Kevin Kelly's Blog

With 5-year plans for hacking and cyber-spying, the Chinese are taking the long view, says FBI chief. Link.

How movie directors are using virtual production methods, like in the new Lion King reboot. The make a VR world first, then film a crude version inside it to watch the movie before they really film it. Link.

The ultimate marble-machine music box. Just because. Video Link.

“By bringing chip-design in-house, Tesla has leapfrogged the automotive industry by four years,” says ARK Invest. Link.

Some comic artists want to ban the raw punk comics of R. Crumb, once banned by cops and old folks. Link.

Delta-V is the latest novel by Daniel Suarez. It’s a science fiction thriller revolving around asteroid mining. Suarez does a magician’s job of describing the science. And I was thrilled by the story. Link.

Yes, you can easily fool an perceptual AI with unexpected visuals, which acts like a sort of camouflage. But adversarial camouflage for AI watchers will work only once. In theory, AI eyes could share what they learn quickly among each instance with eyes and so the deceit will only be temporary. Link.

The new Disney movie Lion King marks a threshold for a new way of making a film, another step erasing the line between artifice and reality, between the virtual and the natural.

The entire set of the film — all the background and characters –are virtual, that is, computer created. The entire movie was shot in what we would today call VR. As this article makes clear, the director John Favreau says “We’ve basically built a multiplayer VR filmmaking game just for the purposes of making this movie.” This is a method that will be ordinary, if not normal, for many movies in the future.

The film is created by using virtual cameras inside the virtual wildlands of Africa. The virtual animals go through their programmed moves, like an actor would, and the cinematographers must capture and record their performance inside the VR world.  Sometimes the direct will reshoot a scene to get a different angle, or a shift in the light. The director of photography, Caleb Deschanel, says “you really are doing exactly what you do when you make a movie.” The actors that voice the animals will act out their roles in a room rigged with microphones. They will be filmed as they move and their movements will be used to guide the animal movements. Those human actions will be translated into lion, or baboon or elephant behaviors, but their human voices remain. The action is built around the voice.

Today live-action action movies are often completely sketched out in a rough crude “previs” (pre-visualization) stage before they are filmed. That way the directors can watch the movie before it is filmed. Animated movies, like those from Pixar, are also completely prevised at various stages before being rendered or lit, which enables everyone working on them to see the movie before it is made. Now with ever more realistic movies, not of fantasy worlds, but of the real world, the previs stage is the same default. In a real sense, Lion King is an animation. It will be interesting to see how Hollywood classifies it. It totally looks live action, but like Toy Story, it is actually painted layer by layer, from rough doodles to finished 3D photo realistic synthetic video.

The movie Avatar pioneered in creating totally artificially constructed worlds, but in that movie the actors were “live-action” or real. In Lion King the actors are animals that are not real. Ready Player One also had virtual sets and virtual actors, and it was filmed by pushing a virtual camera through the virtual set, but the world they inhabited was not quite photo realistic in the same way or detail that Lion King is; here nature looks real down to each blade of grass.

The new way of movie-making uses a virtual production process which employs a video game engine to create the landscapes and characters, including animals. Each object, scene, character is computer generated to look so convincing that most people can’t tell they are not real. Except the animals may speak, or humans fly. Lion King is the cumulation of four strands of new filming: 1) CGI, computer special effects, 2) wholly animated movies like Pixar’s Coco or Up, and 3) the “previs” multiplied by a 1,000 and 4) VR and video games. The special effects guru Robert Legato says “Everybody does VFX movies, everybody does animated movies, everybody does live-action movies—but to mix all of them together to make something that belies how it was done is, I think, the game-changing portion of all this.”

How far can this go? I believe it will go all the way. It may become easier/better to creating a New York City apartment in LA (or Beijing) to film a movie in, than to film in an apartment in New York City. Because movie making is about controlling all the variables, which are easier to control, and easier to expand, when done virtually. All the world becomes a stage, one that you can’t tell is not the real world. That dream has been way to expense to even imagine, but with Moore’s Law it won’t be out of reach for long. As Glenn Derry, a veteran fx leader said, “We’ll know virtual production will have made it, when we do rom-coms with it.”

AIs have a problem with seeing something for the first time. Facebook says their AI had a problem detecting NZ shooting video because for first time it was from first-person POV. Link.

My prediction: Greater than 50% of US consumers (majority) won’t see 5G coverage — defined as 20Gbps and 1 ms latency — until 2023 earliest. Probably 2025. Link.

A legendary designer works with AI to design a minimal chair. The teamwork is known as a centaur. Link.

The world’s foremost electric car manufacturer is not Tesla, but BYD, in China. They started out making batteries, now make cheap electric cars. Running fast for the big prize. Link.

