~C4Chaos

Bill Gates Logging Off

Here's Bill Gates' exit interview with Tom Brokaw. And here's the Gates retirement parody during CES 2008.

Thanks BillG!

The End of Theory Opens Up Serendipity

Here's a very interesting article on WIRED.

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

"Petabytes allow us to say: "Correlation is enough." We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot.

"The best practical example of this is the shotgun gene sequencing by J. Craig Venter. Enabled by high-speed sequencers and supercomputers that statistically analyze the data they produce, Venter went from sequencing individual organisms to sequencing entire ecosystems. In 2003, he started sequencing much of the ocean, retracing the voyage of Captain Cook. And in 2005 he started sequencing the air. In the process, he discovered thousands of previously unknown species of bacteria and other life-forms." [read more]

This reminded of the book, The Black Swan (see my review). Theoretical models are useful as starting points and for framing but in the long run our human tendency to categorize (Platonicity) and explain the causes of everything with theories (narrative fallacy) backed up with partial evidence (confirmation bias; fallacy of silent evidence) while concocting models of reality (ludic fallacy) make us blind to Black Swans (i.e. high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations).

In this Petabyte Age, mathematics, statistics, and a dose of serendipity trump theory. But that's in the realm science, not philosophy.

The Top 10 TEDTalks

I'm a big fan of TED. But I was somewhat surprised to see that the top video would be a presentation with a spiritual twist. I'm not complaining though. I think this proves that, when all is said and done, existential issues trump all other issues.

Announcing the Top 10 TEDTalks

"With 50 million views since we started posting video two years ago, TEDTalks have become a powerful cultural force.  

To celebrate this milestone, we're releasing a never-before-seen list: the Top 10 TEDTalks of all time, as of June 2008." [watch the videos]

Web 2.0 is Boring and Full of Crap

Yep. Web 2.0 is boring and full of crap.

"While a healthy dose of social media is fun and sometimes informative, it rarely taps into our desire to feel as if what we're doing has meaning or purpose. Being "social" online tends to be a casual activity where you make friends or share news, and not one where you're fighting to solve the world's problems. (Although we did discover a few ways to use social media for social good not too long ago, they're often few and far between). Web 2.0 is is like Internet candy (well, maybe not as sweet as lolcats and YouTube), but it's definitely not, for the most part, a satisfying meal.

"Maybe that's as it should be - there's nothing wrong with having fun - but perhaps it's time for a shift. The social tools we know and love won't go away, but do we need more and more of the same? In the end, Web 2.0 is supposedly not making any money anyway, so why not use our knowledge to build tools to better the world instead? [read more]

My heart goes out with Umair Haque. Very fluffy. See A Manifesto for the Next Industrial Revolution. Here's a quote:

"The invisible hand is crippled. What’s going on here? Wasn’t the invisible hand supposed to raise everyone into prosperity and well-being?

"Yes – but it’s not. The world is getting phenomenally richer – but the costs of that wealth seem to be endemic poverty for vast swathes of the world’s population, the poisoning of the water we drink, the pollution of the air we breathe, and the fraying of the social and cultural fabric that binds us together.

We’re richer, but that wealth doesn’t reflect durable, authentic economic value – which is hitting fast diminishing returns. The growth that we’re pursuing is neither sustainable – nor is it, in many ways, real growth at all. Boardrooms from finance to autos to energy to pharma to fashion have learned that the hard way." [read more]

Speaking of the invisible hand, here's The gospel according to Adam Smith.

Beware of Using Google Trends for Location-Based Stereotyping

So I was reading the New York Times today and I encountered this article.

"...In a novel approach, the defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade  jurors that their neighbors have broader interests than they might have thought.

"In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon.” The publicly accessible data is vague in that it does not specify how many people are searching for the terms, just their relative popularity over time. But the defense lawyer, Lawrence Walters, is arguing that the evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that interest in the sexual subjects exceeds that of more mainstream topics — and that by extension, the sexual material distributed by his client is not outside the norm." [read more]

The defense is using Google Trends. This service allows users to compare search trends in a given time, and also in a given area. So I decided to play around with the service and did some *naughty* searches.

It's so easy to do location-based stereotyping using Google Trends. If irresponsibly taken to another level, people can make broad cultural generalizations. For example, searches for "nude women" are very popular in India and South Africa, while searches for "nude men" are popular in the Czech Republic and the Philippines. Hmm. What does that tell us? Note that you can drill down to each city and find out which cities these searches are more popular.

