Saturday, October 23, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
'Your Brain on Computers'
“...people are walking around fatigued and not realizing their cognitive potential...What can we do to get us back to our full potential?”
Art Kramer, straight lampin. Photo courtesy of Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
“Attention is the holy grail,” [David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah] says. “Everything that you’re conscious of, everything you let in, everything you remember and you forget, depends on it.”
----
...technology has redefined the notion of what is “urgent.” How soon do people need to get information and respond to it?...the drumbeat of incoming data has created a false sense of urgency that can affect people’s ability to focus.
...a seminal study from the University of Michigan that showed people can better learn after walking in the woods than after walking a busy street. The study indicates that learning centers in the brain become taxed when asked to process information, even during the relatively passive experience of taking in an urban setting. By extension, some scientists believe heavy multitasking fatigues the brain, draining it of the ability to focus.
Mr. Strayer, the trip leader, argues that nature can refresh the brain. “Our senses change. They kind of recalibrate — you notice sounds, like these crickets chirping; you hear the river, the sounds, the smells, you become more connected to the physical environment, the earth, rather than the artificial environment.”
Mr. Braver accepts the Michigan research but wants to understand precisely what happens inside the brain. And he wonders: Why don’t brains adapt to the heavy stimulation, turning us into ever-stronger multitaskers?
“Right,” says Mr. Kramer, the skeptic. “Why wouldn’t the circuits be exercised, in a sense, and we’d get stronger?”
This has become such a sizzling field of research that two years ago the National Institutes of Health established a division to support studies of the parts of the brain involved with focus.
Behavioral studies have shown that performance suffers when people multitask. These researchers are wondering whether attention and focus can take a hit when people merely anticipate the arrival of more digital stimulation.
“The expectation of e-mail seems to be taking up our working memory,” Mr. Yantis says.
Working memory is a precious resource in the brain. The scientists hypothesize that a fraction of brain power is tied up in anticipating e-mail and other new information — and that they might be able to prove it using imaging.
“To the extent you have less working memory, you have less space for storing and integrating ideas and therefore less to do the reasoning you need to do,” says Mr. Kramer, floating nearby.
“There’s a real mental freedom in knowing no one or nothing can interrupt you,” Mr. Braver says. He echoes the others in noting that the trip is in many ways more effective than work retreats set in hotels, often involving hundreds of people who shuffle through quick meetings, wielding BlackBerrys. “It’s why I got into science, to talk about ideas.”
He wants to use imaging technology to see whether the effect of nature on the brain can be measured and whether there are other ways to reproduce it, say, through meditation.
Mr. Kramer says he wants to look at whether the benefits to the brain — the clearer thoughts, for example — come from the experience of being in nature, the exertion of hiking and rafting, or a combination.
...how and why people are distracted by irrelevant streams of information.
“If we can find out that people are walking around fatigued and not realizing their cognitive potential,” Mr. Braver says, then pauses and adds: “What can we do to get us back to our full potential?”
As they near the airport, Mr. Kramer also mentions a personal discovery: “I have a colleague who says that I’m being very impolite when I pull out a computer during meetings. I say: ‘I can listen.’ ”
“Maybe I’m not listening so well. Maybe I can work at being more engaged.”
The Group;
- David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah and the trip's organizer.
- Todd Braver, 41, the fast-talking, brain imaging expert, psychology professor at Washington U. in St. Louis.
- Steven Yantis, 54, the tall and contemplative chairman of the psychological and brain sciences department at Johns Hopkins, who studies how people switch between tasks;
- Paul Atchley, 40, a professor at the University of Kansas who studies teenagers’ compulsive use of cellphones
- Art Kramer, 57, a white-bearded professor at the University of Illinois who has gained attention for his studies of the neurological benefits of exercise...Among the bright academic lights in the group, Mr. Kramer is the most prominent. At the time of the trip he was about to take over a $300,000-a-year position as director of the Beckman Institute, a leading research center at the University of Illinois with around 1,000 scientists and staff workers and tens of millions of dollars in grant financing. He is also intense personally — someone who has been challenging himself since early in life; he says he left home when he was a teenager, became an amateur boxer and, later, flew airplanes, rock-climbed and smashed his knee in a “high-speed skiing accident.”