“While China has some 18,000 miles of high-speed rail, the U.S. has wasted, I think, $3 trillion on military spending. Since 1979 China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that’s why they’re ahead of us. In almost every way,” says Jimmy Carter. Link.

Paying for cyberwar with stolen Bitcoins. Link.

1) Data cannot be owned. By anybody.

2) The natural habitat of data is in the commons. It is born in the commons, and will return to the commons,     even if it is granted temporary monopolies. The longer it spends in the commons, the better.

3) Data is a shared resource, that only exists in relationship to its sources and substrates.

4) Any party that touches or generates a bit of data has rights and responsibilities about that data.

5) Rights always have corresponding responsibilities.

6) Control of data is both a right and responsibility that is always shared.

7) Privacy is a misunderstanding that does not apply to data.

8) Data is made more valuable by being connected to other data. Solitary data is worthless.

9) Data is made more valuable by moving. Storage is weak because it halts, “Movage” is better.

10) Both directions of movage are important — where it came from, where it goes.

11) The meta data about where data goes is as important as where it came from.

12) Ensuring bi-directionality, the symmetry of movage, is important to the robustness of the data net.

13) Data can generate infinite derivative data (meta data) but they all follow the same rules.

14) When new data is generated from data (meta data) the rights and responsibilities of the first generation proceed to the second.

15) At the same time, meta data has claims of rights and responsibilities upon the root data.

16) Data can be expensive or free, determined by the market. It has no inherent value.

17) Data is easy to replicate in time (free copies) and difficult to replicate over time (digital decay). The only way to carry data into the future is if it is exercised (moved) by those who care about it.

18) Like all other shared resources, data can suffer from the tragedy of the commons, and this commons must be protected by governments.

19) As the number of entities, including meta data, touching a bit of data expands over time, with claims of rights and responsibilities, some values will dilute and some will amplify.

20) To manage the web of relationships, rights and responsibilities of data will require technological and social tools that don’t exist yet.

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Online figure drawing

I live close to the Art Director’s Guild headquarters in Los Angeles, which has weekly evening figure drawing classes. My daughter and I go there occasionally, but I recently discovered a site called Line of Action that has a useful figure drawing practice system. It shows you a series of figure models posing for specified periods of time, just like a real figure drawing session. The hands-and-feet tool is especially useful (and challenging) for me. — MF

Renting Tools

Reminder: Your local Home Depot or other big box building store rents an amazing array of tools. Not just carpet shampooers, but carpet dryers, concrete cutting saws, pipe locators, ditch diggers, stump grinders, wallpaper removers, cherry pickers — all kinds of tools you will use only once in your life. Check out their selection. It’s a great way to try out a tool. My rule is if I want to rent a tool a second time, it’s worth buying. Last year I rented an electric power-washer. This year, I bought one. — KK

Figure out what song was playing

Whenever I’m watching TV and a song catches my ear, I often don’t have the chance to ask Siri what it is. Tunefind is great for that, because the next day I can just look up whatever show I was watching and listen to clips of all the songs that were played during that episode. Once I find the song, I can be redirected to listen on Spotify or search for the song on Youtube. — CD

Low-cost compact prism binoculars

I bought two of these handheld binoculars ($23) for an upcoming Rolling Stones concert my wife and I are going to. They are small and light enough that  I could put them in a daypack and not know they are there. The optics are excellent, especially for the price. — MF

Touring by bicycle

I’m a huge fan of bicycles as the ideal way to tour. You see more than in a car, but you cover more than walking. Inexpensive, too. The Adventure Cycling Association is dedicated to encouraging bike touring in the US and offers very detailed maps and guides for many routes, short and long – including those paths without cars. I used their fantastic maps to bicycle 2,000 miles from Vancouver to Mexico along the Pacific coast with minimal traffic, hills, and hurdles. Plus tons of other help for bike touring. — KK

A view for your cat

The best gift you can give your indoor cat is a great view and a comfy place to nap. I’ve owned both the original Kitty Cot ($50) and the less expensive version by Oster ($20), and they’re both great. The Kitty Cot offers more size options and the Oster Sunny Seat has a machine washable cover and can hold up to 50 pounds. Every time I witness my little furry Frida sleeping or lounging in her perch enjoying her view, I think about what a smart purchase this was. — CD