Here's another example. Let's say we want to know what countries are more interested with "New Age." The result shows that people in South Africa and Italy are interested finding more about New age. But if we drill down on the United States, it's surprising to see that most "New Age" searches are coming from Kentucky. Obviously, this proves the popularity of New Age in those locations, but what the data don't tell us is how many adhere to New Age beliefs. So let's be mindful about stereotyping people in Kentucky as "New Agey." For now it's enough to know that certain search keywords are popular in certain locations.

Google Trends can also be used to determine the popularity of certain people in certain locations. For this example, let's see whose more popular worldwide, "Barack Obama" or "John McCain".

On the domestic front, Obama is more popular, especially in Washington D.C. This proves that, at least on the internet, Obama gets more publicity than McCain. No surprise there since the Obama campaign has been using the web to its full potential. However, based on the worldwide results, John McCain is only half as popular as Barack Obama. All in all Obama beats McCain in all search trends categories! We can interpret this as follows. From a geopolitical perspective, there is more interest in Obama than John McCain. Whether those domestic and foreign interests are favorable or otherwise, who knows? But it's logical to say, at this point, that from a geopolitical perspective, the people around the world are now more familiar with Obama than with McCain. Heck, Obama is more popular than George Bush (even if we don't include the W) and Al Gore. So draw your own conclusions. Then again, Obama is still no match for Hannah Montana.

That said, Google Trends is a fun and nifty tool. But let's be mindful when using it. As much as possible, let's resist the temptation of making very broad cultural and location-based stereotypical generalizations.

Flickr Founders Have Left the Building

I've been a Flickr user since its early inception (remember those Shoe boxes?). So it saddens me to learn that (husband and wife) co-founders, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, have officially left Flickr (er, Yahoo!). As expected, Flickr users are mourning yet still grateful. And life goes on... I hope Yahoo! continues to learn good things from Flickr.

Thanks to Stewart and Caterina for their passion for bringing Flickr into this world. Godspeed on your future endeavors. And oh, keep on kicking ass!

Firefox 3.0 is Simply Awesome!

I've upgraded to Firefox 3.0 yesterday, on Download Day 2008. (I hope Mozilla set the Guinness World Record. Firefox sets a new Guinness World Record!) My experience with Firefox 3.0 so far? Just pure awesomeness!

Previous version sucked memory (and diskspace) and was erratic on my Mac. But Firefox 3's overall performance rocks. The speed improvement is amazing. No more memory hogging. No more crashing. So far so good. Gaia Community members love it. I can now do my work almost twice a fast! (The browser can now keep up with my flying fingers and mouse clicks.) It's a must upgrade for all Firefox lovers; another reason to switch to the best browser, ever!

You don't have to take my word for it, even the Lifehacker peeps are oogling over it.

Lifehacker’s Top 10 Firefox 3 features

Lifehacker’s Power User’s guide to Firefox 3

I just hooked up my Gmail.

Kudos to all the developers who worked on Firefox 3.0. Thanks for making our web experience more pleasant, safe, and for lack of a better word, simply awesome.

Firefox 3 Feels Like Safari

Just downloaded and installed Firefox 3.0. Nice. The first thing Mac users will notice is that Firefox 3.0 looks and feels like Safari. Since I've been using Firefox more than Safari, it would take a while for me to get used to the new interface. But it looks really slick.

Go ahead and download the Firefox 3.0 and help set a Guinness World Record.

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

And We're Back!

I just took a few days off from work and the blogosphere and I already missed a couple of big events. Good thing the internet is like the Akashic records. I just watched Hillary Clinton's exit speech. I'm also watching Steve Jobs's WWDC 2008 keynote address wherein he introduced the next generation iPhone. The GPS feature alone is worth it! The timing is just perfect since my current cellphone no longer works properly. Looking forward to iPhone 3G.

I'm almost done catching up with work and personal emails. Thanks to everyone who sent us their well wishes via emails and blog comments. Here's a slideshow of our wedding photos in case you haven't seen it yet.

Now back to regular blogging...

The First Cyborgs Will Be the Disabled

"The first cyborgs will be the disabled," says one insightful commenter on Wired's Gadget Lab blog featuring Dean Kamen's robotic arm invention.

