Jason Koebler

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“The Hyperloop Is Real”

February 9, 2016 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

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For most people, creating a new mode of travel to massively improve speed and environmental impact would be worthy of a life’s work. But not so for Elon Musk, too busy to develop his idea for the Hyperloop because he’s trying to colonize Mars and transform Earth into a solar-and-electric planet.

Others, however, are interested, very interested. In a Vice “Motherboard” article, Jason Koebler travels to College Station, Texas, to take the temperature of engineers who have pipe dreams, at a competition among those driven to complete Musk’s mandate by an idealism they may not even be able to express. An excerpt:

After briefly talking about it in public, Musk published a white paper that went into specifics of how it would work: Use vacuum pumps to take the air out of an enclosed tube to reduce air pressure, remove the wheels from a “pod” to reduce friction, and use some induction motors to shoot the pod down the tube very quickly.

Two and a half years later, actually traveling on a hyperloop is still theoretical, but its effect on business is not. There is a very real, bonafide industry of people trying very hard to make the hyperloop. The way Smith and everyone else in the industry talks about it, the hyperloop is is not some futuristic thing—it’s an engineering problem that’s being actively solved by real companies and real engineers.

“The hyperloop is real,” Brogan BamBrogan, a former SpaceX employee and cofounder of Hyperloop Technologies told me.

If the hyperloop is real, then the pod design weekend was its coming out party. Hosted by SpaceX at Texas A&M University, the weekend featured more than 1,000 students split between 180 university teams, each of them armed with design schematics, computer models, and physics proofs that suggest it’ll be possible to build hyperloop pods that can successfully navigate a one-mile test track being built by SpaceX on its Hawthorne, California campus. More strikingly were the number of companies and professional engineers there whose main business and job description is, broadly speaking: Make the hyperloop into a tangible thing.•

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“It’s Called Microdosing”

November 27, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

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Timothy Leary believed we needed to be released from the prisons of our minds, and from depressives to migraine sufferers to the “ideaters” of Silicon Valley, some agree to a degree, as they reportedly take microdoses of LSD to “treat” the brain. There doesn’t seem to be in-depth research into how many are currently dropping small amounts of acid (roughly 10% of a “normal” dosage) or if it truly cleanses the doors of perception, but it’s happening on some indeterminate scale.

From Jason Koebler of Vice Motherboard:

James Fadiman’s inbox is stuffed with hundreds of emails from people describing how they’ve conquered anxiety or depression or even things like cluster headaches and painful period cramps. Will the scientific establishment ever begin taking their experiences seriously?

Over the last five years, Fadiman has spent much of his time explaining how taking a tiny little bit of LSD or another hallucinogenic drug on a specific schedule could have big time medical benefits, and while the idea hasn’t yet catapulted itself into the mainstream, it’s getting there—there’s nary a science—or technology-minded media outlet that hasn’t either tried microdosing or written about it in some form over the last few months.

The general idea is based on the long-held belief that acid can help you work through some mental problems and see the world in a different way. But taking a full dose of a hallucinogen isn’t for everyone—my sole experience with LSD ended with me crying and eating frozen fish off the floor of a Barcelona hostel, among several other harrowing experiences during a high that lasted 14 mostly excruciating hours.

With microdosing is to take roughly a tenth of a normal dose (about 10-20 micrograms) every four days and then go about your business. Done correctly, there are no hallucinations, no traumatic experiences, not even any sluggishness. Those who do it correctly, Fadiman says, report having better days, feeling less anxious, and sometimes even conquering long-held mental hangups.

“People do it and they’re eating better, sleeping better, they’re often returning to exercise or yoga or meditation. It’s as if messages are passing through their body more easily,” Fadiman told me.•

 

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“If The Technology Matures To A Point Where It’s Reliable, Today’s Taxi Drivers Don’t Stand A Chance”

July 6, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

If driverless cars improve to the point where they’re even just as good as human drivers, those jobs behind the wheels of buses, taxis, trucks, etc., may disappear in an avalanche. That’s because autonomous vehicles might already be a cost-effective alternative, according to a paper published by Jeffery Greenblatt and Samveg Saxena of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. From Jason Koebler at Vice Motherboard:

Here’s the math used by Greenblatt and Saxena to argue that even today’s expensive autonomous vehicle technology makes sense today.

