Book of the Week: eBooks@Adelaide

Keywords: University of Adelaide

"Welcome to the University of Adelaide Library’s collection of Web books. The collection includes classic works of Literature, Philosophy, Science, and History."
Source: The University of Adelaide Library

Person of the Day: Stanislaw Lem 1921 - 2006

Keywords: Stanislaw Lem

"Polish author Stanislaw Lem, most famous for science fiction works including Solaris, has died aged 84, after suffering from heart disease.

He sold more than 27 million copies of his works, translated into about 40 languages, and a number were filmed.

His 1961 novel Solaris was made into a movie by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky in 1971 and again by American Steven Soderbergh in 2002."
Source: BBC

Discuss:
Stanislaw Lem Dies in Krakow - Slashdot
Lem has died. - Solaris Forum

Image of the Day: X-Seed 4000

Keywords: arcology, skyscraper, Tokyo, Japan

Michael Anissimov reports:
"X-Seed 4000 is a proposed skyscraper that looks oddly like Mt. Fuji. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that it could be eventually built in Tokyo, Japan. The tallest building ever fully designed, the X-Seed 4000 would house between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people. A tiny quantity of individuals, if you take into account that the technology to 'fabricate' mature adult individuals from raw materials is probably only a few decades away. (A topic that probably deserves a post all its own.)

The X-Seed 4000, which would be 4,000 meters high (13,123.2 feet), would in fact be taller than Mt. Fuji, which is merely 3776 meters high (12,388 ft)."
Source: Accelerating Future

Scenarios:
2000-2060s sub trends and detours: The rise of Mall Cities and Aquaculture - J.R. Mooneyham

Audio of the Day: ScrappleFace

Keywords: satire

ScrappleFace
"News Fairly Unbalanced. We Report. You Decipher. The number one daily, conservative, family-friendly satire site."
Link

Audio of the Day: SXSW 2006 Interactive Panels Podcasts

Keywords: South by Southwest

SXSW 2006 Interactive Panels Podcasts
Link
[via podcrawl]

Topics:
music, podcasting, Hollywood, movies, video, games, international affairs, Craigslist...

Guests:
Bruce Sterling, Craig Newmark, Jason Kottke, Chris Pirillo, Eric Rice, Jason Fried, JD Lasica, Jimmy Wales...

Blogs:
SXSW - Valleywag
SxSW 2006: The Final Episode - GigaOM

Highlights:
Bruce Sterling: State of the World 2006

Report of the Day: The State of the News Media 2006

Keywords: journalism, news media

"The State of the News Media 2006 is the third in our annual effort to provide a comprehensive look each year at the state of American journalism.

Our goal is to put in one place as much original and aggregated data as possible about each of the major journalism sectors."
Link
[via Jeff Jarvis]

Blogs:
Media Blogs - The World 2 Come

Insight:
Internet means end for media barons, says Murdoch - Guardian

Audio:
Newspapers in the age of blogs - RSA Lectures
The Future of Newspapers - Open Source

Audio of the Day: Instapundit.com

Keywords: Instapundit

The Glenn and Helen Show
Link

Topics:
cardiac health, Iran, Iraq, oil, war, blogs, blogging, Europe, history, science fiction, politics, avian flu, ports, education, hybrid cars, boys in school, dating women, fathers, men, books, Syria, Iran's nuclear weapons program, music, independent documentaries, mothers

Guests:
Claire Berlinski, John Scalzi, Tim Minear, Austin Bay, Jim Dunnigan, Bill Frist, James Swanson, Michael Yon, Michael Gurian, Jim Meigs, Norah Vincent, Ana Marie Cox, Michelle Malkin

Producer: Dr. Helen

See also:
Audio of the Day - The World 2 Come

2,000 del.icio.us links

Keywords: del.icio.us

2,000 links in my del.icio.us account!
http://del.icio.us/Monten

See also:
600 del.icio.us links - The World 2 Come

Universal Quantum Computers are coming?

