The rush to hype
Not everything is going to change the world tomorrow
I’m not sure when the “hot take” era started. It predates the internet1, but social media really seems to have kicked it into the stratosphere. There’s a rush to hype everything as the next disruptive invention. Wearable devices. Foldable displays. Ride sharing and self-driving cars. Blockchain and cryptocurrency. Artificial intelligence and machine learning. AR and VR. Federated social media.
While social media drives the hype train, it’s powered by money. Major companies are afraid of missing a big trend and becoming irrelevant. Small companies see an opportunity to move fast and take advantage of the new tech. VC firms are willing to gamble on the technology in hopes of a big pay day. Entrepreneurs sell grand visions with hopes of making it big. All of these entities benefit from building the hype around every new technology.
What technology really needs is time to mature. Time to work the bugs out. To discover the downsides and figure out how to address them. To build a sustainable business model. Instead, too often, the money-powered hype train moves too fast and the whole thing just derails.
I love reading about technology and learning about all the latest advancements, but I’ve been following technology long enough to know that slow and steady usually wins the race.2
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.
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I’ve done some research on printing technology and let me tell you, the newspaper reports from the late 1800s about the Linotype are the definition of “hot take.” ↩︎
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Do you remember the TV show Beyond 2000? How many of those featured technologies actually became successful products? Not many. ↩︎
Taylor Swift put on an amazing show last night in Atlanta.
My daughters are making sure the whole family has appropriate attire for tomorrow night’s Taylor Swift concert.
Spending the day at the coffee shop with my daughters who are reviewing for AP exams next week. I’ve been working on finishing up the revisions to my journal article, but I keep going down rabbit holes…
I had no idea that the Denver airport was such a hub for conspiracy theories: A Towering, Terrifying Demon Horse Isn’t Even the Weirdest Part - The New York Times
The willingness of my children to wear mismatched socks perplexes me greatly.
My daughter’s high school lacrosse season ended last night. It’s been a tough year for her, missing her senior season with a torn ACL, but she cheered her team on from the sidelines and attended every practice. I’m so proud of her and how hard she fought along the way.
Today starts an amazingly busy couple of weeks for my crew. Playoff lacrosse games, school field trips, five AP exams (for two high schoolers), birthday parties, a 5K, Taylor Swift and a high school prom. All in the next two weeks. I’m tired just thinking about it all.
Saw @davew@mastodon.social post a link on Scripting News about the Washington Post’s study into what sites are included in AI training databases. Turns out my other personal site, Sketchbook B, is included in Google’s C4 database, with about 71K tokens…
I use Apple Pay with my watch all the time. And cashiers are always surprised that I can do that and claim they’ve never seen someone pay with their watch. Apple Pay on the watch is the easiest way to use Apple Pay. Why don’t more people use it?
Working on editing a journal article that I got a revise and resubmit on. This is my first time through the academic publishing process, and I have to admit that it’s a challenging process. I’ve lived with this research for years and I’ve rewritten some version of this paper so many times… It started life as a class assignment, then a conference presentation. I completely started from scratch and redid the study to be a MA thesis project. And now, I’m submitting it as a journal article. I love the study and I know I’ll get it published eventually, but the process is long, y’all.
Hey @manton. I was able to upload the archive that I got from Twitter and it started a new blog and installed the plugin, but it’s been over 24 hours and I don’t see any tweets. How can I tell if it’s still in process, or if it’s stalled? Thanks for your help (and this amazing feature.)
Made it to the ocean today with a day trip to Isle of Palms in South Carolina. Beautiful weather to walk along the beach and gather shells.
Diving into Micro.Blog custom themes. It’s a little out of my comfort zone — I usually stick with messing with the CSS — but I’ve got something specific in mind and I think creating a custom template is my best bet.
Liz and I took a walk around the trails behind our house after hosting Easter dinner. After a few days of constant rain, it was nice to see the sun.
Happy Easter from Team Wertz.