"Dean Kamen showed some video of the impressive, mind-controlled prosthetic robot arm he's invented today at D6 in Carlsbad. Kamen has been showing the arm off since early 2007, usually via video clips like what he showed today. But today's demonstration at D6 was impressive enough that it's got the gadget blogs and the Twitterverse all aflutter today." [read more and check out the videos]

Although I do believe that we humans are natural-born cyborgs, I agree with the above comment.  It would be the disabled who will first benefit from human-machine  integration. And they will rock our world.

Here's Kamen previewing the robotic arm at TED.

Beam Me Up Conferencing

This reminds me of Jedi Council meetings. Nice.

"The ‘Cisco On-Stage TelePresence Experience’ was an ambitious collaboration between Cisco and Musion Systems, which took place during the opening of Cisco’s Globalization Centre East in Bangalore, India. Musion seamlessly integrated their 3D holographic display technology with Cisco’s TelePresence’s system to create the world’s first real time virtual presentation."

"Cisco CEO John Chambers, who was live on the Bangalore stage, ‘beamed up’ Martin De Beer, the Senior Vice President of emerging Technologies, and Chuck Stucki the General Manager of TelePresence, live from San Jose, California. Chambers was then able to have a ‘face to face’ discussion with De Beer and Stucki on the future of Cisco TelePresence, demonstrating first hand the potential capabilities of the system in front of the watching audience." (original video here)

Initially, this will benefit CEOs so they can avoid being egged in public.

Who Killed the Electric Car? Nevermind. It's Alive and Kicking Ass!

In my recent posts for Earth Week I've focused on electric cars. This is because I was reminded again by the tragic choice made by GM when they retired (er, sabotaged) their ultra-sleek EV1 -- the first purpose-built electric car produced by GM in the U.S.

If you still haven't seen the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car, then watch it and weep. If you're like me who's too cheap to buy the DVD, check it out on YouTube. (Note: Spread the word and buy the DVD, ok?) Here's the first part. Watch the rest here.

In the meantime, Tesla Motors had already re-incarnated the electric dream -- they made it much sleeker too. Here's a preview of the groovy zero-emission Tesla Roadster. See it in action. Also check out this interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, chairman of Tesla Motors.

Leave it to techno-idealistic people in Silicon Valley to stick it to GM, the rest of the car manufacturers and the oil industry. I just hope that the economies of scale would bring the down price before we reach $7 a gallon!

A Race Between Air and Electric

I've been oogling about the electric car. But my colleague ~Matthew made an excellent point.

"Electric cars will be pretty sweet when they can become affordable.  In the meantime, don't rule out the in-betweens.  My current favorite is the MDI Air Car.  It's still a concept, but they got a pretty big boost from their Tata investment (that is, their investment from Tata)."

I agree. The Air Car looks very promising as well, especially if they could bring down the cost some more for developing nations like China and India. I'm surprised the air car didn't get air time on Car of the Future. Below is a video of the Air Car in action.

So when it comes to economies of scale, it's a race between air and electric. The Air Car, however, still depends on small amounts of fuel for higher speeds.

"At speeds over 35mph the Compressed Air Vehicle uses small amounts of fuel–either gasoline, propane, ethanol or bio fuels–to heat air inside a heating chamber as it enters the engine. This process produces emissions of only 0.141lbs of CO2 per mile. That is up to 4 times less than the average vehicle and more than two times less than the cleanest vehicle available today."

But it's still way better than hybrids. I see Europeans and Asians adopting the air car first (because most of them don't mind driving small and less powerful vehicles) while Americans would likely favor electric cars because there's no sacrifice in the performance and the image is sleeker (e.g. Tesla Roadster).

In the long run, the electric car is cleaner because it doesn't use fuel. So it's still my preference. But I'm more than willing to embrace whichever, air or electic, wins the race to get us off fossil fuels, and biofuels. I'm rooting for them both.

Who Will Save the Electric Car?

Like I said, I'm not too crazy about biofuels. I'm holding out for the resurrection of the electric car. I'm also looking forward to the documentary Who Saved the Elecrtic Car?

Thanks to the hot image of the Tesla Roadster, electric cars have never looked more promising. Hopefully, my 11-year old car would not crap out on until I could afford a plugin hybrid or a fully electric vehicle (EV). This means that the economies of scale would have to tip in favor of electric cars in less than a decade.

In the meantime we need to constantly remind ourselves of the usual suspects who would push back against electric vehicles. Check out this PBS NOW interview with  Chris Paine, director of the documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?

See Part 2 and Part 3.

So, who will save the electric car? Us.

Witnessing the Car of the Future

Just got this email from Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).