Keywords: quantum computer, David Deutsch

David Deutsch:
"For a long time my standard answer to the question 'how long will it be before the first universal quantum computer is built?' was 'several decades at least'. In fact, I have been saying this for almost exactly two decades … and now I am pleased to report that recent theoretical advances have caused me to conclude that we are within sight of that goal. It may well be achieved within the next decade.

The main discovery that has made the difference is cluster quantum computation, which is a marvellous new way of structuring quantum computations which makes them far easier to implement physically."
Source: David Deutsch - Weblog

News:
Quantum computer - PhysOrg.com

Learn:
Quantum computer - MIT OCW

Books:
Secrets of the cosmos - Salon.com
Seth Lloyd: Programming the Universe - Sentient Developments

See allso:
Book of the Week: Steve Jurvetson's Bookshelf@Work - The World 2 Come

The 2005 BT Technology Timeline

Keywords: futures studies, timeline of the future in forecasts, technological singularity, 21st century

2006-2010: AI chatbots indistinguishable from people by 95% of population
2006-2010: Emotion detection used in businesses to select front line staff
2008-2012: Insect-like robots used in warfare
2008-2012: Intelligent materials with in-built sensors, storage and effectors
2008-2012: Terahertz video cameras become social nuisance due to privacy invasion
2011-2015: Insect-like robots used for crop pollination
2011-2015: Commercial magma power stations
2011-2015: Academic learning is argued to be unnecessary in the age of smart machines
2011-2015: Electronic stimulation of brain sensations as recreational substitute for drugs
2011-2015: Orgasmatron
2011-2015: Materials exhibiting superconductivity at room temperature
2013-2017: Hotel in orbit
2013-2017: Terrorist use of GM to pollute crops and damage economy
2013-2017: Manufacture of long diamond fibres
2013-2017: Bacterial supercomputer
2016-2020: Human knowledge exceeded by machine knowledge
2016-2020: Fully auto-piloted cars
2020s: 3D home printers
2020s: Nanobots in toothpaste attack plaque
2020s: Smart yogurt, colony of smart bacteria linked together, IQ = human [!]
2020s: Digital image overlays enhance relationships
2020s: Global voting on some issues
2020s: Full direct brain link
2020s: Network based telepathy
2020s: Creation of The Matrix
2020s: More robots than people in developed countries
2020s: Android gladiators
2020s: Gated cities for civilised people
2030s: Space solar power stations
2030s: Use of solar wind deflectors to set fire to cities
2030s: Regular manned missions to Mars
2030s: Use of human hibernation in space travel
2030s: Space elevator based on carbon nanotube cable
2040s: Use of nuclear fusion as power source
2040s: Self sustaining Mars colony
2040s: Asteroid diversion used as weapon
Source: Responsible Nanotechnology

Blogs:
Future Blogs - The World 2 Come

Audio:
Future - IT Conversations

See also:
Future - The World 2 Come

Book of the Week: Stanislaw Lem

Image: Lem.pl

Keywords: science fiction

"Stanislaw Lem (born September 12, 1921, Lviv) is a Polish science fiction, philosophical, and satirical writer. His books have been translated into 40 languages and sold over 27 million copies. At one point he was the most widely read science fiction author in the world. Lem's writing is full of intelligent humor, puns, and neologisms, and Michael Kandel's translations into English have been praised by many for capturing Lem's style."

"One of Lem's primary themes was the impossibility of communication between humans and profoundly alien civilizations. He also wrote about human technological progress and the problem of human existence in a world where technology development makes biological human impulses obsolete or dangerous. In many novels, humans become an irrational and emotional liability to their machine partners, who are not perfect either. His alien societies are often incomprehensible to the human mind including swarms of mechanical flies (in The Invincible) and a large Plasma Ocean (in Solaris). Issues of technological utopias appeared in Peace on Earth, in Observation on the Spot, and, to a lesser extent, in The Cyberiad. He also sometimes deploys a wicked sense of humor in his descriptions of even the darkest human situations--most famously in The Futurological Congress and Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. In this regard, he has sometimes been compared to Kurt Vonnegut."
Source: Wikipedia

Discuss:
Solaris Forum

See also:
Book of the Week - The World 2 Come

Meditation of the Day: Reflections on Reaching 85... Are We Getting it Right?

