Is Photoshop Still Industry Standard?

I guess a more appropriate title would be “Should Photoshop Still Be Industry Standard?“. Like a lot of people, I’ve been an avid fan of Photoshop for quite some time now. It’s been my go-to tool for the best part of 10 years for a range of purposes, from photography to web design.

When I was in high-school, I can still remember my first introduction to Photoshop. As with most high-schools, nicknames were thrown around a lot at my school. Creatively, most of the connotations related to an animal that we best represented, either visually, characteristically, or in some cases derivative of perceived-natural body odours.

One day, I started using Photoshop to visualize these characters. I started gathering photos of my class-mates, crudely attaching their faces to the various animals they ‘represented’.  They were an instant hit, met with verbal accolades of the highest order. I would print them on paper at home and bring a new one to school every week, or send them around via MSN Messenger. My classmates couldn’t wait for the next iteration.

While your introduction to Photoshop may not have been met with the same social-gratification, most designers use Photoshop for a similar reason, It’s what we’re used to and what we feel most comfortable using.

So why the long story you ask? What’s it got to do with this article? The reminiscence helps emphasise something. Photoshop, in all its glory, is still predominately a photo editing application.

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The Problem

Workflows are a subjective topic, and often a highly personalized process depending on your circumstances. So there’s never a ‘one size fits all’ solution. However this doesn’t mean we can’t think critically about it.

Don’t get me wrong here, I love using Photoshop. It’s a great tool and for me, it’s been my go-to design application for quite some time. It gives me the creative freedom and tools I need to feel I have control over my designs. However, for the purposes of web design, it’s becoming more of liability and less of an asset. Here’s why.

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Photoshop Is Raster Based

Although not the most important, it’s one the reasons. Why use a raster based application (which is resolution dependant) to design something that eventually won’t be. A large part of the web renders through browser-engine algorithm resulting in a fluid vector-like visualization, not bitmap or raster based where pixels are fixed.

“But Photoshop has vector tools!”. Sure it does, but they are still based on the Photoshop engine, which is pixel-based, not vector based. Not only does Photoshop have little vector-output support, but the UI (canvas) is raster based.

The web is increasingly moving away from low-resolution raster based output, with flat design being one of the biggest influences. It can be quite common these days to visit or design a website a website that (besides images) has absolutely no raster-based output at all, including icons.

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Photoshop Isn’t All That “Pixels-Perfect”

The phrase “pixel perfect” gets thrown around the design community a lot. It’s a kind of “I’m a cool designer that knows what I’m talking about” buzzword. You throw it into a sentence and it looks like you know what you’re talking about. Unfortunately, it’s an often misinterpreted concept.

Traditionally, design has dictated development. The capabilities and creativity of design software have predominately eclipsed those of web language. So the attitude has always been, “The design looks like this on Photoshop, make sure it looks EXACTLY the same on the web” – Pixel Perfect.

If you’re a web developer or a ‘hybrid designer’ like me, you’ll know exactly what I mean. I can tell you Photoshop is a real pain for development. Web development is based on code that has very little room for inaccuracy. So why design on an application that not only produces visually inaccurate representations for the web, but is based on an engine that’s resolution dependant, with resolution dependant output. If you want ‘pixel perfect’, design in Illustrator.

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Designing From A Different Perspective

I’ve always designed from the WYSIWYG perspective. As in design to your wildest dreams in Photoshop, and make it look the same in development. However this methodology is becoming increasingly archaic. The web has certain constraints, however like the saying goes, “Where some see adversity, others see opportunity”. Working with-the-web is a whole lot more productive than working against it. For me Photoshop is a far-cry from doing this.

Ultimately, the design will be rendered in a browser, through mostly CSS styling, which is bound by a completely different environment than that of Photoshop. The web is rendered via a device-resolution that’s dictated by the viewing device. This is most evident in flat design, in which the majority of rendering is handled server side in the browser. As the web moves towards an ever increasing browser-rendered state, raster based-design seems progressively inappropriate.

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The Web is Fluid. Photoshop Is Static

This is currently a major issue for designers and one I find really important. A big part of the issue lies in the massive and rapid technological advancements that have driven major changes in both web design and development over recent years. The internet has grown from a static layout, to a highly interactive and user-experience driven collection of pages and applications.