- Also on the trip are a reporter and a photographer, and Richard Boyer, a quiet outdoorsman and accomplished landscape painter
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=print
Art Kramer, straight lampin. Photo courtesy of Chang W. Lee/The New York Times“Attention is the holy grail,” [David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah] says. “Everything that you’re conscious of, everything you let in, everything you remember and you forget, depends on it.”
----
...technology has redefined the notion of what is “urgent.” How soon do people need to get information and respond to it?...the drumbeat of incoming data has created a false sense of urgency that can affect people’s ability to focus.
...a seminal study from the University of Michigan that showed people can better learn after walking in the woods than after walking a busy street. The study indicates that learning centers in the brain become taxed when asked to process information, even during the relatively passive experience of taking in an urban setting. By extension, some scientists believe heavy multitasking fatigues the brain, draining it of the ability to focus.
Mr. Strayer, the trip leader, argues that nature can refresh the brain. “Our senses change. They kind of recalibrate — you notice sounds, like these crickets chirping; you hear the river, the sounds, the smells, you become more connected to the physical environment, the earth, rather than the artificial environment.”
Mr. Braver accepts the Michigan research but wants to understand precisely what happens inside the brain. And he wonders: Why don’t brains adapt to the heavy stimulation, turning us into ever-stronger multitaskers?
“Right,” says Mr. Kramer, the skeptic. “Why wouldn’t the circuits be exercised, in a sense, and we’d get stronger?”
This has become such a sizzling field of research that two years ago the National Institutes of Health established a division to support studies of the parts of the brain involved with focus.
Behavioral studies have shown that performance suffers when people multitask. These researchers are wondering whether attention and focus can take a hit when people merely anticipate the arrival of more digital stimulation.
“The expectation of e-mail seems to be taking up our working memory,” Mr. Yantis says.
Working memory is a precious resource in the brain. The scientists hypothesize that a fraction of brain power is tied up in anticipating e-mail and other new information — and that they might be able to prove it using imaging.
“To the extent you have less working memory, you have less space for storing and integrating ideas and therefore less to do the reasoning you need to do,” says Mr. Kramer, floating nearby.
“There’s a real mental freedom in knowing no one or nothing can interrupt you,” Mr. Braver says. He echoes the others in noting that the trip is in many ways more effective than work retreats set in hotels, often involving hundreds of people who shuffle through quick meetings, wielding BlackBerrys. “It’s why I got into science, to talk about ideas.”
He wants to use imaging technology to see whether the effect of nature on the brain can be measured and whether there are other ways to reproduce it, say, through meditation.
Mr. Kramer says he wants to look at whether the benefits to the brain — the clearer thoughts, for example — come from the experience of being in nature, the exertion of hiking and rafting, or a combination.
...how and why people are distracted by irrelevant streams of information.
“If we can find out that people are walking around fatigued and not realizing their cognitive potential,” Mr. Braver says, then pauses and adds: “What can we do to get us back to our full potential?”
As they near the airport, Mr. Kramer also mentions a personal discovery: “I have a colleague who says that I’m being very impolite when I pull out a computer during meetings. I say: ‘I can listen.’ ”
“Maybe I’m not listening so well. Maybe I can work at being more engaged.”
The Group;
- David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah and the trip's organizer.
- Todd Braver, 41, the fast-talking, brain imaging expert, psychology professor at Washington U. in St. Louis.
- Steven Yantis, 54, the tall and contemplative chairman of the psychological and brain sciences department at Johns Hopkins, who studies how people switch between tasks;
- Paul Atchley, 40, a professor at the University of Kansas who studies teenagers’ compulsive use of cellphones
- Art Kramer, 57, a white-bearded professor at the University of Illinois who has gained attention for his studies of the neurological benefits of exercise...Among the bright academic lights in the group, Mr. Kramer is the most prominent. At the time of the trip he was about to take over a $300,000-a-year position as director of the Beckman Institute, a leading research center at the University of Illinois with around 1,000 scientists and staff workers and tens of millions of dollars in grant financing. He is also intense personally — someone who has been challenging himself since early in life; he says he left home when he was a teenager, became an amateur boxer and, later, flew airplanes, rock-climbed and smashed his knee in a “high-speed skiing accident.”