Dear C4,

Today, April 22, 2008, marks the 38th annual occurrence of Earth Day, and PBS NOVA is launching a brand new show titled Car of the Future that features Rocky Mountain Institute. In this special, Click and Clack, the "Car Talk" guys, will hit the road in search of a new breed of clean, fuel-efficient vehicles. Please tune in as they visit RMI Chairman and Chief Scientist Amory Lovins to learn about RMI's work in the fuel-efficient transportation field. To find out when the show will be playing in your area, visit the PBS web site.

....

Sincerely,
Rocky Mountain Institute

Sweet. It's perfect for Earth Week. Will definitely watch it tonight on PBS. Here's a preview. See also Car of the Future Open Content.

If you miss the program, you can watch it online the day after.

Red ~C Diary: Witnessing the Metaverse

'After catching the first Matrix film with some RealNetworks colleagues, Rosedale left the theater glum, announcing to them, "But that's what I was gonna make!"' - Philip Rosedale via The Making of Second Life

My avatar is already more than a year old but it wasn't until I attended virtual Conversation Week that my interest in SL was rekindled. Serendipitously, last week while I was browsing the bookstore at Dublin airport the book, The Making of Second Life by Wagner James Au, jumped right at me. I took it as a sign and devoured it during my 14-hour flight back home.

In one sitting I was educated with the history of SL, its ups and downs, its current impact on our culture, business, politics, economics, and its (almost sci-fi) potentials similar to Neal Stephenson's vision of the metaverse. I particularly enjoyed reading about the mirrored flourishing stories of in-world residents, the virtual revolts and cultural transformations of virtual groups and societies. From a psycho-social point of view, watching the history of SL is like witnessing the cultural evolution of humanity, in hyper-speed. Linden Lab (creators of Second Life) is akin to a group of benevolent dictators and Philosopher Kings who maintain order in a virtual world by allowing residents to do as they please within the bounds of SL's code of conduct. When viewed from an integral perspective, SL is a grand experiment on integral in-world governance. And when viewed from a psycho-spiritual perspective, explorations in SL can be used to aid in one's witnessing practice.  (I'll groove more on the topic of using SL for spiritual practice in future posts. In the meantime, check out a parallel discussion on Open Source Integral.)

During the past week I have immersed myself in the virtual realm of Second Life® before retiring to sleep. I've meditated on air at SL integral, explored the green and sustainable community at Etopia Eco-village, did Tai Chi in a silk blue kimono, dressed up as a Samurai wielding the "three buddhas" katana, drank unlimited cans of Red Bull, practiced Tibetan Buddhist meditation, took a crash course on machinima-tography, sat on a campfire near a pyramid in Mexico, all the while taking snapshots of my in-world explorations using my trusty old Macbook Pro.

So what did I get out my in-world explorations? I'm glad to report that I'm now up to speed with SL. I've become proficient with navigation and the basics of in-world content creation. But more importantly, I've forged new connections with like-minded creative people who are out there exploring in-world and dreaming up better worlds. (We've also started a Metaverse Pod @ Gaia for members who want to meet up and learn together in virtual reality.)

Second Life is only one of the big slices of the metaverse but its on a category of its own. It mirrors real life (and wonderland) more than any other MMORPGs. It's not a game, it's an experience. But unlike the web, SL is not (yet) for everyone. Its early incarnation is still clunky. It has a high barrier to entry, a steep learning curve, as well as a need for a shift in mentality to be able to embrace and welcome its possibilities.

I harbor no illusion that SL is an "escape" from for the "real" world (what is "real" anyway?). SL is just another medium. It's a tool to be used for rapid prototyping of one's vision, expressing individual and collective creativity, and experiencing a richer sense of community not possible in meatspace. In short, SL is an extension of consciousness projection.

In the meantime, I'll continue with my in-world explorations. SL made it possible for my blogging persona to have an avatar form. In essence, my SL persona is a "third-order reality." Technically, my SL avatar is not my "second" life because I consider my blogging persona as my "second." My SL avatar is a digital incarnation of this blogging persona, not my "first" life. Yet they're all inseparably connected and meshed together in a single conscious life-stream I call "I."

"Real" world blogging on real world topics resumes shortly. But expect to see in-world blogging from time to time.

I am watching The Global Brain

The original 1983 video "The Global Brain" by Peter Russell. It's a powerful reflection -- stepping back and taking a much much bigger and more embracing perspective than we normally do in our every day lives.

Thanks to Siona for the heads up!