So many designers still design from a purely visual perspective; however we need to consider a lot more than just static elements nowadays. Pages are fluid, designs are adaptive and interactivity is now a major design concern. Ultimately, we no longer use the web the way we used to, so why design it the same way?

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Assets Are No Longer Assets

Traditionally, web development was design-dependant, with assets from Photoshop being an integral part of the process – images, icons, measurements and comps – all based on pixels. However this design-development relationship isn’t as reliant on design assets anymore. These days, a final product relies much less on assets from the graphics application, with most of the work being rendered through mark-up styling via CSS.

For example, let’s say I design a website in Photoshop. Very little, if any of the data is actually transferable to the web. Unless your developer slices the PSD elements, in which case I’d advise you to get a new developer.

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Changing Work-flows

Having considered all this, unfortunately, it’s difficult to find a better solution, other than Adobe Illustrator. Adobe has released it’s Edge Tools, which are aimed at rapid prototype development, however they still rely on the traditional design workflow of starting off in Photoshop. Fireworks was a short-lived solution, but Adobe has discontinued any further development since CS6. There’s been a number of “rapid prototyping” applications released lately, however most of them focus on a PSD->Browser workflow. It would be nice to have an application that combines both, a browser render-engine based design in conjunction with the prototype.

Working in Illustrator has its draw backs, however being able to create multiple art-boards in one document (for responsive design and UI setup) is a big advantage. Furthermore its vector engine and output means not only the design, but the data can be transferable to the web. Unfortunately, like Photoshop, it doesn’t cater to any interactive requirements.

A traditional web design workflow might look something like this:

Unfortunately the process from PSD -> Web Prototype is a lengthy and largely incompatible workflow.

A proposed workflow could look something like this:

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Use What Works

Ultimately, when it comes to design tools, there’s no right or wrong. It’s all about using what feels most comfortable and makes sense to you as a designer. If you feel more creative in Photoshop, use it. There’s no reason to change workflows just because somebody says it’s not right. That being said, I would love to see a browser-based hybrid application that incorporates the power and creative freedom of a graphic design application, with editable web-output, kind of like Illustrator with a code editor.

http://www.pencilscoop.com/2013/12/is-photoshop-still-industry-standard/

Kumi Yamashita Creates Out Of Nails And Thread

You might remember Kumi Yamashita from one of our October posts featuring her extraordinary collection of works with light and shadow. If you recall, Yamashita subtly manipulated materials such as paper, fabric and wood to strategically use lighting on them in order to create shadow art installations. Her imagination and impressive craft skills lead her to create this new ongoing series entitled Constellation (a title that references the Greek tradition of tracing mythical figures in the sky).

This body of work consists of three materials: a wooden panel painted a solid white, thousands of small galvanized nails, and a single, unbroken, common sewing thread. She creates these stunning portraits by using the single,unbroken thread wrapped around thousands of nails. The task at hand is laborious, but the result is well worth the work.

The Japanese artist’s piece from this collection, Mana (an 40h x 30w cm portrait of her niece), was recently selected as one of 50 finalists for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, a triennial event being held at the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Yamashita’s artwork was selected from over 3,000 entries and is on display at the National Portrait Gallery until February 23, 2014. (via Twisted Sifter)

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COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES IN THE AGE OF THE CUSTOMER

With 2013 coming to an end, it’s time to bring out the crystal ball and make some predictions about 2014. Those who follow Forrester’s research will know that we’re living in the age of the customer, a period in which customer obsession will be the key to winning in all markets. Computing is a critical technology element in the age of the customer: The use of tablets by sales professionals creates richer experiences for prospects and customers, even as the use of wearable technologies by health professionals helps phlebotomists find the vein in a patient’s arm more quickly. Computing is a front-line, customer facing experience that helps companies win and serve customers more effectively.

