Archive
2011 in review
2011 in Review
The good, the bad, the ugly…the truth in a more uplifting format if you will.
Minimizing Regret
Thinking about life lately and I keep coming back to solid basics that I have decided to live my life by. These include deciding to never live life in passive mode, never sitting back and just letting life happen to me.
I want to live a life with minimum regret. Thinking that I can’t be the only one who has this philosophy I Googled to see who else might share my view. Color me surprised when the first link I found was a video interview with Jeff Bezos on living with a framework of Minimizing Regret. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwG_qR6XmDQ
So here’s to letting those around me who impact me know it. Here’s to telling people you love them while you have the opportunity. Here’s to grabbing for the brass ring daily, to reaching for the stars and working your butt off on a goal. Here’s to living my life to it’s fullest.
…” guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.”- Andy Dufresne – Shawshank Redemption
History Repeats Itself – The Looming Internet Bubble Version 2 and Thinking of the Old Days
Wow, as I sit here tonight thinking about the bubble of 1999; I can’t but help to see similar signs of that time now in 2011. Linked In, Facebook, Pandora, and more are all heading towards public offerings. The valuations are again in the stratosphere, like in 1998 and 1999.
Are we doomed to repeat the past? Thinking back to that time, I’m realizing quite a few of my successes and my failures. What I did well, I did really well, what I did bad I did really well, to paraphrase Mae West.
So what have I learned:
- That we all need heros and mentors
- That it’s OK to fail, it’s how you handle it that matters more
- That walking away and taking a timed break will do your heart and passion good
- That you should celebrate your success when it happens and learn from what worked and what really didn’t
- That we need to build relationships, projects won’t sustain your business, relationships will
So here I go, I’m back to trying to learn from Bill Gross of Idea Lab again. Over 14 years ago he was my hero, on the cover of Inc. Magazine and launching a Start-Up Factory. He was my role model on what was possible in business. His start-up Idea Lab was the inspiration for the name of my second software development start-up Idea Avenue, Inc.
After recently connecting with someone that worked closely with him around that time, I find myself following him again. This time it’s his blog at www.billgross.com. I urge you to read it and learn about the man and his principals, then go to his business at UberMedia to learn what they are doing to help change the world, 140 characters at a time.
Here’s to sharing a great resource whom offers sage advice on everything from business to saving our planet.
Mind Reading (Neural Decoding) Goes Mainstream
For the past two months I’ve been running a large project for the world’s largest provider of higher education and have not really had a lot of time to post.
During that time I kept seeing signs of what I call the start of the human-machine convergence. Yes, I know there are precedents for this and these are not the “true first signs”.
I’m interested for another reason, the way it is being marketed. For some reason it’s being commercialize this holiday season. Several “toys” are being promoted to consumers that allow brain reading to control objects in front of you.
Mattel and StarWars Science are both offering these toys at your local Walmart or Target. But good luck finding them, even with a $100+ price tag they appear to have sold out.
I don’t have the time to post all of my thoughts, and came across this article below that sums up what I was missing above. Have fun and enjoy the read, let me know your thoughts too!
Mind Reading (Neural Decoding) Goes Mainstream | h+ Magazine.
Other Resources:
Thought Translator Knows Vowels from Consonants
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24279/
Neuroscience 2009
http://www.sfn.org/am2009/
Brain scanners can tell what you’re thinking about
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427323.500-brain-scanners-can-tell-what-youre-thinking-about.html
NeuroSky
http://www.neurosky.com/
Emotiv Systems
http://emotiv.com/
Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12500
Toyota Unveils Wheelchair Propelled by Thoughts Alone
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/clay-dillow/culture-buffet/mobility-mind-control-toyota-unveils-wheelchair-propelled-thoughts-a
Singularity Salon Talk
Singularity Salon Talk – Presentation Transcript
- Putting the Human Back Into the Post-Human
- If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to be Part of Your Singularity Some Meandering Thoughts by Jamais Cascio
- What is the Singularity? A disproportionate increase in the power of intelligence to achieve desired ends, including further boosting the power of intelligence.
- Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
- Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. –Vernor Vinge, 1993
- The Singularity story echoes two very old tropes in popular mythology, but with a more recent twist.
- HUBRIS. We make things that try to kill us.
- ASPIRATION TO HUMANITY. We make things that want to be like us.
- The twist? Transcendence.
- The Singularity Story (in five slides)
- we create AI
- The AI “wakes up”
- The AI makes itself smarter
- The AI makes itself much smarter
- The AI takes over It might be friendly It might be unfriendly (not much we can do about it, either way)
- (the end)
- But what happens when you change the focus?
- we create AI
- we create AI (but now the focus of the story is the “we”)
- we create AI (but now the focus of the story is the “we”) OK, what “we”? Are there competing projects? Is this secret? Public? Civilian? Military? Open Source? How do governments react? How do markets react? How do citizens react? What are we doing in the meantime?
- not the end
- What’s Pushing Us to Do This? Technological capacity Competition (markets & politics) Need for complex systems to grapple with complex problems Curiosity
- What Might Hold Us Back? Dead-end technology paths Regulations Backlash against AI (or related technologies) Fear
- COMPLICATION #1: RESPONSIBILITY CREATION HAS CONSEQUENCES
- COMPLICATION #2: POWER POLITICS MATTERS
- COMPLICATION #3: LIABILITY A NO-FAULT SINGULARITY?
- COMPLICATION #4: RIGHTS NO SUCH THING AS A HAPPY SLAVE OR AN ETHICAL MASTER
- COMPLICATION #5: EMPATHY DON’T KICK THE ROBOT
- So… where does this all lead?
- Scenarios!
- Scenarios! tool for collaboration vs tool for competition short-term thinking vs long-term thinking
- cascio@openthefuture.com Twitter: @cascio
Singularity Salon Talk
View more presentations from Jamais Cascio.
The Geography of the U.S. Recession
Animated time-lapse map of county-by-county unemployment rates in the U.S. since January 2007. Jarring.
Evolution of unemployment in the US, down to the county, from 2007 to 2009
http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html
TED Phoenix
I just got home from a business trip to Seattle. I’m sorry I missed TEDx Phoenix tonight in Mesa. I’ve been a fan of TED for a few years now and was excited to hear about the Phoenix edition. Here’s one of my favorite TEDs
Wordle – I love Wordle
Wordle example of blog
I love seeing data in a Visual Data Diagrams almost as much as I love Augmented Reality. It’s become my second biggest interest in emerging technologies lately.
Thank you IBM Research for allowing Jonathan Feinberg, the ability to reuse code he wrote on your dime to develop this awesome, fun, cool, educational application.
Try it – you too will fall in love – http://www.wordle.net/
<from the site>
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.</from the site>
Part I: Augmented Reality taken to the Extremes
Microsoft asked INVIVIA to come up with two extreme concept videos about augmented realities. What would we be able to do if the digital and real world were seamlessly combined? These are what they came up with.
Don Tapscott: Re-Industrialize the Planet
(Thanks Gerd!)
“Re-Industrialize the Planet”. A quick summary:
* The web is creating a global infrastructure for collaboration (which leads to disruption and confusion)
* As a result, all of our institutions have come to the end of their life-cycle
* The current recession is a crucial punctuation point in human history – the point where we said that we need to reset, the point where the industrial economy has finally run out of gas
* This paradigm shift is creating a crisis of leadership
* The Digital Natives are inheriting this situation – and they think very differently
* Kids are now the authority on many issues
* We have 40 years to re-industrialize the planet
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