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Social mission Bollywood

Two notable Bollywood films give you that special dose of outlandish song, dance and rom-com drama that you expect with a Bollywood extravaganza, plus they advance a vital social cause. And they will give you deep insight into today’s India. Both films are about a maverick who takes it upon himself to undo an entrenched detrimental Indian custom. Interestingly, the same Bollywood super-star, Akshay Kumar, plays the protagonist in both films, which are based on true stories. Toilet: A Love Story is the movie version of a real guy who tried to put toilets in his home against the wishes of the village, and his wife is pressured to divorce him for this affront, and how this became a national campaign. Padman is the true story of a guy trying to get Indian village women to use sanitary pads instead of being quarantined outside during menstruation. He invents a way to make the pads cheaply, which he tests on himself. (!!!) His wife also divorces him. But all ends well in both films — it’s Bollywood! There is a third film, a straight documentary about the real Padman, called Period. End of Sentence. This won an Oscar this year for a documentary short. Quite inspirational. All three films can be streamed on Netflix with English subtitles. The first two are painless entryways into Bollywood. — KK

Danish word for stressful situations

“Pyt” is now in my vocabulary thanks to this Fast Company article. It doesn’t have an English translation, but Danes use it as an interjection to frustrations or mishaps. It means something like “Oh, well,” and is used as a reset button to accept the situation and refocus rather than react. I like it because it sounds like a cute short curse word. — CD

Sketch pad for all media

My art student daughter has been using these spiral-bound Canson Mix Media 7×10 drawing pads. I started buying them for myself, too. The heavy paper easily handles ink pens, watercolor, and Copic markers, and has a nice texture for pencils. A 60-sheet notebook is only $7. — MF

Use Dropbox within Gmail

If you use Dropbox, installing the Dropbox Chrome extension is a timesaver. I no longer have to search for files in subfolders to copy and paste share links. With the extension, I can access all my folders and recent files and attach them in a message without having to leave Gmail. If someone sends me a dropbox link, I can download it directly to my computer without being redirected to another window — all these saved clicks add up! — CD

Automatic product comparisons

When researching a product online, type in the item in Google and then add “vs”. Google will auto-complete with the most popular, and highly rated, alternatives, and the top link will educate you quickly. Then “vs” autocomplete the new item and you’ll have a good sense of the field. — KK

Another use for Starbucks cards

(This tip comes from Recomendo reader Andy Kegel, who saw my tip about converting leftover foreign currency to Starbucks credit.) “More and more rebates come as prepaid credit/debit cards. It’s hard to find something for exactly the face amount, so I feel like I’m always gifting back part of the rebate via unspent residuals. So now I put the whole amount on a Starbucks card or similar and I can spend the entire face value.” — MF

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Never-ending ambient music

Everambient is a $2 iPhone app that plays algorithmically generated ambient music. I’ve been listening to it all day while I work. Check out samples here. — MF

Car and bike safety

Anyone can accidentally kill a bicyclist if you open your car door at the wrong time. Learn the “dutch reach” method (Holland is a serious bike country) to open your door mindfully and save a life. — KK

Convert words to time

Wordstotime.com is a quick way to calculate how many minutes it would take to read a specific number of words out loud. I recently needed to fill up at least 8 minutes of talk time for an audio recording, so I started with this website and aimed for 1,250 words as I typed. — CD

Understanding technical papers

The best way I’ve found to understand a very technical or scientific paper is to search YouTube for someone to explain it. The ideal is to find a journal club report. Journal clubs are informal groups who share the task of explaining an interesting paper to each other. Each member rotates in picking a paper to explain to their peers. This is 100 times better than having the author explain it, because authors assume too much prior knowledge. It is better to have a newbie who just figured it out. If you are lucky, a journal club will video their reports and post. Search YouTube with the paper’s title or topic and add the term “journal club.” — KK

Most comfortable flip-flops

Sanuk Yoga Slings are made from recycled yoga mats and are unbelievably comfortable to walk around in. The thong sandals have stretchy fabric straps that you can pull around your ankle so that they never fall off. I gave a pair to my mother-in-law, who was born and raised in Hawaii and maybe the ultimate authority on flip-flops, and she loves them. — CD

Absorbent stone coasters

My wife bought this set of 6 cool-looking large white stone coasters with cork backings ($19). They have attractive black patterns that appear to be hand-painted. The stone is absorbent, so they soak up condensation. — MF

This is the best user-guide to personal finance I’ve found, and I’ve probably read them all. It is certainly the sanest and most level-headed. There are no get rich quick schemes here, just plenty of ways to get rich slowly. Indeed, Get Rich Slowly was the name of author’s very popular personal finance blog, which led to this book. J.D. Roth takes the great investing advice of Andrew Tobias in The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need, and he summarizes the life-earning wisdom in the previously reviewed (and still recommended) book Five Rituals of Wealth and he includes the needed crystalization of priorities found in Your Money or Your Life, and financial motivations from Suze Orman and the Millionaire Next Door and then adds key insights and tips from hundreds of other lesser-known money gurus.

