Monthly Archives

August 2013

Inspirational, Technology

Jobs by Joshua Michael Stern

Jobs (2013) film

The film desperately needs some sort of unifying story. It jumps around in time too much. No part of the story really gets fleshed out so much that you care about it. I would much rather the film covered the launch of Apple as a company, say, rather than trying to cram 24 action-packed years into two hours.

Last night was the premiere of the Steve Jobs biopic featuring Ashton Kutcher. Despite the mixed reviews and negative backlash, I found it pretty refreshing, bold and honest. If I was someone who did not know about the history of Jobs, then I can see how one would see the film as a bit choppy. Many good points of his life were not fully represented such as his time at NeXT and Pixar. However, I think that Kutcher portrayed him pretty raw and accurate for the most part. We got to see the ups and downs of one of the most iconic innovators of the last century.

An extended version or even a part 2 is needed, as many want to see the story continue through the iPhone, iPad and his unfortunate death.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak discussed the film on Bloomberg.  He stated that he found a lot of things wrong with “Jobs” but generally liked Kutcher’s portrayal of his long time friend and business partner. Woz is consulting on the Aaron Sorkin adaptation of the biography of Steve Jobs.

10 things I learned going it alone

Commercial success comes through that continual improvement, not by somehow “getting it right” first time around.

In the film, we saw how the Apple II was major revenue generator for the company. I believe that the first impression is worth a lot. However, a leader is a good one when they are able to quickly learn from their mistakes and see the cons of their business, work or service. And then improve the next version 10-fold.

Inspirational, Technology

Hyperloop

Elon Musk finally unveils prototype plans for the highly anticipated “Hyperloop”

The solar-powered system, which Musk previously described as a cross between a Concorde, rail gun and air-hockey table, would shoot as many as 28 passengers in each enclosed capsule through a low-pressure steel tube at up to 800 miles per hour, according to the 57-page design plan.

Musk is the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX. He has a track record of envisioning marvellous ideas and then actually bringing them into reality. If anyone is going to be able to pull off a brand new mode of transportation, it’s him. However, it is worth mentioning that Musk doesn’t actually intend to do it all by himself, hence why it is an open-sourced project. Who can blame him though? He is running multiple up and coming companies.

“Musk maintains that he has too much on his plate to deal with bringing the Hyperloop to fruition. “I wish I had not mentioned it,” he says. “I still have to run SpaceX and Tesla, and it’s fucking hard.”

I think it’s great that we have innovative and inspiring individuals  such as Musk in the world. There are just too many “arm-chair” CEOs and nothing actually gets done. The landscape of the world and technology is rapidly accelerating and we need help pushing the human race forward from all industries. We need people like him.

Musk talks about going from downtown LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes. But one of my dreams is to be able to travel from downtown Toronto to downtown Ottawa in around 30 minutes. Wouldn’t that be just awesome? Then, imagine the infrastructure of multiple hyperloops that would allow one to travel from one side of North America to the other with just 6 stops in about 3 hours. Thrilling.

Inspirational

Jobs Wins Disney Legends Award

This is a very emotional and touching recount of John Lasseter’s time with the late Steve Jobs. For those of you that don’t know, John is the founder and chief creative officer of Pixar. Steve played a critical role in building up Pixar into the animations studio it is today. They brought all time classics to life such as the first full-length animated feature Toy Story.

 

Ashton on Jobs

Last night at the Teen Choice awards, Ashton Kutcher, who portrays Steve in the upcoming film “Jobs”, reflected some life lessons. He started off with “being smart is sexy” and this quote from Steve:

“Everything around us that we call life was made up of people that are no smarter than you. And you can build your own things and you can build your own life that other people can live in. So build a life, don’t live one, find your opportunities and always be sexy.”

LINKS

August 11, 2013

An interview with Richard Branson and Elon Musk

This is a very neat hangout with two of the worlds most innovative and inspirational people. I love when they talk about futurist projects such as space travel: SpaceX and Virgin Galactichyper loop and entrepreneurship.

CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta apologies for being so wrong about medicinal Marijuana 

The number of people who die from smoking Marijuana is abysmal. Deaths caused by alcohol and cigarettes far exceed that of pot. Why it’s still illegal in North America beats me.

What if novelists (or any non-athelete) took steroids?

Why are only athletes like A-Rod and Lance Armstrong being shunned upon for using substances that improve their abilities? Suppose ANY person who made money off a talent or skill was not allowed to use something that enhanced their performance? I’d love to see news reporters or surgeons work around the clock without a hint of caffeine in their body.

MIT PhD student Kuang Xu applies math to the ER

We now live in a modern era of health care and medicine. This calls for new ways to do things efficiently in medical facilities such as hospitals. Being able to predict the flow of patients during different times will be an extremely use way to manage the increasing population.

Joe Rogan Questions “Robo-sapiens” on Syfy

A glimpse at our not so distant future. If Ray Kurzweil accurately predicts that 2045 will be the year of the singularity, then I should be able to purchase a cool avatar for myself in my lifetime. But that BINA48 sure is kind of creepy.

Lavabit shuts down

In an unfortunate act of defiance, the encrypted email service used by Edward Snowden was shut down by its owner Ladar Levinson. He stated that he would rather terminate all Lavabit business than hand over information that he swore to protect for his clients. Silent Circle also closed it’s encrypted email service shortly after.

Facebook won’t be around in the next few generations

Personally, I am finding myself using other social networks such as Twitter a lot more than my Facebook account. If teens aren’t interested in using it right now, then the future of Facebook isn’t looking to good. And their recent boost in ad revenue is just temporary.

Google embeds ads in maps

I’ll stick with Apple Maps. Thanks.

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