- Also on the trip are a reporter and a photographer, and Richard Boyer, a quiet outdoorsman and accomplished landscape painter
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=print
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
China Takes Lead in Global Clean Energy Race
'NYT - China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy' - January 30, 2010
The following is largely a summary of the above article. Thanks to Keith Bradsher for the informative reporting.
China is now the world's leading manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels, and is making headway in the nuclear reactor industry and coal efficient power plants.
The US is trying to catch up, and apparently has incentives in place, but clearly not enough. Obama called for a 'redoubling' of US efforts, "yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race."
Unlike the US, China is finding no difficulty in creating renewable energy jobs; 1.12 million such jobs existed in 2008 and are rising at 100,000 a year. Granted, salaries are significantly lower in China, with Vestas (a Danish wind turbine manufacturer, recently built the world's largest turbine factory in China) paying its assembly line workers $4,100 a year.
China has various advantages when it comes to dominating the global renewable energy race. Besides low labor costs, Chinese banks provide loans at a 2% interest rate, "the result of a savings rate of 40 percent and a government policy of steering loans to renewable energy." The Chinese government also understands the importance of energy for their nation and the world; Chian will need to greatly expand its generation capacity as demand has grown 15% a year consistently. Reflecting their sincerity, in January 2010 the government announced the creation of a National Energy Commission led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself.
Chinese companies are increasingly looking to export their renewable energy tech, with western nations complaining that the Chinese have unfair advantages. Congress has considered halting federal spending on imported equipment in response to a November 2009 deal for China t osupply turbines for a large wind farm in Texas.
“Every country, including the United States and in Europe, wants a low cost of renewable energy,” said Ma Lingjuan, deputy managing director of China’s renewable energy association. “Now China has reached that level, but it gets criticized by the rest of the world.”
The following is largely a summary of the above article. Thanks to Keith Bradsher for the informative reporting.
China is now the world's leading manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels, and is making headway in the nuclear reactor industry and coal efficient power plants.
The US is trying to catch up, and apparently has incentives in place, but clearly not enough. Obama called for a 'redoubling' of US efforts, "yet many Western and Chinese executives expect China to prevail in the energy-technology race."
Unlike the US, China is finding no difficulty in creating renewable energy jobs; 1.12 million such jobs existed in 2008 and are rising at 100,000 a year. Granted, salaries are significantly lower in China, with Vestas (a Danish wind turbine manufacturer, recently built the world's largest turbine factory in China) paying its assembly line workers $4,100 a year.
China has various advantages when it comes to dominating the global renewable energy race. Besides low labor costs, Chinese banks provide loans at a 2% interest rate, "the result of a savings rate of 40 percent and a government policy of steering loans to renewable energy." The Chinese government also understands the importance of energy for their nation and the world; Chian will need to greatly expand its generation capacity as demand has grown 15% a year consistently. Reflecting their sincerity, in January 2010 the government announced the creation of a National Energy Commission led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself.
Chinese companies are increasingly looking to export their renewable energy tech, with western nations complaining that the Chinese have unfair advantages. Congress has considered halting federal spending on imported equipment in response to a November 2009 deal for China t osupply turbines for a large wind farm in Texas.
“Every country, including the United States and in Europe, wants a low cost of renewable energy,” said Ma Lingjuan, deputy managing director of China’s renewable energy association. “Now China has reached that level, but it gets criticized by the rest of the world.”
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Birdy Nam Nam - The Parachute Ending
BIRDY NAM NAM - THE PARACHUTE ENDING from Steve Scott on Vimeo.
Good song. Sweet video. Directed by Steve Scott.Check out more of his videos here on Vimeo.
Joshua Dysart On Comic Book Creation
Comic book writer Joshua Dysart from Marketplace on Vimeo.
Joshua Dysart, writer of the comic 'Unknown Soldier,' describes the creation process here, from script, layout, ink, coloring, etc...Great comic, I highly recommend it. The series is only 11 issues old now I believe. Takes place in Uganda, centered around the armed conflict there with Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, their child soldiers, and all that terrible jazz.
Found this video of Dysart's blog, here.
Also, 'Unknown Soldier' was written up in the New York Times. Read the article here.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Getting Outdoors - Backpacking!
Hello folks.
