Bruno Unna

01/05/06

Today's podcast: Computational Origami

Filed under: Mathematics, Technology, Art, Entertainment, Popular culture, Applied sciences, Information science — Bruno @ 10:49:51 pm

Robert Lang

Origami Artist and Theorist

The last decade of the twentieth century saw a revolution in the development and application of mathematical techniques to origami. Robert J. Lang describes how geometric concepts have led to the computer solution of a broad class of origami folding challenges and, as a consequence, enabled origami designs of astonishing complexity and realism to be developed.

As often happens in mathematics, a theory originally developed for its own aesthetic value has led to some surprising practical applications. In addition, it has shed light on long-standing mathematical questions and solved practical engineering problems. Lang gives examples of how origami has enabled safer airbags, Brobdingnagian space telescopes, and more.

12/16/05

Today's podcast: Supernova 2005 (John Clippinger)

Filed under: Philosophy, Psychology, Technology, Education, Anthropology, Applied sciences, Biology, Information science, Communication — Bruno @ 06:33:58 pm

On the last day of Supernova 2005, John Clippinger, Senior Fellow of The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, spoke about his work at Socialphysics.org. According to the website, "The goal of SocialPhysics is to help create a new commons, the 'social web.' The social web is a layer built on top of the Internet to provide a trusted way to link people, organizations, and concepts."

John approaches Social Physics from a multidisciplinary perspective drawing from theories of economics, philosophy, neurology and behavioral science. John discusses the role of trust in developing a social network. He suggests that centralized, authoritarian systems in networks are antithetical to non-hierarchical empathetic interaction on the Internet. Today, he says, individuals do not have the power to control their digital identity and what is needed are new roles to protect and empower those individuals on the edge, rather than at the center of networks. He suggests that by using systems of tagging (as a form of reputation) and empathy, people in networks are better able to meet those goals.

John says that markets are social networks; using tools like his open source software framework, Higgins, he and others are experimenting and creating new avenues for meta identity on the Internet.

I'm sure Sebastian and Juan will find (or have found) this podcast very thought provoking.

11/28/05

Today's podcasts

Filed under: Computing, Education, Entertainment, Applied sciences, Electronics — Bruno @ 01:12:11 pm

Steve Wosniak, part 2

The Gnomedex Geeks-Gone-Wild crowd was fixated on this rare and brilliant presentation by Steve Wozniak, a true geek's geek. His playing started with games and pranks, crystal-set radios, reading Popular Electronics. Then he met Captain Crunch and got into telco-busting Blue Boxes.

Woz wanted to be an HP engineer forever and never thought he'd start a company, but his friend, Steve Jobs, said, "Let's sell it!" at every opportunity. Good thing he did, and good thing HP turned down Woz's offer for the rights to build what would become Apple's first computer. You'll enjoy this -- one of the best from Gnomedex 4.0.

This is Part 2 of 2.

The 'to have done list'

Don’t get freaked out by the items on your to-do list; think of the tasks in terms of what they’ll mean to you once they’re done.

As usual, the messages from 43f have a lot of common sense on them.

SOA programming model, Part 1: The advantages of SOA

Listen to this informative interview with one of the IBM experts in service-oriented architecture (SOA) implementation. First in the WebSphere Technical Podcast series on developerWorks, this 15-minute discussion will help you understand the advantages of SOA, the skills you will need to implement it, and the fundamental principles behind the programming model and the Software Component Architecture.

11/16/05

Today's podcast: When Humans Transcend Biology (Ray Kurzweil)

Filed under: Philosophy, Technology, Education, Anthropology, Applied sciences, Biology, Information science, Physics, History — Bruno @ 05:32:26 pm

Physics has shown that while it may be nearly impossible to predict the actions of individual items, by looking at patterns of a group, we can often very accurately predict trends. By looking at the large scale history of biological and technological evolution, we can see an exponential growth that is continuing through the current age and into the future.

In this address from Accelerating Change 2005, Ray Kurzweil outlines his startling predictions for the next twenty-five years. Based on recent progress in the fields of neurobiology and nanotechnology, Kurzweil predicts significant strides in the fight against disease and aging, as well as the augmentation of the human mind. In the future, the line between biology and technology will blur and eventually become irrelevant.

While there are many concerns about the impact of new technologies on human existence, Ray Kurzweil presents a vision of the future that is unequivocally positive. This perspective suggests a future where humanity is aided by our interaction with technology and potential pitfalls are mitigated by smart technological solutions. Kurzweil offers an amazing picture for our future, one in which many of us will live to participate.

11/06/05

Today's podcast: John Smart (Accelerating Change 2005)

Filed under: Philosophy, Society, Technology, Education, Anthropology, Applied sciences, Information science — Bruno @ 12:06:28 pm

The Accelerating Change conference brings together change leaders to discuss how we can shape the future - how we can accelerate change and keep pace with changes already occurring. Organizer John Smart opens the 2005 conference with an overview of the philosophy guiding the Accelerating Studies Foundation, the organization behind the Accelerating Change conference.

The pace of technological change is increasing every day, and this can be frightening and confusing. In order to control how successfully we move into the future, we need to make policy, not take reactionary stances. We need to be a part of the change.

Technology is often invisible to the user, and therefore we often react with "future shock" when we encounter it. Instead, should be agents of change - actively engaged in the emerging future. Through the sharing of ideas and visions about the future of technology, we can the bridge between the present and the future.

10/19/05

Life hackers

Filed under: Psychology, Anthropology, Applied sciences, Information science, Space, Communication — Bruno @ 04:34:59 pm

If it wasn't for the fact that Mr. Thompson has overseen a quite strong contendent in his words:

... Apple, the company's [Microsoft] only real rival in the creation of operating systems...

he would have got a masterpiece.

The article is about one of the greatest illnesses of our time (at least for people that -like me- work with a computer all of the day): distractors. It talks about the ways several intelligent persons deal with that, and how one can enrich his/her own experience by applying some simple -and admittedly not so simple- techniques.

Very enjoyable reading, indeed.

10/02/05

The role of my generation in history

Filed under: Philosophy, History, Anthropology, Applied sciences, Physics — Bruno @ 01:38:44 am

I used to believe (whether consciously or not) that since the future history is not accessible, it is irrelevant. In that scenario, all of human history is nothing but a preparation for the present.

On the other hand, at the same time it was easy to think of this as a "priviledged" generation: the one for which all previous ones worked.

Today, all of a sudden, I realized that I myself am not any different from those "preparing" generations. Perhaps they didn't care about future, neither. Perhaps people at 24'th century will look back and wonder "how come those folks at 21'st century burned gas to push their vehicles? How primitive!".

However, I think my feeling of uniqueness is not completely arbitrary, or plainly absurd. It must be admitted that ours is the first generation being able to look face to face at the end of the species. The nuclear danger, the environmental pollution, the new diseases: never before -at least with this degree of realism- a generation has had reasons to believe it could be the last one. And that sets a toll in the otherwise historically objective eye.

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