Brought back two pimento cheese sandwiches from the Masters for my daughter. She’s impressed. They were $1.50 each.
Tomorrow, I’ll be at Augusta National, but I can’t share pictures because no cameras — or phones — are allowed at the course.
Our kitchen is small, but it has hosted a surprisingly large number of spontaneous family dance parties over the years.
Gruber linked to this article about GM phasing out CarPlay on future EVs. My next car purchase will be an electric car, and I won’t consider a car that doesn’t have CarPlay. We currently own two Buicks, but I guess I won’t be considering a GM vehicle when it’s time to replace these.
We added another mile of trails to our walk today. Some parts of the old-golf-course-turned-park have been reclaimed by shrubs and trees. Other sections look like you could play a round. Lots of wildlife and wildflowers. And oddly, 24 Apache attack helicopters.
My daughter is interested in shooting with film. I’ve got some old 35mm cameras, but haven’t shot film in over a decade. Anyone know about the best options for buying and developing film? A Google search reveals some online services, but I don’t know anything about them.
Star Trek Picard Speculation: Chekhov’s Starship
What’s in Hanger Bay 12?
WARNING: Spoilers and speculation about Star Trek: Picard.
In Star Trek Picard season 3, episode 6, The Bounty, the USS Titan jumps to the Starfleet Ship Museum to get help from Commodore Geordi La Forge. The first exterior shot of the museum includes a selection of familiar ships (like the Enterprise A, Voyager and the Defiant) positioned in rings around the exterior of the space dock. There was one empty ring, and so the Titan “hides” in plain sight among the museum ships.
When Geordi and his daughter Alandra beam aboard the Titan, they reveal that the Titan and all modern Federation ships are networked with each other. Starfleet will find them. Picard is pleading with Geordi to help when his daughter interrupts.
Alandra (quietly): “Dad. What about Hanger Bay 12?”
Geordi (exasperated): “Alandra. Please.”
And the dialog continues. I assumed that what was in Hanger Bay 12 would be the key to the episode, but it’s not. Jack Crusher steals the cloaking device from Star Trek IV’s Klingon Bird of Prey and the Titan rushes off to rescue Raffi, Riker and Worf on Daystrom Station. Hanger Bay 12 is never mentioned again.
So, what’s in Hanger Bay 12? Likely a new ship for the museum that was intended for that empty circle that the Titan parked in. Alandra clearly thinks the ship would be helpful — maybe because it’s not networked. I assume that the ship in Hanger Bay 12 was likely intended to be unveiled as part of the Frontier Day ceremony and then intended to fill the empty ring at the Fleet Museum. Instead, I imagine that Picard and crew are going to come riding to the rescue in that ship…
My guess: The Enterprise 1701-D.
I can’t think of any other ships that are significant enough and aren’t already represented in fleet museum. The 1701-D was destroyed in Star Trek: Generations, though. How could it reappear? Well, at least one of the ships they show in the museum, The Enterprise 1801-A, is a replica since the original was destroyed in Star Trek III. The new Enterprise-D could simply be a retrofitted Galaxy-class starship. Or the original 1701-D saucer section paired with a different Galaxy-class body.
It might seem like excessive fan-service, but if done well, I think it would be incredible to see the crew save the day in the ship from the TV show. Picard, Riker and Troi in the three command seats. Worf at tactical. Data at helm. Geordi in engineering. It would be a fun conclusion to this final season of Star Trek Picard.
Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student, researcher and Star Trek fan living in Columbia, South Carolina.
The Women’s Final Four is tonight and while both games should be great, you need to catch the South Carolina - Iowa matchup. South Carolina’s suffocating defense versus a hot-shooting Iowa team. Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark on the same court. ESPN at 9:00 ET. Go Gamecocks. 🏀
Photoblogging challenge complete. 31 days of photos in March was actually more challenging than I thought I would be. Really glad I completed it, although I may now need to take a few days off from sharing images. 🤣