Harold Burson:
"It's often said age is in the mind. Growing up in the 1920s and 30s, I couldn't even imagine I would be around for my 85th birthday. In those days, most people settled for the Biblical three-score-and-ten. Still blessed with most of my faculties, I reflect, from time to time, on what, for me, has been a life that, in earlier years, I would never have thought possible. However, I would be less than candid communicating the impression I now consider my self 'old.' Like many others, my perspective on young, middle and old age has changed with the passing years. Approaching 40, I thought middle age started sometime after 50. Nearing 65, I figured old age started at 75. Now that I am 85 (hopefully still counting!) I stubbornly believe old age is far in the distance."

"But I must confess to some misgivings on whether we as a society have advanced in our sense of right and wrong -- in short, the values we live by. I am troubled that we seem not to have many heroes nowadays, whether in government, in sports, in entertainment, in business. Who are the equals of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill or Charles DeGaulle? Of Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams or Lou Gehrig? Who is today's Einstein?"
Source: Harold Burson

Video of the Day: From the Googleplex

Keywords: Google

"In addition to helping distribute content from across the world, Google would like to share videos featuring our company. The videos on this page give you an overview of our culture, products and business. Whether it's a scientist discussing their latest work or one of our campus events, we hope to provide a sample of great conversations and presentations."
Source: Google Video
[via The Unofficial Google Weblog]

See also:
Google - The World 2 Come

Almost 400k servers at Google?

Keywords: Google, server farm, data center, Google platform

Gordon Fischer reflects:
"According to Paul Strassmann's lecture, a standard Google Cluster contains 359 racks with 31654 machines.

He also mentions that there are ">12" data centers around the globe. Assuming each data center has at least one Google Cluster that means that Google is operating > 379848 individual machines.

Video of the lecture is also available at strassmann.com."
Source: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog

Video:
Google: Model for the Systems Architecture of the Future - Google Video
Strassmann - Google Video

Blogs:
200k+ servers at Google and growing - Geeking with Greg
The next polemic? - Dennis Howlett
Google: Parsing the $100 Billion Remark - Internet Outsider
Doom! Doom I say! - Yet Another Software Blog
Hardware as a service? - Vinnie Mirchandani
Not Done Googling after All... - West Coast Grid

See also:
Google - The World 2 Come

Site of the Day: Nobelprize.org

Keywords: Nobel Prize, Alfred Nobel

"The Nobel Prize is an international award given yearly since 1901 for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and for peace. In 1968, the Bank of Sweden instituted the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize.

The Prize Winners are announced in October every year. They receive their awards (a prize amount, a gold medal and a diploma) on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death."

"Nobelprize.org contains information on all 776 Prize Winners to date. Here you get to know the Prize Winners through Nobel Lectures, interviews, speeches, articles, and much more."
Source: Nobelprize.org

Learn:
How does the Nobel Prize work? - HSW
The Alfred B. Nobel Prize Winners - About.com

See also:
Site of the Day: The Pulitzer Prizes - The World 2 Come

Mobile Watch: Generation M

Russell Buckley:
"To the first true mobile generation (let’s loosely say that they’re under 40, although in practice they’re a little younger), the mobile is something else entirely. It’s the very engine of their social lives and centre of their attention most of the time. Without their mobile, they’d be no more capable of dating and maintaining a relationship or arranging to spend time with friends and actually managing to meet up with them on the day, than a Boeing 777 is of crossing the Atlantic without any engines."
Source: MobHappy

Blogs:
Smart Mobs
Ypulse

See also:
Mobile - The World 2 Come