Oct 25, 2005 02:42
- If anyone goes to the trouble of reading the manifesto and you spot a spelling, grammar, or link error, lemme know. It's totally a first draft and I'm not even sure if there'll be a second draft. I suppose that depends on how many corrections I get :)
If you only check out one part of the whole thing, make it this...
- Another of my favorite authors, Ray Kurzweil, came to town a few weeks back and gave a great talk at Town Hall. He was kind enough to provide a URL to the slides he presented which you can check out here.
Even without the benefit of his speech, I strongly recommend looking through the slides which are well designed and were a great example of how to use PowerPoint effectively.
In his talk, he discusses the telescoping effect of technological advancement and how the period of time we have to wait between paradigm shifts gets shorter and shorter. (you may also remember this being discussed in the movie Waking Life)
He predicts that nanotechnology will bring about cures for all the world's major diseases, solve problems with energy, global warming, food shortage, etc. By the year 2045, he predicts that there will be computers that can effectively simulate the full capabilities of the human brain.
I was quite skeptical going in to his talk, but Kurzweil has some sound arguments and research to backup his claims. His new book talks about all this stuff in-depth, might be worth a look if you're looking for something new to read.
- I gave a short introductory talk on GTD last month to some of my coworkers. Here are the handouts if anyone's curious:-- advanced workflow
-- my quick summary of gtd
- And that folks is it from me for awhile...
I'm focusing most of my time on my thesis outside of work. Much of the manifesto came out of some research I did to get the juices flowing for my real paper which I'm in the process of writing.
I won't be readings blogs or LJ for awhile, so if you want me to see something, go ahead and email it to me... it just better be awesome. Things that qualify:
-- anything that has to do with web annotation or information overload (my thesis topic)
-- news that the Smiths are getting back together
-- news of any H-town rappers coming to town
-- robot anything
-- links to good mixes/songs you come across
-- pictures of lobsters or duck-billed platypuses
My current schedule has me submitting a first draft by Nov. 7th (crazy, I know), turning my final draft in to my committee by my birthday, defending on Dec 12, and then turning in the final final draft on the very last day of the quarter, Dec 16th.
After I drive to school to drop off that last draft, I'll then get on a plane which will take me to Houston where I'll meet up with my parents to fly to Amsterdam. After a day there, we head to Iran for 3 weeks. I'm not sure when I'll have time to even think about how amazing that will be, it's been more than 10 years since I've been there.
I'm hoping, if all goes well with my thesis, that I might be able to give a talk on it at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. Doing something like that has been a dream of mine for many years... I just need to get off my ass and make it happen.
When I get back from the trip, I'm hoping to make some big changes in my life with having school off my plate for awhile. I'll probably apply to the PhD program in my department... even if I'm not totally sure about going that route just yet. I'm finally going to run out of excuses for delaying my return to the West side and with all that new free time, I hope to finally get serious about working on my own original music.
This journal will also probably undergo some big changes... namely with regards to points 8 and 10 in Nielson's lastest article on weblog usability.
Big days are ahead, but only if I can focus for just 2 weeks. Wish me luck and I'll see you all after draft 1 is submitted!
personal,
gtd,
nanotechnology,
kurzweil