Sorry it's been a while. Well summer's been cruising along and I still haven't done much camping/hiking/backpacking. But I just read Kristof's editorial on the matter, and he pointed me to some helpful resources:
Backpacker Magazine has a lot of helpful resources, such as nearby trails, skills 101, and gear.
Joe's Ultralight Backpacker Website is a friendly low key place with some more helpful advice.
And lastly, this guy Brett has a blog which is pretty cool. Here is a gear list he recommends.
Well I now have the information. I need to get some gear and pick a trail. Probably taking an experienced friend would be a good idea.
I'll be a backpacking master in no time friends!
Sorry it's been a while. Well summer's been cruising along and I still haven't done much camping/hiking/backpacking. But I just read Kristof's editorial on the matter, and he pointed me to some helpful resources:
Backpacker Magazine has a lot of helpful resources, such as nearby trails, skills 101, and gear.
Joe's Ultralight Backpacker Website is a friendly low key place with some more helpful advice.
And lastly, this guy Brett has a blog which is pretty cool. Here is a gear list he recommends.
Well I now have the information. I need to get some gear and pick a trail. Probably taking an experienced friend would be a good idea.
I'll be a backpacking master in no time friends!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Sarah Palin Only Governor to Turn Down Energy Conservation Funds
'Every single governor except Sarah Palin (R-AK) has written to Energy Secretary Steven Chu accepting millions of stimulus dollars meant to increase energy conservation and efficiency. Last month, Palin rejected $28.6 million for energy conservation work because she said it would force Alaska buildings to adhere to a “universal energy code.” Newsminer points out that the Energy Department has accepted other states’ pledges to simply work with local governments to improve efficiency, and that no “universal” requirement is needed.'
- http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/12/palin-energy-funds/
Even more hilarious, or depressing, depending on what kind of mood you are in, is that this is the only part of the $931 million federal stimulus package she declined.
'The co-chairs of the state Senate Resources Committee sent Palin a letter Monday urging her to accept the funds, which could go for uses including energy efficiency grants, retrofitting buildings for less energy use and replacing streetlights with LED bulbs that use less electricity and last longer.
Anchorage Republican Sen. Lesil McGuire, one of the lawmakers who wrote the governor, said in an interview that Palin herself set a goal of Alaska receiving 50 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2025.
Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski, the other co-chair of the Resources Committee, said in a written statement that, "...Alaskans need this money far more than residents of many other states with milder climates and substantially lower energy costs."
Palin's main beef is that she doesn't want to have to impose a statewide code that would interfere or force the hand of local government. Wielechowski and McGuire pointed out that 'the state would have eight years to meet the efficiency standards and that much of Alaska already has the energy codes...Many of the structures built in rural communities are built with public funds through agencies like the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., which also already has the energy code requirement. They said the code would need to apply only to communities with more than 2,500 people, and structures without plumbing or central heating would be exempt.'
- http://www.adn.com/palin/story/783397.html
Way to go Palin! Palin 2012!!
- http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/12/palin-energy-funds/
Even more hilarious, or depressing, depending on what kind of mood you are in, is that this is the only part of the $931 million federal stimulus package she declined.
'The co-chairs of the state Senate Resources Committee sent Palin a letter Monday urging her to accept the funds, which could go for uses including energy efficiency grants, retrofitting buildings for less energy use and replacing streetlights with LED bulbs that use less electricity and last longer.
Anchorage Republican Sen. Lesil McGuire, one of the lawmakers who wrote the governor, said in an interview that Palin herself set a goal of Alaska receiving 50 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2025.
Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski, the other co-chair of the Resources Committee, said in a written statement that, "...Alaskans need this money far more than residents of many other states with milder climates and substantially lower energy costs."
Palin's main beef is that she doesn't want to have to impose a statewide code that would interfere or force the hand of local government. Wielechowski and McGuire pointed out that 'the state would have eight years to meet the efficiency standards and that much of Alaska already has the energy codes...Many of the structures built in rural communities are built with public funds through agencies like the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., which also already has the energy code requirement. They said the code would need to apply only to communities with more than 2,500 people, and structures without plumbing or central heating would be exempt.'
- http://www.adn.com/palin/story/783397.html
Way to go Palin! Palin 2012!!
