Hacking the genome

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“He Jiankui, a genome-editing researcher from the Southern University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen, says that he implanted into a woman an embryo that had been edited to disable the genetic pathway that allows a cell to be infected with HIV.” (Nature)

Claim hasn’t been verified but this is exactly what Yuval Noah Harari talks about in Homo Deus (and 21Lessons). The rest of the world might freak out over the ethics of this kind of research but when on country has this tech, they won’t be able to stop it. Do you think some billionaire will care about ethics if she can protect her offspring from some dreaded disease. And how long before someone hacks the genome to make a human smarter/stronger/faster/whatever?

 

Preparing a home for the pickup

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Once I decided against keeping the pickup in a storage unit across town, it was time to think about where to park her. I still need to cut some grooves and seat the logs. After that, spread some gravel and throw a tarp over her.

For some reason, the photos I take of this spot do not convey how steep the grade is. I’m guessing it’s 20 degrees which you can certainly feel carrying logs.

Max defrost

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Everybody jokes about the heaters in old Land Rovers. Mr. Wolf told me to expect the amount of warmth one feels holding a hand over a toaster. It was cold and rainy today but once the the motor got warmed up I had just enough warm air to give me a little visibility. Don’t know how this is gonna work come January and February.

Where are they now?

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You know how some insanely popular rock group has a bunch of hits and then… just disappears. At least from the media mainstream. They didn’t get less talented overnight and, sure, tastes change but this always seemed odd to me. In reviewing blog posts from the early days of the web, I see something similar. Here are some of the people most influential (for me) from that era (in no particular order): Bruce Sterling, Chris Pirillo, Clay Shirky, David Weinberger, Doc Searls, Kevin Kelley, Jeff Jarvis, Seth Goden.

On second thought, I’ll bet the folks are still around but — like everyone else — have migrated to social media, abandoning their blogs. Perhaps the web they wrote about and — in some cases — predicted, disappeared/never happened.