Basically, Roth has read every book and blog on money managing, investing, saving, and earning and digests and integrates all this hard-won knowledge into an amazing selection of smart, practical ideas for today. I could hardly turn a page without learning a solid investing tip or two, or a clever way to save a few hundred dollars, or an example of something I already knew, but was looking for a vivid way to teach my kids. I like the fact that Roth emphasizes the value of sharing whatever wealth you have, and keeps returning to the long view.

I would not call this an inspirational book (plenty of those on the shelves), nor even a memorable book like the ones mentioned above. Rather it is what is advertised: a day-to-day operating manual for your money. Specific details, sources, methods, tricks. Dip into it when you are stuck, check it before trying something new, re-read it when you think you know it all. I’ve done pretty well financially, and if you were to ask me my practical advice — like what to do tomorrow — I would simply give you this book. It’s slow, but true.

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Bad Blood

My wife and I tore through John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood. It’s the story of Theranos, the fraudulent Silicon Valley startup that promised to revolutionize health but instead perpetrated a potentially murderous scam. The founder surrounded herself with ultrarich powerful people who were blind to obvious warning signs because they were so enamored with the idea that they were going to make billions of dollars. This real-life tale beats any fictional corporate thriller. — MF

Maniacal performance

The fantastic documentary Free Solo deserves all praise it has received, including its recent Oscar. The film follows one guy’s attempt to climb the vertical face of Yosemite’s El Capitan without ropes. A single slip he dies. I could barely watch it, it was that crazy good. As the climber’s friend put it: this demands an Olympic gold medal performance, except here, if you don’t get the gold, you die. The film has suspense, drama, emotion, and explores maniacal obsession and perfection. Five stars. Now streamable. — KK

Sunday Soother

I love reading The Sunday Soother by Catherine Andrews — a newsletter about practical spirituality. Each week she shares her thoughts and processes for slowing down and creating more meaning in life, as well as articles, books, beauty products, recipes and more. It’s like getting an intimate letter from a friend. Each email is a tool for self-reflection. Her last two issues were dedicated to grief and ambiguous loss — which I learned is a particular type of loss that lacks a definition and closure. She solicited stories from her readers and here is what was shared.

Narwhal for Reddit

If you have an iPhone, Narwhal is the best app to access Reddit. It’s snappy, and highly customizable and much easier to use than Reddit’s own app. — MF

Happiness practices around the world

I’ve stumbled upon these ten little drawings of happiness practices all over the internet, and they still make me happy. I like learning untranslatable words that stretch the imagination. My favorite from this set is the idea of forest bathing. — CD

Smallest, cheapest flashlight

This ThorFire is the brightest, cheapest ($15), smallest, lightest LED flashlight that runs on a single AA (rechargeable) battery. Rugged, made of metal, it will stand up on its end. I have them everywhere. — KK

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Extreme street fashion

Japanese youth have more fun with fashion than anyone. When I need a dose of pick-me-up, a bit of fresh thinking, or a smile, I head over to the Tokyo Fashion Tumblr, which features the latest eye-popping street-fashion finds on the streets of Tokyo. Never dull. — KK

Rediscover things you saved

I uploaded a copy of my Chrome bookmarks to Mailist, and now once a week I get an email newsletter with 10 random links to pages and sites I have saved. It has reunited me with travel ideas, things I want to buy, and useful online tools like this fabric calculator chart. I also use it as a way to clean house and delete bookmarks I no longer have use for. — CD

Fantastic frother

Lately, I’ve been drinking a lot of cold matcha lattes, and I’m using a terrific milk frother to make them: the Nespresso Aeroccino ($71). I pour in about 4 ounces of cold unsweetened almond milk and add a teaspoon of matcha powder, then press the button for 2 seconds (a quick press will automatically heat the milk, which my wife does for cappuccinos). In about 20 seconds, I have a delicious frothy latte. The frother is nearly silent and very easy to clean, because the stirrer is magnetic and pops right off the stem. — MF

Best wirestripper

The Vise-Grip self-adjusting wirestripper is the best wirestripper, period. It perfectly strips the insulation off of small wires for electronic projects, or large wires for running power. No muss, no fuss; it just works automatically. This hand tool fits kids, and pros. It’s the one I grab. This is not just my experience, but also the opinion of Donald Bell who tested 10 different wire strippers for Cool Tools. This is the wirestripper you want. — KK

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This recomendo no longer works or is dead. — CD

Travel tip for Starbucks people

Here’s a tip I haven’t tried yet, but it sounds like a great idea. When you’re leaving a foreign country and still have some of the local currency, take it to a Starbucks and load it onto a gift card. You can use the card later in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Mexico, and the Republic of Ireland. — MF