sidneyvollmer

Published author & copywriter from Amsterdam, working as a copywriter & public speaker. Currently writing book#3: a collection of personal essays on digital culture. Portfolio at sidneyjohnvollmer.com. Tumblr is for ocassional finds.

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

Next level interface development. 

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

LRB · John Lanchester · The Robots Are Coming: The robots are coming

In 1996, in response to the 1992 Russo-American moratorium on nuclear testing, the US government started a programme called the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative. The suspension of testing had created a need to be able to run complex computer simulations of how old weapons were . . .

How to put this digital day & age into perspective?

This boek helped me, at least.

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

Very interesting talk on the future i.e. present of advertising.

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

That Way We’re All Writing Now

First we LOLed. Now we’re changing the way a sentence works.

Something I’ve been noticing for a while now: we’re changing grammar. Personally, I feel it’s the human need for creativity first and emotional incoherence/ social anxiety second. 

But, who knows, these might just be interchangeable.  

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

"The most dramatic results reflected emotional intensity. Reading a Twitter timeline generates 64 percent more activity in the parts of the brain known to be active in emotion than normal Web use. Tweeting and retweeting boosts that to 75 percent more than a run-the-mill website. The final measurement had to do with memory. Passive Twitter use indicated 34 percent more activity in areas linked with memory formation than normal online use. With active Twitter use, the number rose to 56 percent."

https://medium.com/backchannel/this-is-your-brain-on-twitter-cac0725cea2b

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

The AI Revolution: Road to Superintelligence - Wait But Why

Younger than 35? I think you need to read this.

The topic everyone in the world should be talking about.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Bruce Sterling talks technology and science fiction with Intel’s futurist Brian David Johnson

Intel futurist Brian David Johnson continues his excellent “Tomorrow Project” with the first of a series of videos of his dialog with Bruce Sterling. In this opening installment, Sterling describes the impact that technology had on the science fiction writers of his generation (specifically, what the word processor did to cyberpunk) and how that figured into the process deployed by him and William Gibson as they worked on The Difference Engine.

Read the rest…

[tetw]

5 Great Articles about Artificial Intelligence

We Know How You Feel by Raffi Khatchadourian - Computers are learning to read emotion, and the business world can’t wait Mind vs. Machine by Brian Christian - The march of technology isn’t just changing how we live, it’s raising new questions about what it means to be human The Artificial Examiner by Steven Johnson - Are computers better qualified than humans to grade student essay exams? All Can Be Lost by Nicholas Carr - We rely on computers to fly our planes, find our cancers, design our buildings, audit our businesses. That’s all well and good. But what happens when the computer fails? Auto Correct by Burkhard Bilger - Has the self driving car arrived at last?

[futurescope]

Thync: Change your mood on demand

Thync develops a brain-altering wearable technology, that "shifts your state of mind" whenever you want. The device is based on advanced neuroscience and uses neurosignaling algorithms and biomaterials. It works via contact electrodes placed along the orbital ridge and the base of the neck.

Access to the human mind opens new possibilities for a more productive life. Thync creates wearable consumer products that use neurosignaling to shift your state of mind. Our technology induces on-demand shifts in energy, calm, or focus.

Funky thing, if it works. Shiny happy people holding hands in a brave new world.

[read more on qz] [Thync]

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

Feel better yet?

No judgement… But… Like… Back when I grew up, this stuff came in pill form.

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

Je suis Don Draper: what do we advertising folk do now?

Here is a column I wrote for Amsterdam Ad Blog about the recent events in Paris.

www.amsterdamadblog.com/columns/je-suis-don-draper/

[artruby]

Lucia Fainzilber.

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

Driving on my bicycle this afternoon I was passed by a guy racing his scooter. About a hundred meters further, the water drainage was clogged, the road drowned in water. 

He purposely drove through it, creating two diagonal walls of muddy water as he went. One of the two walls of water landed on a woman in long skirts, wearing a headscarf. She was soaked head to toe.

I wasn't going to share that story here, but then I saw these pictures.

Serendipity, perhaps.

I drove to the woman, asked her if she was okay. Her Dutch was poor, but she managed to explain she was irritated, and that she just had three teeth removed, hence the scarf around her cheek. I said I was happy her coat was warm, and I was sorry for that rat on his scooter. I wished her a good weekend. She carried a lot of flimsy, plastic bags.

The rat on his scooter was long gone.

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

5 dingen die we nu NIET gaan doen in Nederland.

(Dutch) Column I wrote about the attacks on Charlie Hebdo.

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

One old Mohammed cartoon, one new defiant cartoon. 

Seemed relevant to post.

The new cartoon is made by Dutch cartoonist Joep Bertrams. It reads "Immortal".

I'm looking forward to seeing so much funny schtuff ridiculing ill-tempered psychopaths hijacking a religion. Laughter until my stomach hurts.

Also looking forward to seeing cartoons ridiculing religion, ridiculing hypocrisy and fear in each and every newspaper in the world. 

Humor is the better weapon.

Critical thinking the best. Read this.

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

Great, inspiring talk on technological developments.

And how a significant part of the problems currently emerging around the intermingling of the digital and the real is based on linguistics and ontological philosophy that's thoroughly lacking in the public debate.

[nevver]

80s Slang (larger)

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Flashback!

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This is called a Voxiebox. 

A holographic entertainment system.

[sidneyvollmer-blog]

Next level flipbooks. 

Let's write stories for these.