With that context in mind, I present six meta-trends that will be critical for computing in 2014:

• Mobility: Look for a sustained mobile mind shift. Customers and employees are beginning to expect that the information, services, social networks, and customer service will all be available to them in context on any device at their exact moment of need. In 2014, we’ll see an increase in this mobile mind shift. Customers will actively shun businesses that lack mobile applications to enrich their experiences. Customers will gravitate toward businesses that use mobile technology proactively to solve their hardest problems. 
• Fragmentation: Watch device proliferation and fragmentation continue. Fragmentation is already a way of life as we end 2013. In 2014, we’ll see a continuation of that trend, as people trade off between multiple devices and find ways to thrive across operating systems. All those articles about Android becoming the Windows of the mobile world? Not quite. Android remains internally fragmented, with inexpensive, often forked, versions of Android inflating global numbers through non-standard devices in the Chinese market. Loyalty won’t be achieved within ecosystems in 2014, though numerous players (Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft) will be trying to create stickiness across devices.
• Wearables: Expect accelerated innovation in wearable devices and business models. Sure, wearables are facing a hype bubble. So did the Internet; that didn’t make it any less significant in the long run. Wearables are just taking off and have a bright future ahead of them. I’m impressed with the wide array of companies, entrepreneurs, and agencies innovating in this space, which is really more of a long tail of different computing market segments. In 2014, we’ll see commercial availability of a range of heretofor theoretical wearables (including Google Glass), a richer set of business models, the entry of bigger players (like Apple), and the maturation of business models. In a forthcoming report, I’ll continue building my argument that enterprise wearables have a particularly rich future ahead of them, often in customer-facing situations.
• Intelligent assistants: Anticipate their rise to prominence. Although names like Apple’s Siri and IBM’s Watson have made some headway into the mass consciousness, they haven’t really made it into the zeitgeist just yet. In 2014, intelligent agents will start to look…. useful. Usable. More interesting. Easier. They’ll help people shop, manage calendars, and surprise users by mining personal data. They’ll start to reshape the way we compute altogether.
• Gestural computing: Plan on seeing new applications and scenarios. With XBox Kinect in tens of millions of households, Leap Motion now commercially available, and Thalmic Labs showing off some exciting examples of the Myo device, gestural computing is finally hitting the big time. In 2014, expect the use cases to proliferate, with developers bringing out new applications that create value. In the enterprise, this will include in particular the healthcare vertical (manipulating and navigating medical imaging).
• Channel: Time for discontinuous innovation. 2014 will be the year in which you walk into a store and it “knows you” and customizes your visit. Technologies will start to bring a greater sense of relevance and tailored experience to shopping, as Tesco is doing with facial recognition software that allows it to serve up appropriate ad content in its stores. 

In terms of device vendors, I expect to see a number of market dynamics taking shape:

• Apple will reveal its new innovations… The most analyzed quote of 2013 might have been CEO Tim Cook’s statement that Apple has big plans for new products in 2014. Apple will enter the wearables space, will continue its march into the living room, and will expand its offerings for in-car experiences — any of which could be a breakout hit. 
• …while making slow and steady improvements to retain its market leading status. The most under-analyzed trend of 2013 was Apple’s slow-but-steady march into incremental innovations in 2013: The iPad Air and iPad Mini with Retina dispaly required increased production because of strong demand, while the iPhone 5S has sold better than any previous iPhone model. In 2014, Apple will diversify the iOS product base with major refreshes and perhaps larger devices (like the rumored 13” iPad and iPhone Phablet).
• Microsoft and its partners will make progress on operating systems. Don’t look now, but Windows Phone is now the clear #3 smartphone operating system. Although its market share globally remains under 5%, the platform now enjoys over 10% market share in Europe’s five biggest markets, and has sured up its app base to 200,000+. On the PC side, Surface Pro 2 and even Surface 2 have sold out in Q4 (though whether due to exceptional demand or diminished production remains to be seen). Almost every conversation I have with an infrastructure buyer at an enterprise client indicates that Windows 2-in-1 devices are under consideration, at least by technology management if not by business leaders. In 2014, you’ll see a gradual shift in the conversation: while shipment numbers will still struggle for PCs, acceptance and sales of Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone will grow within that smaller pie.
• Chromebooks will consolidate their market gains… Midyear, I exhorted infrastructure professionals to take a good, hard look at Chromebooks. Since then, Chromebooks have done very well, capturing increasing proportions of the laptop market and luring new vendors like Dell into producing them. In 2014, the mainstreaming of Chromebooks will continue. The big knock on them next year? A deeper discussion of the bandwidth requirements for enterprises and schools, which can be considerable.
• …even as Google attempts to converge Chrome OS and Android. In 2013, Google united its Chrome OS and Android teams under one leader, Sundar Pichai. Although Google management has endeavored to deny it, expect 2014 to be the year when Google tries to unite the two platforms (or at least lay out a timeframe for doing so). If QNX could emulate Android apps, why not Chrome OS? The Chromebook Pixel’s touchscreen display seems a natural first step in this direction.
• Chinese vendors will make a play for top-tier status. In 2013, Xiaomi, Lenovo, ZTE, and Huawei all made significant strides into the mobile handset arena. ZTE even made a play for the US handset market, while Lenovo hired Ashton Kutcher to build its brand and its tablet products. In 2014, these companies will each attempt to become the next Samsung, leveraging their scale in the Chinese market, supply chain prowess, technological sophistication, and growing strategic and marketing savvy to break out of the pack.

