Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Technology and Society

Kickstarter Tech Support

3 Comments

Rand Simberg

May 30, 4:46 PM

I tried to upload my video. It is an MP4, H.264, resolution 640×480, size of 23.5 Mb. When I upload, it says there is an “error,” but that’s the only information I get, so it’s hard to figure out what the problem is.

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Hi Rand,

Travis here with Kickstarter support—thanks for writing in. Sorry that you’re having trouble uploading your video.

Please double-check to make sure that your video meets these requirements:

Size: Project videos need to be 5GB or less. Video in updates can be up to 250MB.

File Format: We accept most major video formats but for best results upload one of our recommended file types: MOV, MP4 or WMV.
Tip: Converting your file into another file format may resolve playback issues.

Resolution: We take the video file you upload and create a 640×480 (4:3 ratio) version to display on your project page.

Compression: We accept most major video codecs, but for best results we recommend using WMV format in Windows and H.264 format on Mac. In both cases, the key variable is the “bit rate,” so look for that measurement. If it’s measured in kilobits per second (kbps), try 1500 to start. If it’s measured in megabits per second (Mbps), try 1.5. If the file is too big: Make that number smaller. If the quality seems bad: Make it bigger.

If all of this checks out and you’re still having trouble, please send me a screenshot or further details on what you’re seeing from your end. I hope this helps!

Best,
Travis

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This response is utterly useless. It contains no information that is not already on the web site (in fact, it looks like it was simply pasted from it). Did you even read what I wrote?

Business, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Kids Aren’t All Right

8 Comments

Is technology ruining their social skills?

I never even attempt to socially interact via text. For me, texting is something I do rarely, and generally just as a means of requesting or conveying practical information (Where are you?). I’m glad I work at home, because I hate mobile phones for communication in general, whether talking or texting. I’ll often forget to take it with me (in fact I did just yesterday) when running errands. As I’ve often remarked, I don’t think most young people even know what good telephone service (or music reproduction) is like. They think the crap quality they get from cells is normal.

The point about the overuse of exclamation marks is also interesting. I had an email exchange a year or two ago with a twenty-something whose emails were full of them. I gave her some unsolicited advice to be more sparing with the bangs for professional communication, which she took well, but it’s a hard habit to break, I expect, and as the article notes, some people have grown to expect them.

And as a pre-warning to commenters: Get off my lawn. 🙂

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

My New Kickstarter

17 Comments

I’m having trouble uploading the video to the Kickstarter page (they’re figuring out what the problem is, hopefully), but meanwhile, here’s a higher-quality version of it on Youtube. I’m not thrilled with audio quality (it sounds sort of like I’m in an echoey lecture hall), but I don’t have a sound studio, just a Sennheiser headset.

[Update a few minutes later]

Oops. Just noticed, it looks like I lost the end credits. Have to look into what happened there.

[Update a while later]

For some reason, I hadn’t included the final credits in the build. Here’s the new version.

[Update a while later]

Sorry transitions are so choppy. I’m sure it has something to do with Youtube’s post-processing.

[Monday-morning update]

Mathematics, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Neil Stephenson

8 Comments

Discusses his new novel, and the role of science fiction.

He is one of the few authors whose books I always look forward to reading, though I was a little disappointed with Anathem. But this looks like a fun read.

I should also note that one of the points I make in my book (and in op-eds) since, is that our unwillingness to use the hardware we have on hand to get into space is an indicator of how utterly unimportant human spaceflight is (a point that is accentuated by the relatively poor sales of a well-reviewed book). Stephenson describes a scenario in which it suddenly becomes very important to become as spacefaring as possible, as soon as possible, and how society reacts.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Medical Health Records

8 Comments

Another ObamaCare failure:

Let’s force doctors to spend a lot of money to become technology dependent and adopt electronic health records when the old way of doing things was working just fine. And hey–as a bonus, our health information is now more vulnerable to hacking and we can lose some privacy along the way! Electronic health records haven’t saved a single life or a single dollar, but they have created a lot of expense, confusion, and tremendous demoralization for our health care providers. It wasn’t broken, and it shouldn’t have been “fixed.” If the Republican Congress was smart, it would repeal this onerous, useless provision of Obamacare.

There are a lot of things the Republicans would do if they were smart. On the other hand, I can understand why they don’t want to repeal this abomination piece meal. They need to scrap the whole thing and start over, but it won’t happen until we get someone in the White House who actually understands markets and actually gives a damn about others.