Random Obituaries: Arthur C. Clarke

via New York Times Obituaries

"Arthur C. Clarke, a writer whose seamless blend of scientific expertise and poetic imagination helped usher in the space age, died early Wednesday in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since 1956. He was 90." ....

"The author of almost 100 books, Mr. Clarke was an ardent promoter of the idea that humanity’s destiny lay beyond the confines of Earth. It was a vision served most vividly by “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the classic 1968 science-fiction film he created with the director Stanley Kubrick and the novel of the same title that he wrote as part of the project.

"His work was also prophetic: his detailed forecast of telecommunications satellites in 1945 came more than a decade before the first orbital rocket flight." [read more]

Here's Clarke's reflections on his 90th birthday. A beautiful mind even, or especially, while nearing his final days.

Godspeed and farewell, dear visionary writer! Thanks for raising our consciousness with your compassionate and futuristic odyssey.

Freaky But Cool Four-Legged Robot

Check out Boston Dynamics' BigDog. It keeps going and going even if you kick it.

Some of you might be wondering what the heck would we use this robot for. Well, duhhh! Seriously, imagine a time when we can download Blue Brain on robots that can move like BigDog. The singularity is creeping in, slowly, but surely.

Thanks to Michael Prescott for the heads up!

7even Days: CBCP Holy Week Sermons On YouTube

When I was young I saw Holy Week as the start of a boring and sad week. In a predominantly Catholic country like the Philippines, Lent is observed and taken very seriously. And yes, even literally. It's the time of the year when every Catholic in the country is reminded that Christ died for our sins.

Before the advent of cable, internet, and satellite radio, me and my generation had to endure religious programs on TV and radio during Holy Week. Regular programming gave way to religious themes and classics, like the Ten Commandments. I remember being very disappointed because I would miss an episode of MacGyver. Putragis! So I looked forward to Easter.

But now it's the other way around. Technology paved the way for the Attention Economy. Attention has become a scarce "commodity," especially with the younger generation who grew up in the age of the Internet. Unless you're living in a communist country like China where the government has total control of the media, you are free to choose whatever programming you want. Your attention could go wherever your curiosity flows. This is as true for developed nations as for developing nations.

Case in point: With the ubiquity of cable, broadband connection, cell phones, and online videos, the Catholic Church had to fight for the attention of its constituents. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has embraced Youtube. The CBCP now has an online video channel for delivering sermons. Check out this sermon. Very useful for those who don't want to miss the sermons for the Holy Week.

Some people living in developed and secular nations might be smirking right now thinking that posting religious (Catholic) sermons online is laughable at best and appalling at worst. But from the perspective of the Church this is an excellent way of reaching its target audience around the world.

Consider this context: Youtube is very popular in the Philippines and to millions of Filipinos living abroad. Majority of Filipinos had a Catholic upbringing and still believe in its teachings. So why not embrace technology and reach as many adherents as possible?

The bottom line: Technology is the driver. Even the powerful Church has to bow down to the power of technology when it comes to competing in the age of Attention Economy.

Pseudo Black Swan: 2038

Now that the Y2K bug is history, more pseudo-Black Swans are on the way. Forget 2012. That's so New Agey. 2038 is the new Y2K.

But before people get hysterical and proclaim that the Internet will end in 30 years, don't worry. ReadWriteWeb is right: "...self-improving Artificial Intelligences will be running the world by then, so we probably don't need to worry too much about this."

Then again, legacy system programmers had this similar "by then we probably" attitude that's why we had the Y2K problem in the first place. And mainframes running legacy code are still ubiquitous nowadays. Just check your nearest bank.

So will the internet as we know it still be here in 30 years? I don't know. But I doubt it. Ah, well. We humans are just no good at predicting.

Oprah and Eckhart Tolle: A Match Made in New Earth

My buddy Vince digs Oprah and Eckhart. Who wouldn't? A New Earth Web Event is a success! It's "one of the largest single online events in the history of the Internet." Oprah is single-handedly pushing nondual spirituality into the mainstream.

I think Eckhart Tolle is an excellent representative. He has no controversial baggage and is not aligned with any particular religion or tradition. His "awakening" is a by-product of serendipity, not via rigid spiritual practice. The guy is almost certainly authentic as far spiritual teachers go. He seem to embody what he teaches. You can hear it in the tone of his voice. You can see it in his serene demeanor. More importantly, his teachings are easy to understand and relay to a mass audience. No hifalutin jargons. No esoteric hubris. Yep, it can sound New Agey but it's packed with enduring wisdom. No wonder Tolle is a hit with Oprah and her audience.