Managing People More Talented Than Yourself

One of the most important skills I’ve developed over the years is learning how to manage people more talented than myself. Beginning at Facebook and later transitioning to Quora, I’ve had the great privilege to manage many exceedingly talented designers. Some of which were much more talented than myself. Those experiences have taught me a lot about being a better manager for talented people generally, however—and, while similar—managing  people with more talent than yourself can create its own set of unique challenges. So while the lessons learned could really never get distilled into a practical set of instructions (there’s too much context, specificity), there are many generally useful tidbits of information I’ve collected over the years.

There are a few things you must acknowledge at the outset if you want to be successful: I. Your ego may make this hard but at some point you must recognize that out of the many people who report to you, at least a one or two will be more talented than you[1]; II. Managing people with more talent than yourself is a real skill and you should approach it as such; III. You may not have the skills and/or experience to recognize and understand their level of talent. In order to build this skill most productively you really want to understand how, why, and on what specific dimensions they are more talented. 

There are a bunch of different ways you can measure how talented someone is but a good place to start is to think about their last few ideas and suggestions. Do you wish you could have thought of those ideas? If so, the next step is to think about how they came to those conclusions. Is there something significant you can learn from their approach that you hadn’t considered? At what level is that approach? Does it demonstrate high-level or strategic thinking? Is it something you can use in the future? How often does the person have suggestions or ideas like that? Does the person have depth in one particular skill or many skills? 

Asking these questions will enable you to understand the nature of their talent, but since you’re at a presumed deficit you need to do more to get a better picture. That deficit may create a situation where by its very nature you cannot fully appreciate the person’s actions. This is where you need to start asking questions directly to your report to get a better understanding of their approach. These questions allow you to better assess the motivations behind their actions. The answers to your questions should be clear, direct, and understandable. If you get lost in maze of jargon or the pieces never really connect to a cohesive vision there’s a good chance the person is just a skilled bullshitter. If you understand everything but don’t agree with the conclusion, don’t let that disagreement get in the way. Instead, start arguing. If after the majority of the arguments you walk feeling like you’ve learned something and/or have changed your opinions more often than not, there’s a very good chance your report is very talented[2]. However, very talented is not the same as more talented.

In order to determine if someone is more talented, you should also start to think of yourself as a dispassionate conductor of information. Being very careful to not manipulate or distort the information in any way and to pass as much information along to the person as possible. As a manager you are naturally the central contact point for a lot of information and while this gives you personally a lot of power, that power is wasted unless it’s in the hands of the person who can make the best use of it. What does the person do with the information after they receive it? Do they create something better than you would have when you considered the same information? Can they recreate that output consistently? Do they use the information productively or just complain about the circumstances that led to the issue in the first place[3]? If you have already been relaying information and things have been going well, is there a meeting where they should be included? 

If, when armed with the information and organizational support to take on real challenges, the person consistently creates output that you could not have imagined—and you have to do real work to best understand—well, the person is probably more talented than you. This is by no means the only approach to determining this, but it gives you an idea of what to look for or at the very least an example of one approach. 

Once you have made yourself confident the person is more talented, the best ways to help them might not be that obvious. Because if they really are more talented, they are probably already doing a lot of the work themselves. I had a lot of luck using a multi-front effort of asking, anticipating, and aggressively delegating. Maybe it’s blocking and tackling, maybe it’s being a good organizational representative, maybe it’s protecting their time, maybe it’s asking them questions to spur introspection, maybe it’s running interference when they are making hard tradeoffs, maybe it’s taking part of the hit when they try something ambitious and it fails[4], maybe it’s assigning them projects you would normally assign yourself, maybe it’s not allowing them to settle, and maybe it’s doing nothing at all. If the person is really talented they will suggest something to you when asked but you should always be looking ahead for opportunities they don’t or can’t see[5].

