John Nordin's Profile

Hi Anton, great read. It’s about time IKEA started with this! To answer your questions, I’m betting IKEA was moving quickly and wanted to get customer feedback before continuing building out their AR offering. They may also have been testing its accuracy — it would suck if you ordered a couch and it was much bigger IRL than in AR! It also looks like the textures aren’t really great yet. I’d love to see the version 3.0 of this app where textures and lighting are more realistic. At the moment it seems more useful as a measurement tool than something an amateur interior designer would employ. I’d also love to see them go full buzzword and implement an AI interior design assistant that can recommend furniture to fill a spot based on the colors and lines in the room. I wonder how much of a difference this technology is currently making for consumers.

Thanks Erika for the interesting read!

Picking up on Erika’s second question about the place for technology in a US national election, I’d like propose a different view from yours above, Danny. I see your points and agree entirely that old-fashioned paper is essentially unhackable because it’s so incredibly messy and fragmented and there is no single point of control. But I wonder how great the risk of hacking really is, and haven’t we hacked our own vote already by creating a system in which only a fraction of Americans choose to vote, even in highest-level elections where it’s less than 60%? I see one of the greatest promises of digital voting technologies as convenience and by extension, inclusion.

I expect in response you would say that we’re a long way from there yet and Smartmatic’s technology does not solve the key problem of verifying identity, and I would agree.

Hi Jenny, section titles for the win! But also, what a depressing question. I know you want the answer to be yes, and so do I.

Realistically, it’s hard to argue that adding snowmaking to an already energy- and resource-intensive activity like skiing is a great thing for the world. I’d be interested to know how it played out in Tahoe resorts during the California drought over the past few years.

That being said, it sounds like Vail Resorts at least is doing a lot to minimize its impact. A net zero emissions policy by 2030 is fanstastic and makes me feel better about skiing. And if 80% of the water they use is returned to the watershed, that should go a long way to minimizing the impact too.

Hi Scott, I loved this. To address your questions…

(1) I think there’s a fair argument to be made that any proactive measures against climate change require broad public cooperation and therefore it is not possible to “combat” climate change without engaging the public. Others may argue that the Navy’s role should be to adapt to the changing climate, but especially since combatting threats to our national security is their job description, I feel they are the right people for the job.

(2) In theory, I think it should be a separate fund for climate change. In practice, would not want Congress to eliminate it from the Navy’s budget because I don’t think the political willpower to create a Climate Change fund exists.

Dear Eric,

I love your use of TOM concepts here in such an unexpected setting. With regards to the threats you outline to the “upstream supply chain” (sourcing talent), it sounds like your recommendation is to do a better job of sourcing and training talent within Britain — or in TOM terms “vertical integration”.

My question is, to what degree has local sourcing and training been a key factor for success for Arsenal in years past? Do you believe that they have the capability to source locally and remain competitive? And perhaps most importantly from a business perspective, if they can’t continue to be internationally competitive how will that impact their status at home and abroad?

Best,
John

TOM2017 and khernandez, what an interesting marriage of age-old policy and 21st century technology.

Another piece of this picture that would be interesting to explore is how cyber attacks and cyber threats affect thinking about the relationship between data security and national security. As US residents, we’re on the “same side” as many of the largest data storage and online identity providers. I’d be willing to bet that if Alibaba were running data centers with sensitive information in the US, the government would take an interest.

Do you think data could become such a critical and sensitive part of our national infrastructure that it would be regulated like the electrical grid? I mean I’m not hoping for his future because utilities have a bad rep for efficiency and innovation, but government-regulated monopolies or oligarchies seem to be the go-to solution for any infrastructure where national security is involved.