I loved Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines when I read it several years ago. He's an astonishingly prolific inventor and artificial intelligence researcher. His book is a highly optimistic vision of the future that depends on continued technological progress and on the emerging links between computing and biotechnology. I found his vision very attractive - and I suspect that many others may find it repellent. This MSNBC article looks a bit more at him and at his hope for technologically-mediated immortality.
This link from Wired News: Army Wages War on Modern Menaces has a PowerPoint presentation that Kurzweil made to Army staff about technological development. I found it fascinating, both in the trends he extrapolates about technology and about what's happening with education in the United States.
Continue reading "Ray Kurzweil's Presentation to Army Staff" »
I'd never seen Carly Fiorina in action until I watched parts of this ZDNet video. My first reaction was that I was watching a performance artist unwind her act before a crowd of adulating fans. My second reaction was that her presentation was largely content-free. (See other stills of Carly in action in Salon's article End of a Hatchet Woman, and in MSNBC/Newsweek's The Music Stops for a Rock Star.) But that's marketing for you.
Continue reading "The CEO as Performance Artist" »
I turned forty-nine yesterday. (By the way: what modern day despot shares a birthday with me? Click the continue reading link for the answer.) I took the day off and relaxed here at home with John. It was perhaps the most enjoyable birthday in recent memory.
Continue reading "Very Well Remembered, Indeed" »
After all this time living in Iowa and working for businesses in California, I've finally found a term for what I've been doing: geographic arbitrage. In his book Life 2.0, Rich Karlgaard talks about folks who have made remote workplaces pay off for them. That's what I've done since 1997. My company pays me California wages, but I live on Iowa expenses. My costs are dramatically lower than they'd be if I were still living out west. The arbitrage game pays off for me both in a lower stress environment and in better cash flow.
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I read the chapter on children and on slow schooling in Carl Honore's In Praise of Slowness with strongly mixed feelings. He argues strongly that solitude and relaxation are essential for creativity, and especially so for children. I certainly feel that way as friends of mine want to 'enrich' their kids to exhaustion. I particularly like his admonition that "success, like happiness, is best pursued obliquely."
Continue reading "Confessions of a Curve Raiser" »