Mark Wyner

Every hashtag on every post on every platform should ALWAYS be pascal case (a.k.a. camel case). I made this to illustrate how screenreaders read hashtags depending on whether they are lowercase or pascal case.

It’s a small thing that all of us can do to build a more inclusive, accessible internet for all. Please take the time to use pascal case.

Learn more:

Antifa cat. You don’t want any of this action. (Don’t know who the photographer is so I can’t credit them.)

Hello, all.

This is my 1,200th post on Tumblr (what a nice, round number). It has been fun. I love the platform, the tools, and the ecosystem of people who use it. But Verizon has just purchased the core business of Yahoo!, which includes Tumblr. And Verizon, as you are likely aware, opposes Net Neutrality.

Consequently, I am going to close up shop on Tumblr. I will not publish my content here, where it is likely to be distributed in a very select manner, providing the highest bidders and the internet elite with the most favorable content at the fastest speeds.

For those of you who wish to join me, my content and I can be found on Twitter and Medium. Thank you for all of your kind words over the years. I hope to see you elsewhere.

As we progress into a world with autonomous machines, the question of ethics and law become something of new consequence. Computers are breaking the law, and no one knows what to do about it. Are machines accountable, or are their makers?

The ironic reality is that we are exploring ways we can govern our autonomous machines.

In reading written text, IBM’s Watson is able to analyze personality traits, rating subjects for agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, emotional range (neuroticism), and openness. It also uses a text-analysis API called AlchemyLanguage to identify the emotional tones of anger, disgust, fear, joy, and sadness. They are used together to formulate personas.

London-born biologist and computer scientist Aubrey de Grey has some theories about how the human body ages, and they are quite fascinating. In a brief piece about him, Highbrow notes:

Aubrey de Grey was the first to theorize that aging occurred at a mitochondrial level as a process of small, measurable, controllable stages. When mitochondrial DNA replicates in a cell, every few hundred copies may contain an error when it is reproduced, causing the cell to perform its function less efficiently over time. At this incremental level, de Grey theorized, aging occurs, can be measured, and can be prevented.

An Artificial Intelligence system co-wrote the short-form novel which passed the first screening process for the Nikkei Hoshi Shinichi Literary Award in Japan. According to The Japan News:

Humans decided the parameters for the novel, such as the plot and gender of characters. The AI program then “wrote” the novel by selecting words or sentences prepared by humans and in accordance with the parameters.

The Henn-na Hotel in Japan is staffed by robots. These two ‘man the front desk. The anthropomorphic clerk speaks Japanese, while the dinosaur speaks English. It is said to be the only hotel in the world staffed entirely by robots.

IBM is beginning to push their A.I., Watson, into the consumer space. At least with the intention of awareness. This respective “bot support group” ad, featuring Star Wars legend Carrie Fisher, is quite delightful. They call it “Coping with Humans.”

Scientists are making 2D and 3D objects out of DNA. It’s a folding process they call “DNA origami.” And some scientists have even created movement on demand. Yes, the animation of human-made DNA structures.

But wait, there’s more. The progress is propelling an even more fascinating idea. Scientists are now exploring how to make nanorobots out of DNA. In some cases—as Danish researchers have demonstrated—fully-functional robots.