Rove Says Sotomayor "Isn't Necessarily" Smart
'During a debate at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Wednesday, host Charlie Rose said Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor "is very smart." "Not necessarily," former Bush adviser Karl Rove replied. After Rose noted that Sotomayor graduated with honors from Princeton and attended Yale Law School, Rove said, "I know lots of stupid people who went to Ivy League schools." Rove's claim is ironic considering that in an interview previewing the debate, he cited President Bush's experience at Harvard and Yale to mock claims that Bush is stupid. "The myth was that this guy, who was a Yale history grad and a Harvard MBA, was not smart," Rove told the Chicago Tribune.'
- http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/27/rove-ivy-league-smart/
Oh, Karl...
PS: From the "Progress Report, Recovery in Progress, May 28, 2009."
'Public reaction to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court has been "decidedly more positive than negative, with 47 percent rating the nomination as 'excellent' or 'good'" and 20 percent rating it "only fair." Though Gallup found that the public reacted more positively than negatively to the last four Supreme Court nominees, Sotomayor had the second highest the net positive rating.'
This is a great, great newsletter I highly recommend all of you subscribe to. You can subscribe here: http://pr.thinkprogress.org/subscribe_pr.html
- http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/27/rove-ivy-league-smart/
Oh, Karl...
PS: From the "Progress Report, Recovery in Progress, May 28, 2009."
'Public reaction to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court has been "decidedly more positive than negative, with 47 percent rating the nomination as 'excellent' or 'good'" and 20 percent rating it "only fair." Though Gallup found that the public reacted more positively than negatively to the last four Supreme Court nominees, Sotomayor had the second highest the net positive rating.'
This is a great, great newsletter I highly recommend all of you subscribe to. You can subscribe here: http://pr.thinkprogress.org/subscribe_pr.html
Hilarity at the White House Press Briefings
'Whenever there’s laughter in the James S. Brady Briefing Room — by either the briefer or the briefed — the official White House stenographer indicates as much by inserting “(Laughter.)” into the transcript.
And here is a taste of Gibbs' style:
And in Robert Gibbs’ first four months as President Barack Obama’s press secretary, there have been more than 600 instances of “(Laughter.)” during his regular press briefings — an average of more than 10 laughs per day.
It’s a gaudy statistic — and one that puts his predecessors to shame.
Dana Perino, George W. Bush’s last press secretary, got all of 57 laughs in her first four months. Scott McClellan, another Bush press secretary, got just 66 laughs in his first four months.
Gibbs even bests the late Tony Snow, whose jocular performances — dubbed “The Tony Snow Show” by some — drew a relatively paltry 217 laughs during his first four months on the job.
CBS News’ Mark Knoller, who has covered the White House since Gerald Ford was president, said Gibbs is “more inclined to make a wisecrack than any press secretary” he’s covered. “He's at ease at the lectern, understands the press and is willing to offer a quip at our expense or his own,” Knoller said.
However, Knoller was sure to add that, "Jokes aside, we get business done."'
- http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/23015.html
However, Knoller was sure to add that, "Jokes aside, we get business done."'
And here is a taste of Gibbs' style:
Follow the President's Hour to Hour Activities
Or almost at least. This is a cool website I just came across that posts a fair amount of Obama Administration daily schedules. It doesn't have all that many events up there but it's still pretty cool. Check it out.
Schwarzenegger Proposes Welfare Cuts, and WTF is Good in Canada?
"Arnold Schwarzenegger gave details of spending cuts needed to help close California’s budget deficit. The state’s governor said welfare benefits for around half a million families would have to go along with a health-care programme for low-income children."
- Economist "Politics This Week", may 28th, 2009
I guarantee you there is some bull shit funding that is continuing in lieu of these welfare cuts.
And also, "Canada’s governor-general, Michaëlle Jean, helped to butcher a seal and ate a slice of its raw heart. "
- Same publication.
WTF?!
- Economist "Politics This Week", may 28th, 2009
I guarantee you there is some bull shit funding that is continuing in lieu of these welfare cuts.
And also, "Canada’s governor-general, Michaëlle Jean, helped to butcher a seal and ate a slice of its raw heart. "
- Same publication.
