A couple of interesting articles appeared on nytimes.com today about the future of human.

Although, insights and important discoveries have been made, Nicholas Wade reports in “A Decade Later, Genetic Map Yields Few New Cures,” that ten years after completing the first mapping of the human genome, the nytimes.com reports that scientists have not made nearly as much progress in finding cures for cancer or Alzheimer’s as they expected. The main thing I take away from the article is that the human body is really complicated and can surprise us how little we really know about it functions.

On the hand other, we also learned from Ashlee Vance in “Merely Human? That’s So Yesterday”, the Singularity University was recently held and attended by tech luminaries like the Google founders and Raymond Kurzweil, who predict that people will soon access a technology-aided evolution to become superhumans with infinite intelligence and lifespans measured in centuries. The Singularity will be some combination of  tapping into the collective knowledge of networks like the Internet as well as medical advances like organ regeneration and cybernetics.

So, anyway, in some ways, I’m actually glad that we are finding out that the body is far more complex system that we want to believe. A slower rate of innovation might be a good thing.  While it would obviously would be great to find cures for diseases, my hope is we actually have a chance to figure out all the ethical implications of the meaning of this work. Actually, it’s not even figuring out, but I want people to just start asking the questions.

On a related note, I just finished You Are Not a Gadget, by Jaron Lanier. The book is a great critique of how we overvalue technology, undervalue the products of people’s creativity, and as a result, undervalue humanity itself.

Update: 2010/06/19: This month’s Wired magazine cover story by Thomas Goetz is “Sergey’s Search.” (Not online yet.) Apparently, he has a 50% change of getting Parkinson’s, which reframes (at least) his interest in the Singularity University, and has put in US$50 million into researching Parkinson’s disease. Again, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be pursuing this research. Rather, where is the critical discussion on where is it leading us, who benefits, and who is left behind.

Brett Camper made a wonderful interactive map of New York with 8-bit graphics.

http://8bitnyc.com/

(Thanks Vanessa!)

I hope that everyone’s mailed back their 2010 US Census forms, which are due April 1, National Census Day. While it’s a rather arcane approach to studying people’s location, it is still important because of its scale, use to allocate federal funding for community services, and use for updating electoral districts. One thing I really love about the census is that it’s mandated in the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3.

Now that it’s 2010, they also have a interactive  Google Map which display participation rate. Dubuque City, Iowa gets the gold star so far for a 70% return rate, which is well above the 52% national average. What makes this mapping project successful is that it raises questions (and potentially provides answers) about participation rates, location, and the allocation of resources, but in a way that is easier that reading at tables of the underlying data. They also provide widgets to display results.

However, what would really be great, of course, is if they released data sets to the public.

As the journalism and news industry continues to churn and find its way to a sustainable future, the New York Times made an open call to its readers to submit their photographs with captions to document the last decade in photos. I am rather surprised by the general lack of “best of the 00s” media coverage. Perhaps, it’s because we are also too busy cautiously looking towards the future. Regardless, it is important to be look back and think about the past before we go barreling forward. Happy New Year!

Another great entry by xkcd, this time on research and innovation. With the all the trends of 2010 lists floating about, it’s nice to keep the obsession with the new in check.

The fine folks at Urban Omnibus and WNYC are hosting a meet up at Bryant Park this Saturday to explore New York’s unbuilt future from the past with the project I worked on: Museum of the Phantom City.

Details below…

Urban Omnibus and WNYC Meet-up
Museum of the Phantom City
Saturday, October 31
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Meet at the Bryant Park Fountain (6th Avenue side)
Drinks and conversation to follow
RSVP to culture@wnyc.org

The Museum of the Phantom City launched, which invites people to interact with unbuilt architectural proposals through an iPhone app and website. The project plays with some interesting ideas about location (obviously) but also of how designers in the past envisioned the future.  We started with New York, and try to show that an invisible history that never was, resides to a physical/ actual space we inhabit.