“In New York City in 2005, only 24 percent of taxi fares went toward vehicle costs, with 57 percent going to drivers … driver income constitutes $97,600 per year, which could more than cover the incremental cost of autonomous vehicle technology [estimated at $150,000]. Even using current costs, if financed using identical model assumptions for vehicle capital, this would amount to $36,500 per year, 37 percent of New York City taxi driver income and 21 percent of total taxi fares. Therefore, autonomous taxis could replace current taxis at current autonomous vehicle costs and possibly even lower fares, providing an important early market niche.” [emphasis mine]

Greenblatt and Saxena suggest that, given those potential cost savings, if the technology matures to a point where it’s reliable, today’s taxi drivers don’t stand a chance. That is, of course, what taxi companies have been very much worried about as Uber makes inroads throughout the world.•

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“The Utility Of Having Such A Capability Is Pretty Astounding”

June 25, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

DARPA wants to be able to terraform Earth and Mars and whatever other sphere it chooses, editing genes in organisms which will allow for the altering of environments, the healing and fine-tuning of atmospheres. Very useful, provided nothing goes wrong. From Jason Koebler at Vice Motherboard:

The goal is to essentially pick and choose the best genes from whatever form of life we want and to edit them into other forms of life to create something entirely new. This will probably first happen in bacteria and other microorganisms, but it sounds as though the goal may to do this with more complex, multicellular organisms in the future.

The utility of having such a capability is pretty astounding: Jackson threw out goals of eradicating vector-borne illnesses, which obviously sounds lovely and utopian. But perhaps more interesting is DARPA’s plan to use specifically engineered organisms to help repair environmental damage. [Deputy Director of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office Alicia] Jackson said that after a natural or man-made disaster, it’d be possible to engineer new types of extremophile organisms capable of surviving in a scarred wasteland. As those organisms photosynthesized and thrived, it would naturally bring that environment back to health, she said.

And that’s where terraforming Mars comes in.•

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“The Ability To Steal Gossipy Emails From A Computer Network Is Not The Same As Being Able To Carry Out 9/11-Style Attacks”

December 18, 2014 in Excerpts, Film, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

In addition to wealth inequality in America, there also seems to be haves and have-nots in terms of courage. Ever since 9/11, we’ve wanted to be swaddled and protected, and sure, we should be vigilant, but how about those of us who are civilians show some degree of the bravery we ask of members of our military? Our fears led us into wrong-minded war in Iraq, horrid torture and a surveillance state. How has that made us any better?

Sony’s capitulation to cyberterrorists is the latest confounding example of our state of panic. From Jason Koebler’s Vice interview with security expert Peter W. Singer:

“Question: 

Let’s just cut to the chase—Are these hackers terrorists? Are they cyberterrorists?

Peter W. Singer: ​

There’s two layers to it now. There’s the definition of terrorism and the reaction to it, which has been a combination of being both insipid and encouraging to future acts.

The first is what has already happened. Sony has labeled what happened to it as cyberterrorism and various media ​have also described it as cyber terrorism. The reality is having your scripts posted online does not constitute a terrorist act. The FBI describes it as an ‘act that results in violence.’ Losing your next James Bond movie script that talks about violence is not the same thing as an act of violence.

What has happened to Sony already does not meet the definition. They’re saying ‘This is an act of war.’ We’re not going to war with North Korea over this act just because Angelina Jolie is now mad at a Sony executive. Acts of war have a different standard.

Literally, we are in the realm of beyond stupid with this.

Question:

And then we have the actual threats of violence.

Peter W. Singer: ​

​This same group threatened yesterday 9/11-style incidents at any movie theatre that chose to show the movie. Here, we need to distinguish between threat and capability—the ability to steal gossipy emails from a not-so-great protected computer network is not the same thing as being able to carry out physical, 9/11-style attacks in 18,000 locations simultaneously. I can’t believe I’m saying this. I can’t believe I have to say this.

This group has not shown the capability to do that. Sony is rueing any association it has with the movie right now. We are not in the realm of 9/11. Did movie chains look at the reality of the threat? Or did the movie theater chains utterly cave in? This is beyond the wildest dreams of these attackers.”

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