Links for Sunday, January 4 – Terrorists and social media, cooks and smartphones and what an old nuclear power station looks like inside
From a quiet Sunday here’s some of the stories that have kept me occupied; terrorists misusing their Twitter accounts, what chefs really think of smartphone toting customers and more musings on the future of work in an age where robots and algorithms dominate.
To kick off the post, what does a nuclear power plant looks like after it’s been shut down?
Touring a decommissioned nuclear plant
Yesterday former New York Governor Mario Cuomo passed away, one of the most contraversial moves of his administration was closing down the state’s only nuclear power plant at Shoreham, Long Island.
In March last year Nick Carr had an opportunity to tour the abandoned site and posted the story of this visit onto hist Scouting New York website.
Where will all the workers go?
Economist Nouriel Roubini adds to the discussion about jobs in an age of robotics and algorithms in Where Will All The Workers Go? In his Project Syndicate piece, Roubini focuses on how the current wave of automation will affect jobs in emerging markets.
Today, for example, a patient in New York may have his MRI sent digitally to, say, Bangalore, where a highly skilled radiologist reads it for one-quarter of what a New York-based radiologist would cost. But how long will it be before a computer software can read those images faster, better, and cheaper than the radiologist in Bangalore can?
Like the rest of us he doesn’t have any firm answers except to suggest we may have to accept a new age of under-employment. This has serious consequences for today’s consumerist societies and the economic assumptions that underpins them.
The risks of Instagramming your Jihad
A clumsy Kiwi jihadist gave away the location of secret training camps in Syria through his Twitter account reports the iBrabo website. Mark Taylor joined an insurgent group in June this year and publicly burned his New Zealand passport on declaring he had no intention of returning to his homeland.
A few months after destroying his travel documents, The New Zealand Herald reported Taylor wanted to return home. All of which proves the point of The War Nerd that the best way the west can deal with its suburban jihadists is to give all of them a one way business class ticket to Syria.
How do chefs really feel about cell phone use in restaurants?
Many articles have been written about how restaurateurs are driven to distraction by mobile phone users in their establishments, but how true are those tales.
The Daily Meal interviewed a dozen US chefs about their attitude towards diners taking selfies and instagramming their meals. It turns out they are more concerned about their customers enjoying their meal rather than being upset at them shooting photos.
Hyundai connects their cars to Google Android watches
Korean conglomerate Hyundai has joined the connected car race with an Android Wear app that works with the company’s Blue Link system. The app, designed to work on Google’s wearable devices as well as smartphones, will work allow users to lock, open and locate their cars.
It’s another example of how car manufacturers are integrating wearable and mobile apps into vehicles and it’s a small taste of what’s possible when the smart home and the connected car start talking to each other.
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