Sebastian Thrun sounds downright triumphalist in his Pacific Standard post about artificial intelligence:

We need to prepare for a world in which fewer and fewer people can make meaningful contributions. Only a small group will command technology and command AI.

Not so fast, says Alan Jacobs, who sees Thrun’s paean to “unprecedented times” as little more than “incoherent vapidity”:

I’m not asking for a detailed roadmap of the future, but just sketch out a path, dude. Otherwise I might think you’re just talking through your artificially intelligent hat.

All things being equal, I think Jacobs wins this round.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

postprandial (adjective) Occurring after a meal.

Courtney’s steep decline in productivity as the afternoon wore on was initially thought to be an acute case of workplace ennui; upon further examination, however, it was determined to be nothing more than postprandial lethargy.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

“The world into which I was born no longer exists, of course.” Thus begins a thoughtful essay by author Claire Messud in the August 2015 issue of Harper’s. Frightful words indeed, considering that she and I are roughly the same age.

Messud is talking about the stark differences between her and her children’s generations—and the “monolithic” world we live in today:

Now that the very understanding of experience is communal, there’s less leeway for idiosyncrasy, less patience for indirection. These days, if you can’t share a thought—either because it’s hard to articulate or because it would take more words than a tweet or a text will allow—you might as well skip it.

Messud’s essay is no curmudgeonly cri de coeur against technology, however. It’s a desire to “show the wisdom of restraint.” After all, she concludes, “if you attend thoughtfully to what you already have, you need nothing more.”

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

I’ve long eschewed the music of Philip Glass, in part because it’s always sounded so…pedestrian. He’s the classical-music composer you listen to if you don’t like classical music; the minimalist who represents everything that’s wrong with minimalism. (Yeah, I know: it’s pure snobbery on my part. Whatever.)

So how’d I end up purchasing this? Two reasons: (1) pianist Bruce Brubaker, who regular readers may remember from Part 1 of 2014’s The Year in Music, and (2) this NPR story, which lets you listen to all 17 minutes of “Mad Rush,” the centerpiece of the album.

While I’m not quite ready to join the Philip Glass Fan Club, I have to admit that Brubaker’s contemplative approach to the music—not to mention the intimate quality of the recording (every once in a while you hear the unmistakable creak of wood, presumably from Brubaker’s piano stool)—have me reaching for Glass Piano far more than I ever thought I would.

Need more convincing? Take a listen to “Metamorphosis 2” and tell me it isn’t breathtakingly beautiful in its simplicity.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

If you travel south along US 195 toward Colfax, you’ll eventually come upon the Horn School rest stop. Now I don’t normally talk much about rest stops, especially in a family blog, but this one is special. A recently installed interpretive sign we created for Avista—featuring information about the nearby Palouse Wind farm—may now be considered one of the area’s highlights.

With a little help from our illustrator friend Don Baker, the sign provides rest stoppers with information and trivia about the wind farm, the energy from which is purchased by Avista. From the sign, you can actually see the turbines themselves off in the distance.

And speaking of trivia, did you know that the Washington Department of Transportation calls these rest stops “safety rest areas?” And that they record flushes at each one to gauge traffic? Horn School hits about 225,000 annually—more than 600 every day.

posted by: CK Anderson  |  category: on location the design life  |  make a comment

On a recent wine tour in Napa, Linda and I had an opportunity to not only taste some of Mumm Napa’s award-winning sparkling wines, but also take in their exhibit of twenty-seven gelatin silver prints created by Ansel Adams. Titled Poetry of Light, the collection is on loan from the Adams family.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Adams, saying, “Drawn to beauty of nature’s monuments, he is regarded by environmentalists as a monument himself, and by photographers as a national institution.”

posted by: CK Anderson  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

A boat, a beer, a solid BBQ, and good people around me is how I like to spend the summer holidays, and this 4th of July was no exception. But even with all these things on the agenda, we still managed to take a quick detour to…Canada! I admit, our patriotic timing isn’t perfect. (We started and ended the day in the U. S. of A. but took a quick trip across the border to Columbia Brewery in Creston, B.C.)

After some amusing vintage commercials (consider yourself warned: standard definition television is worse then you remember), we took a tour of the facility and learned about the process of brewing liquid gold. Two free beers and some chit-chat about which were our favorite vintage cans later, we headed back across the border for a family-filled evening of food and a perfect sunset.

For one more gem of advertising history, click here.

posted by: Courtney Sowards  |  category: the design life  |  make a comment

Somehow I missed last year’s Taming the Dragon by Brad Mehldau and Mark Giulana. Thankfully, my son came to the rescue. I’m just gonna get out of the way and let you listen to the title track. (Some NSFW language here and there, so don’t play it around your mom.)

More from my daily playlist:

Gary Peacock Trio, Now This
Bruce Brubaker, Glass Piano
Matt Berry, Music for Insomniacs
Milford Graves & Bill Laswell, Space / Time • Redemption
David Torn, Only Sky

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment