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phonebloks teams with motorola

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Steve Smith

phonebloks teams with motorola

https://phonebloks.com

I think this is an interesting development... I think it will be most
important in the DIY world for allowing semi-custom development of
"mobile" tools... I think it also may catch on in the larger popular
culture in the same way that body modification and accessorizing
(bling?) does now.

Not to be a naysayer, but I think it is "before it's time" except for
it's novelty.

Anyone else looked into this?

- Steve

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cody dooderson

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

That does seem really nifty. The market is too small for a smart flip-phone with a 3d camera, a weather station, and super bright light, but this would allow someone to make one easily. However, I agree that it might be to before it's time.

Cody Smith

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 3:08 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

https://phonebloks.com

I think this is an interesting development... I think it will be most important in the DIY world for allowing semi-custom development of "mobile" tools... I think it also may catch on in the larger popular culture in the same way that body modification and accessorizing (bling?) does now.

Not to be a naysayer, but I think it is "before it's time" except for it's novelty.

Anyone else looked into this?

- Steve

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Steve Smith

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

That does seem really nifty. The market is too small for a smart flip-phone with a 3d camera, a weather station, and super bright light, but this would allow someone to make one easily. However, I agree that it might be to before it's time.

Cody Smith

I'm surprised that they didn't bring LEGO in as a partner as well!
Change this XKCD cartoon chart to reference "smart phones" instead of LEGO people"

FWIW, Daniel Dennett recently claimed that 10,000 years ago humans and their domesticated animals comprised less than 1% of the mass of animal (not including invertebrates or ocean dwellers) of the earth but today we, along with our livestock and pets comprise 98%... I can't even image what the relative mass of automobiles (or just their tires?) or buildings might be (or smartphones or LEGO blocks).

Russell Standish-2

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 10:01:11AM -0600, Steve Smith wrote:
>
> FWIW, Daniel Dennett recently claimed that 10,000 years ago humans
> and their domesticated animals comprised less than 1% of the mass of
> animal (not including invertebrates or ocean dwellers) of the earth
> but today we, along with our livestock and pets comprise 98%... I
> can't even image what the relative mass of automobiles (or just
> their tires?) or buildings might be (or smartphones or LEGO blocks).
>
>

I'm highly sceptical of that claim. In the soils below our house, live
city-sized populations of ant, earthworms, and probably even more
nematodes. These all count as animal. And I live in one of the most
densely (human) populated parts of Australia (and the world, for that
matter, if you think of the vaste expanses of desert, savannah,
farmland etc).

Schultz (PNAS, vol 97, 14028--14029), for example, estimates that ants
alone monopolise 15-25% of terrestrial biomass, far more than the
vertebrates.

Cheers

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Robert Holmes-3

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

Wikipedia has an interesting summary of various species' contribution to terrestrial biomass (link). The following species are each individually responsible for 30% of terrestrial biomass:

humans
cattle
sheep and goats
chickens
ants

Yes, that is 5 species, each of which contributes 30%…

—R

On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 5:44 PM, Russell Standish <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 10:01:11AM -0600, Steve Smith wrote:
>
> FWIW, Daniel Dennett recently claimed that 10,000 years ago humans
> and their domesticated animals comprised less than 1% of the mass of
> animal (not including invertebrates or ocean dwellers) of the earth
> but today we, along with our livestock and pets comprise 98%... I
> can't even image what the relative mass of automobiles (or just
> their tires?) or buildings might be (or smartphones or LEGO blocks).
>
>

I'm highly sceptical of that claim. In the soils below our house, live
city-sized populations of ant, earthworms, and probably even more
nematodes. These all count as animal. And I live in one of the most
densely (human) populated parts of Australia (and the world, for that
matter, if you think of the vaste expanses of desert, savannah,
farmland etc).

Schultz (PNAS, vol 97, 14028--14029), for example, estimates that ants
alone monopolise 15-25% of terrestrial biomass, far more than the
vertebrates.

Cheers

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Roger Critchlow-2

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

I think they're saying that the dry biomass of terrestrial species is 30% of the fresh biomass. Especially since the "global dry biomass in million tonnes" / "global wet (fresh) biomass in million tonnes" = 0.3 for all those rows in the table.

-- rec --

On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 6:11 PM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:

Wikipedia has an interesting summary of various species' contribution to terrestrial biomass (link). The following species are each individually responsible for 30% of terrestrial biomass:

humans
cattle
sheep and goats
chickens
ants
Yes, that is 5 species, each of which contributes 30%…

—R

On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 5:44 PM, Russell Standish <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 10:01:11AM -0600, Steve Smith wrote:
>
> FWIW, Daniel Dennett recently claimed that 10,000 years ago humans
> and their domesticated animals comprised less than 1% of the mass of
> animal (not including invertebrates or ocean dwellers) of the earth
> but today we, along with our livestock and pets comprise 98%... I
> can't even image what the relative mass of automobiles (or just
> their tires?) or buildings might be (or smartphones or LEGO blocks).
>
>

I'm highly sceptical of that claim. In the soils below our house, live
city-sized populations of ant, earthworms, and probably even more
nematodes. These all count as animal. And I live in one of the most
densely (human) populated parts of Australia (and the world, for that
matter, if you think of the vaste expanses of desert, savannah,
farmland etc).

Schultz (PNAS, vol 97, 14028--14029), for example, estimates that ants
alone monopolise 15-25% of terrestrial biomass, far more than the
vertebrates.

Cheers

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Steve Smith

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

In reply to this post by Russell Standish-2

Russel -

FWIW, Daniel Dennett recently claimed that 10,000 years ago humans
and their domesticated animals comprised less than 1% of the mass of
animal (not including invertebrates or ocean dwellers) of the earth
but today we, along with our livestock and pets comprise 98%...  I
can't even image what the relative mass of automobiles (or just
their tires?) or buildings might be (or smartphones or LEGO blocks).

I'm highly sceptical of that claim. In the soils below our house, live
city-sized populations of ant, earthworms, and probably even more
nematodes.

Nope... not including *invertebrates* was his point. Also not including fish (nor oceangoing invertebrates)

 These all count as animal. And I live in one of the most
densely (human) populated parts of Australia (and the world, for that
matter, if you think of the vaste expanses of desert, savannah,
farmland etc).

Schultz (PNAS, vol 97, 14028--14029), for example, estimates that ants
alone monopolise 15-25% of terrestrial biomass, far more than the
vertebrates.

Absolutely... and there is that statistic of how much of human's body mass is actually our symbiotic flora and fauna... Dennet's point was probably more about the ratio of the wild vs the tame/human macroscopic land animals over the course of the Holocene.

Why look it up when I could speculate?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microbiome

It is biomes all the way down... 2-3% by mass but 10x by cell-count? 1000x by species count (human: 1, Bacteria, Archaea, Fungi, Flora:1000) .

- Steve

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Carl Tollander

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

Would Dennett be more trying to make a point about how we're in the anthropocene now as opposed to our throw weight in the holocene? I haven't been following his writings so I don't know.

And in any case we farm fish, or otherwise manipulate their populations, so they should count as much as chickens.

If there were a fight between a chicken and a tuna, my money would be on the tuna, though I suppose it might depend on the venue.

On 11/2/13 7:45 PM, Steve Smith wrote:

Russel -
FWIW, Daniel Dennett recently claimed that 10,000 years ago humans
and their domesticated animals comprised less than 1% of the mass of
animal (not including invertebrates or ocean dwellers) of the earth
but today we, along with our livestock and pets comprise 98%...  I
can't even image what the relative mass of automobiles (or just
their tires?) or buildings might be (or smartphones or LEGO blocks).
I'm highly sceptical of that claim. In the soils below our house, live
city-sized populations of ant, earthworms, and probably even more
nematodes.
Nope... not including *invertebrates* was his point. Also not including fish (nor oceangoing invertebrates)
 These all count as animal. And I live in one of the most
densely (human) populated parts of Australia (and the world, for that
matter, if you think of the vaste expanses of desert, savannah,
farmland etc).

Schultz (PNAS, vol 97, 14028--14029), for example, estimates that ants
alone monopolise 15-25% of terrestrial biomass, far more than the
vertebrates.
Absolutely... and there is that statistic of how much of human's body mass is actually our symbiotic flora and fauna... Dennet's point was probably more about the ratio of the wild vs the tame/human macroscopic land animals over the course of the Holocene.

Why look it up when I could speculate?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microbiome

It is biomes all the way down... 2-3% by mass but 10x by cell-count? 1000x by species count (human: 1, Bacteria, Archaea, Fungi, Flora:1000) .

- Steve
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Russell Standish-2

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

On Sat, Nov 02, 2013 at 07:45:14PM -0600, Steve Smith wrote:
> Nope... not including *invertebrates* was his point. Also not
> including fish (nor oceangoing invertebrates)

Sorry - I missed that he was only talking about one phylum. The way it
was phrased mislead me.

I'm still a little surprised that the human economy encompasses as much as
98% of chordata, although a figure in the 10s of percent wouldn't
surprise me. We still have quite a lot of wild vertebrate fauna here
in Australia, and even in the more densely populated parts of the
world, rattus rattus must represent a substantial portion of the biomass.

Unless he's also including species that happen to thrive because of
humans...

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [hidden email]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Steve Smith

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

Russell -

I agree that it is a surprisingly large number. I've been looking for
a way to validate or repudiate it myself.

I suspect the numbers are significantly inverted in relatively wild
places like the American West, Canada, Australia and the Russian Steppes.

- Steve

> On Sat, Nov 02, 2013 at 07:45:14PM -0600, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Nope... not including *invertebrates* was his point. Also not
>> including fish (nor oceangoing invertebrates)
> Sorry - I missed that he was only talking about one phylum. The way it
> was phrased mislead me.
>
> I'm still a little surprised that the human economy encompasses as much as
> 98% of chordata, although a figure in the 10s of percent wouldn't
> surprise me. We still have quite a lot of wild vertebrate fauna here
> in Australia, and even in the more densely populated parts of the
> world, rattus rattus must represent a substantial portion of the biomass.
>
> Unless he's also including species that happen to thrive because of
> humans...
>

Owen Densmore

Re: phonebloks teams with motorola

Administrator

In reply to this post by Steve Smith

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 3:08 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

https://phonebloks.com

I think this is an interesting development... I think it will be most important in the DIY world for allowing semi-custom development of "mobile" tools... I think it also may catch on in the larger popular culture in the same way that body modification and accessorizing (bling?) does now.

Not to be a naysayer, but I think it is "before it's time" except for it's novelty.

Anyone else looked into this?

Apparently not, unless you include the non-biomass of phones.

I think a "fixable" phone would be good, maybe to the point of early computers where everything was replaceable. In our drive to include a lot in a phone, and to make it small enough, its given up fixability.

Maybe as we can make phones small enough, we'd get back to fixability. Be nice to include "bloks" in the mix.

-- Owen