Of course, not everyone is happy with the Oprah-Tolle pact. Some call her New Age Oprah - World's Most Dangerous Woman. I think some of these people are uninformed about cross-cultural mystical literature and they tend to conflate spiritual teachings (that don't agree with their ideology) into the pejorative term "New Age." But anyway, Oprah still has the last laugh. I'm glad that she picked a good representative of the spiritual domain in the person of Eckhart Tolle.

For those who are interested, you can download the web event here. Here's part one via Youtube. More videos here.

Digitizing Mind

From digitizing life to digitizing mind... Blue Brain Project brings us closer to the technological Black Swan.

via Seed: Out of the Blue

"The Blue Brain project is now at a crucial juncture. The first phase of the project—"the feasibility phase"—is coming to a close. The skeptics, for the most part, have been proven wrong. It took less than two years for the Blue Brain supercomputer to accurately simulate a neocortical column, which is a tiny slice of brain containing approximately 10,000 neurons, with about 30 million synaptic connections between them. "The column has been built and it runs," Markram says. "Now we just have to scale it up." Blue Brain scientists are confident that, at some point in the next few years, they will be able to start simulating an entire brain. "If we build this brain right, it will do everything," Markram says. I ask him if that includes selfconsciousness: Is it really possible to put a ghost into a machine? "When I say everything, I mean everything," he says, and a mischievous smile spreads across his face." [read more]

Have a peek at a mammalian brain simulated on a supercomputer.

Digitizing Life

I've been waiting for this video! Check out Craig Venter at TED 2008.

Thanks to my buddy ~Matthew for the heads up!

Data is the New (Hyper)Links

Straight from the Father of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. (via Techcrunch)

""I think, it is a very grown-up thing to realize that you are not the only social networking site… otherwise it is like a website which doesn’t have any links out. In the Semantic Web similarly, if you don’t have any links out, well, that’s boring.

"In fact, a lot of the value of many websites is the links out.

"Now if you look at the social networking sites which, if you like, are traditional Web 2.0 social networking sites, they hoard this data. The business model appears to be, “We get the users to give us data and we reuse it to our benefit. We get the extra value.”

"So, first of all, are they going to let people use the data? I think, the push now, as we’ve seen during the last year, has been unbearable pressure from users to say, “Look, I have told you who my friends are. You are the third site I’ve told who my friends are. Now, I’m going to a travel site and now I’m going to a photo site and now I’m going to a t-shirt site. Hello? You guys should all know who my friends are.” . . . So, the users are saying, “Give me my data back. That’s my data.”" (read transcript here)

Exactly! So don't be lazy; link. Don't be greedy; share.

Thanks to Chris G. for the heads up!

SPiM: Harbinger of the Autoverse

In the sci-fi novel Permutation City (see my book review here), there is a simulation program called, Autoverse -- "an artificial life simulator ultimately based on cellular automaton complex enough to represent the substratum of an artificial chemistry."

I was reminded by the Autoverse when I read Cosmic Log's report on the latest Microsoft TechFest. Aside from the much awaited WorldWide Telescope, Microsoft research and development team had created a visual programming language called, Stochastic Pi Machine (SPiM), "to help biology researchers analyze how cells do their work. The program can take a tangled chemical pathway and figure out what quantities of which proteins should be produced by that pathway." Using SPiM, researchers "can compare the predicted outcome of a biological process with the actual results of their experiment, to find out if their model for the process is correct. Someday, the simulations might even suggest new strategies for countering cancer or developing new drugs."

Nice. Imagine what people could do with SPiM (and similar future programming languages) once quantum computing has become ubiquitous. Permutation City is becoming an eerie possibility.

Microsoft Research / msnbc.com

Click for video: Msnbc.com's Alan Boyle narrates
animations from Microsoft Research that represent
cellular signaling pathways at work.

Does Technology Simplify Our Lives?

This is the topic of the latest Economist debate.

Proposition: If the promise of technology is to simplify our lives, it is failing.

This would depend on one's idea of a "simple life." My idea of a simple life is to have constant access to health care, a simple home to start a family, a dependable laptop, a broadband connection, and a profession where I can work from anywhere.

But technological solutions beget more problems. For example, email simplified sending messages but this resulted in spams. Ubiquitous operating systems vulnerable to computer virus. The rise of Information technology giving way to cyber-terrorism. Advancement in gene sequencing giving way to commercialization and patenting of our own genes. Our over-dependence on fossil fuels is screwing up the balance of CO2 in the atmosphere. And the threat of a nuclear holocaust still looms in our collective horizon.