WTF?!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
KBR Receives Huge Bonuses Despite Shoddy Work
"Congressional investigators have found that KBR Inc. was awarded $83 million in performance bonuses. Even worse, more than half came after Pentagon investigators linked faulty KBR wiring to the electrocution of four soldiers.
An electrical engineer hired by the Army who reported finding that 90 percent of KBR’s wiring work in Iraq was not done safely.
It has ordered emergency repairs, but the electrical inspector found that the building where the showering soldier was electrocuted still was not safely grounded by KBR until last October, 10 months after his death."
The Pentagon has informed Congress that KBR bonuses were suspended pending a full review of the situation. Senator Byron Dorgan described the Pentagon's initial awarding of bonuses as "stunning incompetence."
KBR is an offshoot of Halliburton, the company Dick Cheney is the ex-CEO of and managed to be awarded major contracts in Iraq and after Hurricane Katrina, despite numerous reports of mismanagement and poor performance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24sun3.html
An electrical engineer hired by the Army who reported finding that 90 percent of KBR’s wiring work in Iraq was not done safely.
It has ordered emergency repairs, but the electrical inspector found that the building where the showering soldier was electrocuted still was not safely grounded by KBR until last October, 10 months after his death."
The Pentagon has informed Congress that KBR bonuses were suspended pending a full review of the situation. Senator Byron Dorgan described the Pentagon's initial awarding of bonuses as "stunning incompetence."
KBR is an offshoot of Halliburton, the company Dick Cheney is the ex-CEO of and managed to be awarded major contracts in Iraq and after Hurricane Katrina, despite numerous reports of mismanagement and poor performance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24sun3.html
Will Machines Be Our Masters?
'The notion that a self-aware computing system would emerge spontaneously from the interconnections of billions of computers and computer networks goes back in science fiction at least as far as Arthur C. Clarke’s “Dial F for Frankenstein.” A prescient short story that appeared in 1961, it foretold an ever-more-interconnected telephone network that spontaneously acts like a newborn baby and leads to global chaos as it takes over financial, transportation and military systems.
The concept of ultrasmart computers — machines with “greater than human intelligence” — was dubbed “The Singularity” in a 1993 paper by the computer scientist and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge. He argued that the acceleration of technological progress had led to “the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.” This thesis has long struck a chord here in Silicon Valley.
for the Singulatarians, A.I. refers to machines that will be both self-aware and superhuman in their intelligence, and capable of designing better computers and robots faster than humans can today. Such a shift, they say, would lead to a vast acceleration in technological improvements of all kinds.
Several years ago the artificial-intelligence pioneer Raymond Kurzweil took the idea one step further in his 2005 book, “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.” He sought to expand Moore’s Law to encompass more than just processing power and to simultaneously predict with great precision the arrival of post-human evolution, which he said would occur in 2045.
In Dr. Kurzweil’s telling, rapidly increasing computing power in concert with cyborg humans would then reach a point when machine intelligence not only surpassed human intelligence but took over the process of technological invention, with unpredictable consequences.
Profiled in the documentary “Transcendent Man,” which had its premier last month at the TriBeCa Film Festival, and with his own Singularity movie due later this year, Dr. Kurzweil has become a one-man marketing machine for the concept of post-humanism. He is the co-founder of Singularity University, a school supported by Google that will open in June with a grand goal — to “assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.”
Other ideas include ' “The Technium,” forecasting the emergence of a global brain — the idea that the planet’s interconnected computers might someday act in a coordinated fashion and perhaps exhibit intelligence.'
“I see the debate over whether we should build these artificial intellects as becoming the dominant political question of the century,” said Hugo de Garis, an Australian artificial-intelligence researcher, who has written a book, “The Artilect War,” that argues that the debate is likely to end in global war.
Concerned about the same potential outcome, the A.I. researcher Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, an employee of the Singularity Institute, has proposed the idea of “friendly artificial intelligence,” an engineering discipline that would seek to ensure that future machines would remain our servants or equals rather than our masters.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/weekinreview/24markoff.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
The concept of ultrasmart computers — machines with “greater than human intelligence” — was dubbed “The Singularity” in a 1993 paper by the computer scientist and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge. He argued that the acceleration of technological progress had led to “the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.” This thesis has long struck a chord here in Silicon Valley.
for the Singulatarians, A.I. refers to machines that will be both self-aware and superhuman in their intelligence, and capable of designing better computers and robots faster than humans can today. Such a shift, they say, would lead to a vast acceleration in technological improvements of all kinds.
