Saturday, September 29, 2007

A New Marriage of Brain and Computer

Quantum Consciousness 59 min. Google Tech Talks September, 21 2007.

This lecture is deep water indeed. The model is put forward from evidence that human consciousness is a quantum phenomena. Stuart Hameroff has spent the last 20 years studying consciousness from the perspective of his field of anesthesiology. The talk becomes a history of the research both of computer and brain, from early simple models to the present. He challenges Kurzweil's idea that singularity will bring machine awareness (12 orders of magnitude worth says he). It ends discussing alzheimers and consciousness in general. His website is http://quantumconsciousness.org/

Everything is Miscellaneous

David Weinberger 57 min video from Google Tech Talks May 10, 2007
If ever there was a review of the explosion of information in our world that helped us understand it, it is this lecture from David Weinberger. He reviews the organization of information from Aristotle and Dewey to Google and Technorati. He explains why it is better not to organize any longer, but rather just tag. Weinberger's blog of course is http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/

And here's a podcast from Wired of Weinberger and Jimmy Wales (Widipedia guru) discussing these themes.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Blogger Play

Our Family this is about the best "fish bowl" the internet has so far created. the google/blogger folks stream a picture every 2 seconds that is being posted to their blog space. it is a photo album of the human family.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

FORA.tv - The World Is Thinking

FORA.tv was an early entry to internet tv, but it was scheduled streaming, still requiring watching at the appointed time. Now however they have a storehouse of video on demand together with excellent indexing and an on-site flash player. Their slogan is "The world is thinking", and it is indicative of their offerings.

Richard Dawkins From their "ThinkTank" section, here for example is a nearly 2 hour summary and Q&A by Richard Dawkins on his book "The God Delusion" at Randolph-Macon Woman's College. It is well worth the watching.

Marcus Borg and Houston Smith And just to balance things out, also on the fora.tv site, from what's wrong with ancient religion, here's a reasonable view with what's right with modern religion. Internationally known biblical and Jesus scholar, professor and author Marcus Borg joins Huston Smith, one of the world's leading scholars of comparative religions, for a special Friday evening lecture at The First Congressional Church of Berkeley.

YouTube - Pavarotti sings "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot

Nessun Dorma - Pavarotti With the passing of Pavarotti last week, his signature piece "Nessun Dorma" has been remembered and relistened by the world again. It continues to stay our hearts a while. But here also is a "Nessun Dorma" to stay the heart. And it is a fairy tale story indeed. Cell phone saleman Paul Potts of Wales just won the Britain's Got Talent contest. Here is his rebirth into the world.

Nessun Dorma - Paul Potts




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Education | Essential Guide Visionaries | BBC World Service

BBC
has a new series called "Visionaries" where it looks at innovation in the past and towards the future. This page is a lovely find - 5 international voices on themes of education. Audio feed and transcripts. A door into the other themes of the new series. How lovely that the internet facilittes such insights reaching us all.