So as much as I love technology, I would take the Pro side on this one, at least on the "infantile state" of our technology and our slow-to-adapt collective ethics (i.e. bioethics). In short, technology exposed humanity to more Black swans in the horizon, both good and bad.

Ask me again when we've perfected nanotechnology, quantum computing, and when we're able to harness unlimited energy from the Sun.

Thanks to Tim Ferriss for the heads up.

Cool Hacks for Wii Geeks

See Johnny Chung Lee > Projects > Wii

Here's one of them.

Johnny Lee rocks!

A literal world view of the exterior!

via TED2008: What is our place in the universe?

Roy Gould: Worldwide Telescope

"Science educator Roy Gould gives an astonishing sneak preview of Microsoft's new WorldWide Telescope -- a technology that combines feds from satellites and telescopes all over the world and the heavens, and builds a comprehensive view of our universe. (Yes, it's the technology that made Robert Scoble cry.)"

Watch it and weep in astonishment.

See http://worldwidetelescope.org/

A quote from the interior

A very insightful quote via TED 2008.

"It's as if my consciousness had shifted away. I could no longer define the boundaries of my body. Then I realize: I'm having a stroke. And my left hemisphere tells me: Wow, this is so cool; how many brain scientists have the chance to study that from the inside?" — Jill Taylor

My answer: Brain scientists who do meditation and/or take hallucinogenic drugs.

And here's a bonus quote for all the self-righteous people on the Web who think that others who don't agree with them are automatically 100% wrong.

"Before the Web, there was just one guy running around saying 'I KNOW!'" - Robin Williams, ad-libbing, after taking the stage during a technical problem in the BBC World Debate

Exactly! TED 2008 is very fluffy.

P.S. Check out Robb Smith's integral take on TED 2008 - Day 1. Robb Smith is CEO of Integral Institute.

It's (Almost) TED Time!

TED 2008 is almost here. The TED Team is now busy setting up. It's one of my favorite conferences (along with World Economic Forum). One of my dreams is to cover TED and do live blogging during the event. Maybe I'll get the opportunity to attend these conferences someday. I'm dreaming on...

In the meantime, thanks to the Net, I (we) could partake of the excitement and the ideas generated by conferences. TED 2008 holds a special place in my mind and heart because this conference will step beyond the realm of science and technology and plunge into the realm of philosophy. 

"TED2008 will be our most ambitious attempt yet to deliver on that agenda. We're building our program around the biggest questions there are. And because it's TED, we'll be seeking answers not just from the sources you might expect, but by bringing together multiple voices from very different disciplines. The "Aha" moments often come from the most unexpected connections. The questions below will give you a flavor of the incredibly rich vein of possibility in this approach. Plenty of Profundity and Challenge, for sure ... but also plenty of room for Cool, Exciting and Whimsical. See the TED2008 Conference Program for details. We think you will like it very much:
Who are we?
What is our place in the universe?
What is life?
Is beauty truth?
Will evil prevail?
How can we change the world?
How do we create?
What's out there?
What will tomorrow bring?
What stirs us?
How dare we be optimistic?
And the point?"

The conference starts tomorrow (Feb. 27, 2008). I'm looking forward to the "answers" TED 2008 will generate.

Chris Anderson @ Charlie Rose

The video of Chris Anderson's interview with Charlie Rose is now up. You can watch the entire program here, which includes an interview with MIT President Susan Hockfield.

Charlie Rose program is very fluffy. Thanks to TEDBlog for the heads up!

The Road to Singularity Leads to Space Wars?

In an interview over at IT Conversations, Wendell Wallach discussed the moral and ethical implications of  artificial intelligence. Here's a key quote:

"Ultimately, he argues, we must keep in mind that we are biochemical platforms. Our intelligence emerged out of emotions and instincts. In contrast, computers start as logical platforms. In order for machines to to make decisions in harmony with humans, we may need to introduce emotional capacities, social skills, a sense of embodiment, and a theory of mind. Even so, right now we are best off recognizing the limits of what we can do."

Meanwhile, up in space, the arms race continues. See Scientific American: Space Wars - Coming to the Sky Near You?

