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Ray Kurzweil's Presentation to Army Staff

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.

 

The CEO as Performance Artist

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.
 

Very Well Remembered, Indeed

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.

Geographic Arbitrage

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.

A quick bit of thanks

I've been getting over a bacterial upper respiratory tract infection this week. That I bounced back this time in two days is largely due to my excellent internist, David Bittleman, and much better anti-infective drugs. When I was a boy with undiagnosed and untreated asthma I'd typically miss about six weeks of school each year because of these infections, even with the antibiotics available at the time. Getting well in days rather than weeks makes me very grateful for advances in drug research - even though the stuff I'm on (Levaquin) is about $10 a pill.

A New Use for Classical Music

Crowd control, that is. In The Economist (8 Jan 2005 issue) there's a charming article about how the London Underground, among others, has found a cheap way to deter crowds of young folks hanging around stations. It's Mozart, or anything sung by Pavarotti. Apparently classical music is painful to young ears. A grocery store has equipped its staff with a remote control to turn on classical music outside the store if there's a situation developing.

John's work featured by Art Scene Iowa

John was invited to participate in a show featuring innovative design in wood. The show opens in Des Moines next weekend. Art Scene Iowa, a tabloid covering art galleries around the state, featured John's work on the front cover of its February magazine. Read the issue and view John's work by downloading two PDFs from their website: Part 1 and Part 2.

The show is at the Polk County Heritage Gallery, Polk County Building, 2nd and Walnut Street in Des Moines. The show runs from 14 Feb to 8 April, and opens with an artist's reception on 13 Feb.

Confessions of a Curve Raiser

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."

Congrats, Dr. Wheeler!

I'm delighted to report that an old friend, Drew Wheeler, had his Ph.D. in musical composition conferred yesterday at UC Davis. Drew and his wife, Jacquelyn, have been friends of mine since Jackie worked for my late, lamented software company back in the early 90's. I hacked code while Jackie kept our customers happy - we had a blast even though we didn't make much money. Drew rollerbladed by every once in a while to check in on Jackie, who camped out in my garage.

Since those days Drew earned his B.A. from UC Berkeley in music and went on to study composition at the graduate level. You can download MP3s of his latest compositions at his website: http://www.lontano.us.

Back from the West

I've not written much for the last week. My monthly business trip to California doesn't mesh very well with taking time to write. In January I headed west twice: we're in the middle of some reorganizations and I wanted to be able to participate in planning meetings. Now that I have my marching orders I'll be developing some new systems code until late in February. I managed to corral John into coming with me (I had the worst case of homesickness on the last trip...) later this month, and I'm tickled about that.

More soon...