Soonish: exciting technologies on the horizon, with excitement-preserving nuance

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/09/more-complicated-still-cool.html

Kelly and Zach Weinersmith’s Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything is an exceptional science book: it concerns itself with ten(ish) coming technologies that hold enormous, potentially world-changing promise (and peril), and it delves into each of those subjects with admirable depth, including all the caveats and unknowns, and still keeps the excitement intact.

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Potatoshop: when you absolutely must turn every image you edit into a photo of potatoes.

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I think Potatoshop is what Rob Beschizza uses for his photo editing; that’s why his pictures are all about the eyes.

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Sold.  

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As fond as I am of SMBC, I can’t help but think that within the space of a few years, most of the book will be redundant as lines of research fail to live up to their potential, or at least go careening off in unexpected directions.

Previously:

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So which provides a better entertainment value, reading it now, or reading it in a few years?

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Bought it on preorder, and I can say (as an SMBC fan, so obviously there’s some selection bias there) that I enjoyed it a lot. The oddball nota benes at the end of the chapters can be bizarrely delightful - the one with Saddam Hussein’s planned super space cannon (no, really) is my personal favorite.

Also note that there’s an AR app you can download for free that projects a space elevator above the book. Minor bonus, but my kids and wife really got a kick out of it.

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Looking forward to editing out that defective chromosome and having a nice brace of X’s.

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Any place to get a non-Kindle e-book version?

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Pretty sure you can get it from B&N and Kobo soon, if not already. Sadly, no chance of buying a non-DRM ebook. I asked Zach directly and he said the primary publisher won’t do it.

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Is the publisher on Apples book store? I’ll get it there if it is.

Ah - it is. I’m getting it.

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