"That consensus is now in danger of unraveling. In October 2006 the Bush administration adopted a new, rather vaguely worded National Space Policy that asserts the right of the U.S. to conduct “space control” and rejects “new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space.” Three months later the People’s Republic of China shocked the world by shooting down one of its own aging Fengyun weather satellites, an act that resulted in a hailstorm of dangerous orbital debris and a deluge of international protests, not to mention a good deal of hand-wringing in American military and political circles. The launch was the first test of a dedicated antisatellite weapon in more than two decades—making China only the third country, after the U.S. and the Russian Federation, to have demonstrated such a technology. Many observers wondered whether the test might be the first shot in an emerging era of space warfare."

Military technology focus on destruction and killing, with minimal consideration on morality and ethics. Since most major technological developments resulted from military projects, I wonder what the technological singularity would look like in 2029. Movies, like The Terminator, offer us a glimpse of a grim future where morality and ethics take a back seat to cultural aggression.

The singularity (whatever it is) is creeping in faster and faster; whether we're aware of it or not; whether we're ready or not. I'm hoping that the "Star Wars" scenario gives way to the "Star Trek" scenario--space exploration winning over space exploitation.

Speaking of space, what do you think are those big objects?

What, Really, is Peer-to-Peer (P2P)?

Here's Michel Bauwens explaining the concept of peer-to-peer.

Also see this video of Michel Bauwens's P2P lecture in Australia.

Serendipitously, P2P Foundation just kicked off a social network using Ning. Check it out and come right in.

Here's my profile: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/profile/C4Chaos

TechCrunch Endorses Barack Obama and John McCain

Via TechCrunch: Tech President Primaries.

"It’s sadly clear that our current leaders have little understanding of technology and why it’s important to our economy and culture. That has to change.

"We’ve been interviewing 2008 presidential candidates for the last few months to get them to state, on record, their positions on ten key technology related issues (Barack Obama, John McCain, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich).

"In December we announced that we were also holding a Tech President primary here at TechCrunch, where readers could vote on the candidate that they thought had the best policies on these ten key issues. The poll ended yesterday, and the results can be seen here. Barack Obama won the Democrat side, with 60% of the votes (John Edwards took second). Ron Paul won the Republican vote with 73% of those votes (John McCain took second).

"Those results are meaningful indicators of how our readers feel about the candidates. In addition, taking into account those votes as well as our own analysis, we are endorsing one candidate from each party: Barack Obama for the Democrats and John McCain for the Republicans."

Read more.

As a bonus: See the consequences of negative campaigning. Then ignore the rhetorics and follow the money.

Thanks to Lawrence Lessig for the heads up!

Current TV: My First Impressions

I've been following the development of Al Gore's Current TV. I'm excited to learn that Current filed for $100 IPO. RWW has an excellent review of Current. Check it out.

So I went ahead and test drove Current. Here's my Current profile. All I can say is, RWW is right! Current is hot! Very well designed.

The Viewpoints feature is an excellent way for members to express their opinions on topics via their webcams. The advantage of Viewpoints over Youtube is that the videos are neatly aggregated into topics and their presentation and design is, for lack of a better description, very cool.

But my favorite Current feature is On TV. The rotating TV schedule is a very creative approach in presenting video content. There are lots of videos that are very interesting. I feel like a kid with my hand in a cookie jar. So many videos, so little attention!

Here's a video that got my attention. It's good that Current supports video embedding. The Guitar Zeros rocks!

And here's a bonus video: The Real Exorcists.

All in all, Current looks like a very promising experiment on "interactive viewer created content (VC2)". Its target audience are young people but I think that it will be a hit with people of all ages who are looking for high quality programming and content aggregation than the usual viral videos and lame discussions on YouTube.

I see Al Gore smiling on his way to the bank :)

Dawkins and Venter @ DLD

We're inching closer and closer to the Singularity...

Case in point: Check out this talk by Richard Dawkins and J. Craig Venter at the Digital Life Design (DLD). LIFE: A GENE-CENTRIC VIEW.

OMG! If Venter is right, then we could be e-mailing life very soon. Good times.

The Next Buddha is 'WE'

The next Buddha will not be a He, nor will be a She, but We. That is according to this fascinating essay by Michel Bauwens.

Next Buddha Will be a Collective

"Religious and spiritual expression is always embedded in societal structures. If social structures are moving towards the form of distributed networks, what kind of evolution of spiritual expression can we expect? In this essay, we will first describe the general societal changes that we see emerging, and expect to become more prevalent in the future, then examine to what degree these changes will have an impact on individual and collective spiritual expression."

Read more.

Very, very, very fluffy.