*According to innovation diffusion models, mass adoption occurs when a technology aligns with existing habits, requires minimal cognitive effort, and integrates with existing infrastructure.*
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One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
'Tis the set of the sails,
And Not the gales,
That tell us the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate;
As we voyage along through life,
'Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
The Winds of Fate, Ella Wheeler Wilcox
*Compared to traditional onshore wind power, high-altitude wind energy can save 95 percent of land use, reduce steel consumption by 90 percent, and cut electricity generation costs by around 30 percent. A 10-megawatt kite-based system could generate approximately 20 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually—enough to power about 10,000 homes*
https://www.perplexity.ai/page/china-tests-world-s-largest-po-WvPGqTarQjGfLxYmx8uPXw
*AI huckster-cum-revolutionary and ChatGPT front man Sam Altman says, “A kid born today will never be smarter than AI, ever.” His intention is to attract more investment into his company by the illusory promise of “PhD-level” AI, but he may be right despite himself: it is not that AI is reaching “general intelligence” but that children are not attaining it.*
We Used to Read Things in This Country | Noah McCormack
*I love the First Amendment and abhor censorship, and yet I have reluctantly come to believe that the Great Firewall of China will be a long-term benefit to that country. What China shows us is that, contra the whole line of technology-first scholarship following McLuhan, it’s the social system technology is embedded in that matters. China is not a utopia, but its citizens have a brighter future than ours, and they will be able to read about it, thanks to a sociopolitical system that still sees literacy as necessary and retains primacy over private capital.*
We Used to Read Things in This Country | Noah McCormack