Ultimately, your job as manager isn’t to be the most talented person on the team, it’s to help the team create really great output. By learning this skill you can ensure anyone who has more talent is in a position to be as leveraged as possible while the rest of the organization catches up to what you already know. You will be seen as having good judgement and putting the company’s priorities ahead of your own personal gain. More importantly, I would argue, you have already had a very good opportunity to learn from that person. If you were right about their talent level, those learnings should be invaluable.

________

[1] This fact doesn’t reflect at all on your standing as manager. There are many factors that go into reporting structures and not everyone is cut out for management. 

[2] Anyone can act like they are more talented than someone but there’s an art to distinguishing between the people who are just insecure/arrogant/overconfident/etc. from the people who have real talent. You will inevitably learn some things from your reports, but the key here is that you are almost always in learning mode and, when applied, the lessons make your output better.

[3] I call this out specifically because sometimes you are working with someone really talented but they are so mired in their own dissatisfaction that they aren’t productive. If someone who is really talented is already in this state, it may already be too late and it’s best to move on and apply your attention elsewhere. 

[4] When they try something ambitious and it succeeds, absolutely do not take any credit unless there was a clear, direct, and meaningful contribution from you.

[5] Usually they can’t see it because you as a manager are in manager-only meetings or have otherwise sensitive information. If you have to do this too much, however, it’s likely you were wrong about their talent-level and should adjust your approach accordingly.

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Apple - iPad Air - TV Ad - Your Verse Anthem. We’re humbled and inspired by what people do with iPad. So we set out to capture some of their stories. What will your verse be? http://www.apple.com/your-verse

Mapping How Emotions Manifest in the Body

Across cultures, people feel increased activity in different parts of the body as their mental state changes.

Self-reported body maps showing areas where subjects felt sensations increased (warm colors) or decreased (cool colors) for a given emotion. (Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences)

Many years ago, I was in Brussels, Belgium, spending a day interviewing with a series of prospective internships. I frantically rehearsed my resume bullet points—in English and French—as I tried to navigate my way through the unfamiliar city to make four different appointments. Just as I was mouthingsciences politiques to myself for the hundredth time on the metro, I realized that my hands and feet had begun to sweat uncontrollably. Soon, I was sliding around in my sensible, black “grown person” shoes as I dashed through the cobblestoned streets. Each new potential internship boss was met with a shakybonjour and an outstretched hand that felt like a cold sponge.

I hadn’t contracted some rare, waffle-induced glandular disorder. Emotions (anxiety, in my case) can activate nervous system, endocrine, and musculoskeletal responses, giving us tingles down the spine, flushed faces, and other classic physical manifestations. The question is, do certain sentiments generate similar responses in all of us? Do we all get glowy cheeks when we’re feeling amorous, for example, or butterflies when we’re feeling nervous?

A new study by Finnish researchers published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, suggests that our emotions do indeed tend to influence our bodies in consistent ways.

Across five experiments, 701 participants “were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions. They were asked to color the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing while viewing each stimulus.”

The emotions were generated by having the subjects read short stories or watch movies. On a blank, computerized figurine, they were then asked to color in the areas of their body where sensations became stronger (the red and yellow) or weaker (blue and black) when they felt a certain way.

Let us hear your bodies talk, participants:

PNAS

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The mapping exercise produced what you might expect: an angry hot-head, a happy person lighting up all the way through their fingers and toes, a depressed figurine that was literally blue (meaning they felt little sensation in their limbs). Almost all of the emotions generated changes in the head area, suggesting smiling, frowning, or skin temperature changes, while feelings like joy and anger saw upticks in the limbs—perhaps because you’re ready to hug, or punch, your interlocutor. Meanwhile, “sensations in the digestive system and around the throat region were mainly found in disgust,” the authors wrote. It’s worth noting that the bodily sensations weren’t blood flow, heat, or anything else that could be measured objectively—they were based solely on physical twinges subjects said they experienced.

The correlations between the subjects’ different body maps were strong—above .71 for each of the different stimuli (words, stories, and movies). Speakers of Taiwanese, Finnish, and Swedish drew similar body maps, suggesting that the sensations are not limited to a given language.

