect that information, to share it, store it, use it, destroy it. There’s nothing. In fact, a class action has been brought against a company in Canada for collecting data without knowledge that the data was being collected or what it would be used for. That’s symptomatic of the robotics world. When you go into a store and you have a robot to show you where the hammer is; or you go into a bank and a robot asks “Are you here to see a cashier or for a loan?”—that’s all very valuable information for advertisers and marketers. We’re all going to fall into this data trap, where the most valuable part of the robot is the data that it collects. [Ok, my mind is blown at this point!]
Death of a F***ing Salesman
I get a lot of grief here for being anti-Trump. I dig it. Hey, get your own blog and post pro Trump stuff. But I think I post good shit here. And here is one from NATIONAL REVIEW, not your typical leftie liberal Clinton/Obama stained sources, okay? For a conservative…this is some really effing material, yikes! I see myself as a moderate, leaning conservative fiscally and liberal socially. I get along with Republicans and Democrats, I can not stand extremists in both sides. We are all different. We must work together. But this Trump dude…how did this happen?
Just a few excerpts:
Trump is the political version of a pickup artist, and Republicans — and America — went to bed with him convinced that he was something other than what he is. Trump inherited his fortune but describes himself as though he were a self-made man.
21 Best Travel Photos Of 2017
Some of these have been posted before in my blog but I see some new ones. I just love this one so much!
And this one is a repost because it ROCKS!
Famous People Painting – Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante
I usually have stopped by now…But this one I am afraid someone else will post. Because it is AMAZING! Click on each person and…LEARN about them, so TBBish. Check out Putin at the bottom and the LOL Cat on the left, woohoo!
You can learn about horrid lobster rolls aboard American Airlines planes or get educated and amazed here. Thanks for the clicks you guys 😉
And I leave you with this…
Enjoy my blog while it lasts.
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore
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everybody sleeping in?
Busy reading posts at TPG how to get super low fares with WOW to Europe that are a pathetic excuse to pump a shit load of affiliate links? Probably not with this audience but just sayin…
We saw some stars falling last night at a local park. Showers it wasn’t!
Or maybe readers are actually reading this edition.
I just checked my links. Another $0 day. TBB for freeeeeeee 🙂
I’m re-reading. A post for the ages.
I am having breakfast. Lobster roll nowhere near 🙂
Great post George.
I’ll admit I never thought Trump could be worse than I anticipated. Now it’s amusing to talk with my reasonable conservative friends who long ago stopped defending him. Interesting times ahead
Wait…Based on a few readers finding the time to comment here I have to go back to pimping and whining lol. Reading some of their comments is just amazing to me…of the “humanity” you find online….
This Trump dude is really something…
Even with all the stuff Trump screwed up already. I still wouldnt pull the lever for Hillary. And im not a Trump fan. More of an anti-Hillary fan. But I do love to watch the internet meltdown over the guy. Pretending as if racism wasnt a big thing before Trump, pretending that everyone loved each other before Trump. He certainly adds a level of hysteria to the world stage sometimes in righties but mostly in leftists.
I’ll also say they should allow those racist facist morons to have their stupid rally, they need to be exposed to light so everyone can see how stupid they are and how the conduct themselves. Its the best way to rid ourselves of them.
I agree with everything you said. I will give you a little more time to admit that Hillary would be better than Trump 🙂
These assholes have a right to rally because this is America. But the phucking media would sensationalize and give them MUCH more exposure what these nuts deserve. Watch how we will now know everything about the Ohio dude who slammed his car to the anti-protesters and killed one of them…we will see his ugly face all over and know what he had for breakfast even….
Watching for some meteors last night and talking with some friends we talked about how also the left is doing the same shit the right used to do. And I think they are doing it in an ever bigger scale.
Extremism blows. In all sides. But looking at some of these Nazi scum and seeing Trump NOT singling them out (just a little bit, come on, phucking Nazis in 2017 man!) is a bit much. But we have come to expect this crap from Trump.
Something else…I actually LIKE the shit from Trump against North Korea, the North Koreans are probably freaking out right now because their shit is being (finally!!!!) responded to in kind with more shit. Never done before, they all just kind of went along with the same shit to appease them and kick the can down the road. Who is more crazy? As long as no nukes take off…it is kind of amusing to watch. Grab some popcorn!
The more time goes on though….I would have loved to see anyone but Trump in the WH, the dude is a national embarrassment.
The North Korean “crisis” won’t end until Donald Trump stops talking/tweeting.
I personally dont think Kim Jong cares who is in office. Its kinda naive to think if Trumps stops tweeting or wasnt POTUS then he would cease. He was starting ish before and will after Trump is gone.
Easy distraction from other events to…tweet one out about them North Koreans to divert attention from the fake news media 🙂
I am thinking there should be some good fares to Guam soon, no?
Correct. This is a self-made “crisis”. US military alert has not changed. US state department has not changed the travel recommendations to the region (South Korea). We’ve know about DPRKs effort for a long time. What will the US administration do? Are there coordinated effort within the administration?
Based on previous behavior, the commander in chief is just busy tweeting.
agree 100%
Even today I wouldn’t vote for Hillary. And seeing what dems are doing (nothing
but being anti-Trump), I wouldn’t vote for any of them neither. This country
is so f#$%’up, it’s beyond anybody’s imagination and what’s sad, most people
don’t see it. They all scream “Trump” without seeing the whole f#$%’up picture…
I always vote for the one who is less worse 🙂
Hey u make it sound like America is the worst place to live. I still would not want to live anywhere else.