Several years ago the artificial-intelligence pioneer Raymond Kurzweil took the idea one step further in his 2005 book, “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.” He sought to expand Moore’s Law to encompass more than just processing power and to simultaneously predict with great precision the arrival of post-human evolution, which he said would occur in 2045.
In Dr. Kurzweil’s telling, rapidly increasing computing power in concert with cyborg humans would then reach a point when machine intelligence not only surpassed human intelligence but took over the process of technological invention, with unpredictable consequences.
Profiled in the documentary “Transcendent Man,” which had its premier last month at the TriBeCa Film Festival, and with his own Singularity movie due later this year, Dr. Kurzweil has become a one-man marketing machine for the concept of post-humanism. He is the co-founder of Singularity University, a school supported by Google that will open in June with a grand goal — to “assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.”
Other ideas include ' “The Technium,” forecasting the emergence of a global brain — the idea that the planet’s interconnected computers might someday act in a coordinated fashion and perhaps exhibit intelligence.'
“I see the debate over whether we should build these artificial intellects as becoming the dominant political question of the century,” said Hugo de Garis, an Australian artificial-intelligence researcher, who has written a book, “The Artilect War,” that argues that the debate is likely to end in global war.
Concerned about the same potential outcome, the A.I. researcher Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, an employee of the Singularity Institute, has proposed the idea of “friendly artificial intelligence,” an engineering discipline that would seek to ensure that future machines would remain our servants or equals rather than our masters.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/weekinreview/24markoff.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Wingsuit Base Jumping
OMG. The dope song that starts at 1:30 is apparently:
Diz Organ & Sackcloth Fashion - Under Man
Also, check this article on wingsuit jumping and people hoping to land without a parachute.
Waterboarding is Torture
A conservative talk show host known as 'mancow,' who formerly stated that waterboarding was not torture, after having it done to him, agrees it is "absolutely torture."
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Harlem Children's Zone Schools Wildly Successful
'[Roland] Fryer [a Harvard economist] and his colleague Will Dobbie have just finished a rigorous assessment of the charter schools operated by the Harlem Children’s Zone. They compared students in these schools to students in New York City as a whole and to comparable students who entered the lottery to get into the Harlem Children’s Zone schools, but weren’t selected.
They found that the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced “enormous” gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile.The most common education reform ideas — reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start — produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That’s off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students. Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap. “The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes,” Fryer wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone’s founder and president, has done is “the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It’s amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn’t matter if we stop there. We don’t have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying — literally and figuratively.”
Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.
To understand the culture in these schools, I’d recommend “Whatever It Takes,” a gripping account of Harlem Children’s Zone by my Times colleague Paul Tough, and “Sweating the Small Stuff,” a superb survey of these sorts of schools by David Whitman.
Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused. Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.'
- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html
I suggest this book by Geoffrey Canada, "Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America"
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Making Congressional Research Publicly Available
"The Congressional Research Service investigates important issues and produces detailed, well-written reports that are available to members of Congress but not the general public. A resolution has been introduced in the Senate to make these reports freely available online. It would be an important step forward for government openness, and it would narrow the information gap between Washington insiders and ordinary Americans.
Washington lobbyists and special interests can get the reports from contacts in Congress or from a company that collects the reports and resells them. Ordinary Americans without contacts or research budgets are often denied this taxpayer-financed research.
Washington lobbyists and special interests can get the reports from contacts in Congress or from a company that collects the reports and resells them. Ordinary Americans without contacts or research budgets are often denied this taxpayer-financed research.
A resolution sponsored by Senator Joseph Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, would require that the research service’s reports be posted on its Web site. The resolution makes an exception for information that is truly confidential.
For the resolution to become law, it needs to be passed by the Senate Rules Committee. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York and chairman of the panel, has not endorsed Mr. Lieberman’s resolution, but he is working on a plan that would make the research reports publicly available. However it happens, the reports should be put online for all Americans to access free."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/opinion/12tue3.html?th&emc=th
Monday, May 11, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)