So what are we seeing in these illustrations? The authors note that, measured physiologically, most feelings only cause a minor change in heart rate or skin temperature—our torsos don’t literally get hot with surprise.

Instead, the results likely reveal subjective perceptions about the impact of our mental states on the body, a combination of muscle and visceral reactions and nervous system responses that we can’t easily differentiate. Feeling jealous may not truly make us red in the face, for example, but we certainly might feel like it does.

At the very least, the authors might have created the most scientifically detailed emoji ever—something they can feel proud in the chest about.  

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SWARM Quadrotors (Aerial Robots): Coordinated Flight of Small Quadcoptors Interacting with Humans

Swarms of Aerial Robots using “inexpensive” small RC quadrotor platforms, autonomous control/guidance algorithms inspired from our work in distributed, cooperative controlhttp://publish.illinois.edu/aerospace… and a Vicon motion capture system. 

Aerospace Robotics and Control Laboratory
Department of Aerospace Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
http://publish.illinois.edu/aerospace…

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Dustin Curtis: I Want

The best way to predict the future is to think about desire. The problem with desire is that it tends to be bounded by what’s actually possible; as we grow older, our imaginations seem to develop artificial caps that limit our ideas to things that are reasonably achievable in the short term. But who cares about what is reasonable? Here’s what I want.

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I want a system that continuously scans my body and tells me if I have actionable disease, like cancer or a contagious flu. I want this device to tell me if I have a higher than normal risk of a heart attack, and, if so, which steps I should take to prevent one.

I want to take a pill every morning that restricts my body’s ability to process more calories than it needs during the day. I want this pill to enable my body to dispose of any junk chemicals or excess calories that exceed the ideal, healthy amount.

I want to think of the trip between New York City and San Francisco the same way I think about a subway ride. I want a maximum fixed cost for long distance travel of $100 per trip, and for the physical transport to utilize new or vastly improved transportation technology that is good for the environment.

I want fresh food to last ten times longer than it does now, with no reduction in taste or nutrition; I want the process of decomposition for fruit, meat, and other perishable food to be significantly slowed using some process that has benefits on the same magnitude as the invention of the refrigerator.

I want mass-produced products to be locally manufactured just-in-time in dark, human-less warehouses by robots, and not made in far-away lands, because human innovation is vastly slowed by the obstacles and time waste in outsourcing. I want the design and production of high quality, inexpensive physical goods to be dramatically easier, faster, and more environmentally and technologically efficient.

I want doctors to be way less involved with practical medicine, and for computers to diagnose and treat disease; we know so little about the human body, and innovation in medicine moves so slowly, that tens of thousands of people die every day from things that could be completely and easily prevented with technology. I want the human body to be treated medically as a machine, by machines.

I want to order a tube of toothpaste, a tomato, or a sandwich, and have it delivered to me within 10 minutes via a safe flying machine (or other delivery system; see also: pneumatic tubes, 3-D printing).

I want a seemingly high-end, luxury hotel chain that utilizes technology so effectively that the nightly room rate is less than $100 in even the most expensive cities, like London.

I want to instantly find the best of something in a product category without wasting time on my own research. I want a place like Amazon.com, but, when you search for “toaster”, you are presented with only one model of toaster: the one that 80% of people would consider to be the best toaster in the world.

I want technology to make an affordable concierge lifestyle accessible to more people, because I think having the ability to consult experts makes people universally smarter, faster, and more efficient as humans. I want a personal trainer, a fashion stylist, a nutritionist, an executive assistant, and a nurse I can call on at any time for advice.

I want to have one unlimited-use internet plan that allows me to use/add as many devices as I want, and to use them anywhere in the world at no additional cost.

I want everything in my life to be connected to and enhanced by the internet. I want my watch, glasses, toaster, light switches, thermostat, and door locks to use connectedness to make the world a better place–by reducing energy usage, decreasing waste, and improving my happiness and convenience.

I want nuclear reactors or some other clean technology to power the entire world’s electrical grid, safely.

I want a display implanted into my retina that enhances my life by visually providing me with information that my brain is not designed to think about. I want scientific facts and social knowledge to guide my decisions, and for simple errors that most humans make (like distance miscalculations and logical fallacies) to be immediately identified. (See also: The Glass Bicycle)

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It’s hard to think about things far beyond what is currently achievable. If there were no limitations on technology, time, and social pressures, what would you want?

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