I wonder if anyone would notice if no anti protesters and media showed up.
Be positive 🙂
America is the worst country except for all others
I am mad as hell and I am not going to churn it any more…
said no Hobbyist ever lol
Hello from the air courtesy of the US Bank WiFi coupon.
Freeeeee!
Just wait until the few toxic people appear here to complain….about the horrible person that I am….
Just read an amazing article…Sadly I added it to the next Sunday edition. Pimping and whining 24/7 here lol.
When will I read an interview with a sex-robot?
Do I really want want one with AI? Someone who can realize that it’s been bought and maybe doesn’t “like” what I do to it?
I have MANY ideas about parody posts. I must admit I never thought of doing a parody interview with a sex-robot one though lol. But I don’t have time and I can not insert enough whining references because the sex robot will be annoyed and never understand me.
P.S. Added last sentence to annoy the hell out of the “Anonymous” poster below…
Ok, watermelon time!
Don’t worry about anonymous, he crazy. I saw him posting over at TPG asking for anal bleaching recommendations, then clicking on TPG affiliate links for an Amex Platinum with a 10K signup bonus to pay for the sessions!
Stop. Whining. Seriously. Shut up. Can’t you see how people ignore you every time you talk about not making money from clicks and cry about names people call you. Nobody cares. You’re talking to yourself like a crazy person. Shut up and do what you do or you will drive more of us away. How many readers do you need to see leave because of your constant whining? It’s annoying as hell.
Readers: Do I ban idiotic comments like this?
>>>>>>>>>Can’t you see how people ignore you every time you talk about not making money from clicks and cry about names people call you.
This is what “focusing on the positive means” lol.
I actually laugh about the names I am called. I actually enjoy it. I used to officiate high school soccer games. I have heard it all from parents dude. I used to give yellow and red cards with a smile on my face while slowly turning my head towards the player’s parents, LOVED it every time!
>>>>>>>Shut up and do what you do…
This is what drives worthy bloggers to give up dear readers. This attitude!
>>>>>>…or you will drive more of us away.
Lol. So you are doing this to help me right? Let me guess: You have taken absolutely NO action to encourage a blogger in a meaningful way and you just expect them to “do what they do” which is expressing themselves in their own blog, educating readers and (this is important) alerting new/aspiring bloggers of blogging pitfalls!
We would all love it if we drive you away and STAY away dude.
>>>>>>>>How many readers do you need to see leave because of your constant whining?
Actually, I don’t give a shit. People read blogs because they enjoy them and get some positive value out of them. I read them all because I blog about the Blog Buzzzzzzzz, ok?
>>>>>>>>It’s annoying as hell.
You are obviously annoyed and sound very angry. May I suggest you read some other blogs instead of mine? Doctor of Credit and Mile Nerd, you like them more. They are both on my Blogs I Like list, so there you go. Go ahead. Bye bye. We will all miss you…NOT!
It’s my blog and I can do what I want!
I don’t mind comments like this…But if profanity, sexist, racist and vicious name calling (including dildos) are posted here in the comments they will be BANNED!
Capiche?
Whining goes down when I make minimum wage. Because the psychic rewards of blogging are on top, like that icing with that beautiful cherry on top.
Should I go see the movie Detroit tonight or write that article I owed an obscure journal about 401k Plan rollovers?
I wasted five minutes of my life responding to yet another comment in my blog. You don’t see Titans do that. And this is why I will never be a Titan<--------------added that to annoy the "anonymous" commenter. Because...I am TBB and I blog for (almost) freeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Dude, may I suggest you have a lobster roll?
Appreciate you saying you will ban people who call others names. If people can’t communicate without doing that, they don’t have any business in an adult conversation. Then again, they did vote someone President like that…
“How many readers do you need to see leave because of your constant whining?
Anonymous
Aug 13, 2017
Answer: Just one more.
+11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Got an old PC, 1 button got stuck. How conveeeenient 🙂
I gained a lot of respect for Aziz Ansari from that interview. EVERYONE should question how much money they *really* need, and how much their need for even more money comes from psychological self-image failings.
In other words, if you’re truly self-confident you have no need to brag, put on displays, and tell everyone.
I find the miles/points sphere is analogous. For every Pedro who is quietly very successful at this, there’s 100 poseurs whose “self-confidence” is solely a marketing tool. Remember folks, the “Con” in “Con Man” stands for “confidence.”
I’m completely with you about Aziz. I think the same thing every time I talk to someone solely focused on how much they make or getting their next raise. Lucky for me, I love travel and can do it for nearly free, so I don’t have a huge need for money. Not the right attitude when you’re self employed, but what can you do…?
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/01/classic-study-on-happiness-and-the-lottery.html
I was like Pedro…then I started blogging and you won’t believe what happened next 🙂
I thought it was refreshing to hear that from Aziz as well. You don’t see that much these days. I mean, look at TPG, he won’t stop too…
Post is scheduled, Feedly unread is zero, wine is good…
My daughter started whining about me whining and she doesn’t even read my blog! When I said “well, you can help out and learn lots of stuff too”…she says “I am a responsible student”. And this is why we are not getting a dog because…I will end up taking care of it.
TBB inner voice: Go To Bed Now!
Should I give out lobster rolls as prizes? Discuss.
Chips or Tomato Soup?
What do y’all say?
I love love this blog and it’s kick ass author. But ugh the political stuff. Just can’t escape it!
I would not post that beating if it was not from a conservative source. I am very balanced. Unlike what my wife thinks of me sometime. And my mother too 🙂