We had a great team working on the project, and thanks go to Brett and Irene for getting me involved in building the website portion of the project. I hadn’t done any serious programming in a while, and I re-learned everything I love and hate about coding. (Also note, the site and iPhone are beta versions.)

Joel alerted me to Vanity Fair’s share tool. I deal with two social networking sites, Facebook and Linkedin, and I am already facing social networking fatigue.

But the intriguing question is, do all these options mean VF gets or doesn’t get social media?

I recently got a nice package in the mail, my eagerly awaited issue 2 of Manzine. What looks like a large format zine is actually a clever take on mens magazines. Created by a group of writers and designers based out of the UK, who write for places like The Guardian, British GQ, and Arena (RIP,) Manzine riffs upon the world they helped created.

On a previous trip to London, I had the pleasure of meeting up with one of the writers Kevin Braddock, who I was first ran into after scouring the internet for a copy of issue 1.

I’m an avid fan of magazine publishing. Manzine has been added to my collection of Chap, Butt, and Fantastic Man. Going to sort of great lengths to find semi-obscure and certainly obscenely expensive international titles. (London, by the way, has some truly, awesome magazine shops, like RD Franks 5 Winsley Street, London W1 8HG T: +011 44 20 7 636 1244. Of course the exchange is a killer.)

But back to the issue at hand, no pun intended. Manzine is a different take on magazines, that moves in the opposite direction of creating magazines as art object. Here, Braddock and his conspirators, have gone indie, dyi, and underground. In he face of the ongoing implosion of the magazine industry, the writers, while still keeping their day jobs, are producing articles and columns that feel much more personal than you get in men’s mags, like writing about learning out to play pop songs (specifically by Phil Collins.) The article destructing the sexuality of a mermaid is more, dare we say intellectual, than what you get in Details or GQ.

The magazine, itself, feels disposable. Its low-fi design and barely better than newsprint paper quality, and of course, cheeky design give it a cheap look and feel to go with its a couple of pounds pricing, (Free (Two Quid where sold.)) As we learned in grade school, looks are deceiving, and judging books by their covers leads to misinterpretation. At first opening, I just liked looking at it, with its over use of typefaces and seeming new style guides for each two page layout. However, when you actually starting reading, personal articles about the art of fixing up a bicycle, an honest voice comes through the guy-ish surface.

What better way to spend one’s spare time than trying to reinvent and resuscitate magazine?

(composite image via Flickr and Pandora.com)

I know that Spotify is all the rage, but it doesn’t have a public release in the US yet, and invites are still a bit rare States side. So, I’ve been finally playing around with Pandora at work, and came to the realize that there is real intelligence and even, fortune telling in Pandora’s recommendation engine.

When Paula asked me a question about what project she should work on next, Pandora voluntarily kicked out Anyway You Want It by Journey, which made us stop in our tracks (so to speak.) It only took me a moment to realize the potential wisdom that Pandora imparts. Ask it a question, wait for the next song, and get an answer.

It’s like magic or visiting a psychic, only better because it’s free and you can hum or sing along. The answers are also much more interesting than the static answers from the standard Magic 8 ball. Plus it gives you something to do while Gmail is down.

Here is an actual record of our questions and Pandora’s answers.

Paula: What will my roommate be like?
Enjoy the Silence, Depeche Mode

(We’re not sure if this good or bad?)

Me: How am I going to like my apartment?

This Must Be The Place I Waited Years to Leave, Pet Shop Boys

(Honest!)

Susan: What am I going to have for dinner?
Toxic, Britney Spears

Paula: What am I going to be when I grow up?
Man Eater, Nelly Furato

Susan: What am I going to do for Labor Day?
Drive, The Cars

Ray: How is my project going?
Calabria 2008, Enur… you know that song, which was played in every retail store for the past two years, and finally made it to that “dance battle” Target commercial. Not sure how that applies to my current work project. Oh Pandora, just when we think we understand you, you uphold your mysterious ways.

Try it out, and let me know how it goes!