| Sir Francis Bacon |
Posted by Jerry Paffendorf | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Resources and Tools: Preventing Alzheimer's: The Eight-Step Plan - ATimes July 28 2005
Resources and Tools
Preventing Alzheimer's: The Eight-Step Plan
[Commentary by John Smart] At our July Los Angeles Future Salon, we had the rare pleasure of learning about how to protect the aging human brain, from one of the foremost Alzheimer's researchers in the world, Dr. Greg Cole, professor of medicine and neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, associate director of the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, and associate director of the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center at the Los Angeles Sepulveda VA.
Alzheimer's and other age-associated dementias are a prime concern for all of us as medical science keeps us alive longer than ever before. Something like 80% of us over the age of 80 will have some degree of the neural plaques and tangles that constitute Alzheimer's. Many of us will have advanced cases. In some cultures, primarily due to poor diets rich in saturated fats, these plaques and tangles will be as widespread as atherosclerosis and cancer, two other progressive diseases of aging. In other communities we see much less of them. We are just now learning how to optimize our diet to prevent major dementia and mild memory loss as we age.
Dr. Cole has spent his life conducting rigorous research on the etiology, pathogenesis, and "amyloid reduction strategies" for the prevention of Alzheimer's and related dementias, and has done some ingenious detective work gathering evidence for the best preventive therapies, including the most important one that has been discovered to date, curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric (Indian curry spice). The following is my summary of his data-packed sixty minute presentation (77 slides), including my interpretation of the strategies we should all be using right now to significantly reduce memory loss and prevent mild to severe dementia as we age. While several of the following may also be your doctor's recommendations, it is very unlikely that your doctor will have the same global set of recommendations, or place them in the same order of importance. Be sure to go over these with your physician before you begin them.
The Eight-Step Plan:
1. Curcumin (900-1800 mg, or 1-2 capsules/day) [Best source: Life Extension Foundation]
2. Omega 3 Fatty Acids/DHA (1200-2400 mg, or 3-6 capsules/day) [Best Source: Costco's Enteric-Coated Fish Oil Capsules]
3. Vitamin E (400 iu/day) + Vitamin C (500 mg/day) [Best E Source: Bronson's Mixed Tocopherols with Tocotrienols. Best C Source: Doesn't matter.]
4. Folate (400 mcg/day) [Best Folate Source: Doesn't Matter]
5. Exercise (sustained aerobic). Get it however you can, do it in moderation every day, and keep it up for life.
6. Education (enriched mental environment). Get it however you can, do it in moderation every day, and keep it up for life.
If you have a family history of Alzheimer's on any side, or are "Apo E" gene positive (single or double allele, it is easy to get tested), you should seriously consider the following two steps as well, for life:
7. Ibuprofen (400 mg, or 2 capsules/day, liquid softgel) [Best Source: Costco]
8. Statin (Lovastatin/Mevacor, Atorvastatin/Lipitor, 20-40 mg or 1-2 tablets/day or as doctor recommended)
Notes:
1. Curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric, Indian curry spice. Indians have only 25% the Alzheimer's and dementia rates of other countries. Dr. Cole and others have discovered this is primarily due to curcumin, a major ingredient in the Indian diet. Curcumin crosses the blood brain barrier and is the only substance known that actually reduces plaques and tangles (Dr. Cole has proven this in Alzheimer's mice) in vivo in mammalian brains. It is also the only known therapy, other than caloric restriction, that reliably extends lifespan (about 10-12%) in laboratory mice. It is an amazing natural pharmaceutical that people will only learn slowly about because, as Dr. Cole points out, drug companies cannot make any significant money off it. It is vastly more useful than any patentable Alzheimer's prevention or cognitive improvement drug that has ever been, or may ever be invented. Its safety profile is very good, and very well known. Get on it now if you aren't already!
2. DHA Fatty Acids are natural antioxidant molecules that make up about 30% of your brain's cellular mass, by weight! Fish oils have an excellent safety profile and are known to be valuable for a wide range of diseases of aging. You should be taking fish oil supplements every day. Cultures, like Japan, that eat lots of cold water fish (high in DHA) have much lower rates of dementia and better overall health profiles. The enteric coated capsules are best, as you won't have fishy burps after you take them.
3. Vitamin E and Vitamin C together have been shown in studies to slow cognitive impairment. Studies with E and C alone have not shown this. Don't take too much E, and be sure to take the good "mixed Tocopherol" E. In low doses these have excellent safety profiles.
4. Folate has also shown mild prevention of cognitive impairment, and is an excellent supplement for expectant mothers, as it reduces neural defects. It has an excellent safety profile.
5-6. Exercise and Education should be self explanatory. Long term epidemiological studies (eg., the Nun study) show significant preventive effects.
7. Ibuprofen can half your Alzheimer's risk in some risk groups. They stop your brain's immune system from overeacting to plaques and tangles, and making them worse. Long term use of ibuprofen can cause stomach upset in about 15% of people, so take it on a full stomach and with doctor's supervision. There are some new profens (flurbiprofen, or flurizan) that cause no stomach upset and have also shown cognitive improvement in Phase II trials, so you may be able to switch to a a better profen just a few years from now.
8. Statins can also half your Alzheimer's risk in some risk groups. They appear to do this by many different pathways, lowering cholesterol and also lowering your immune systems overreaction to plaques and tangles.
The ideal Alzheimer's prevention diet is "Piscaterian:" Lots of curry, lots of fish, particularly cold water fish (like salmon, mackerel, and sardines), lots of vegetables (including dark vegetables, like broccoli, kale, spinach) and fruits (including dark fruits like blueberries, and grapes). Low in saturated fats, low in alcohol, no smoking (though nicotine patches sometimes give mild improvement to Alzheimer's patients).
Live long, smart, and prosperously, fellow futurist!
Posted by Jerry Paffendorf | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Outer Space: Geology - ATimes July 28 2005
Outer Space
science (biology, chemistry, geology, physics, research), the natural and built environment, universal systems theory (developmental physics, evolutionary development, hierarchical substrates)
"New way to peek inside Earth: Researchers discover tiny particles from deep within planet," MSNBC, Robert Roy Britt, July 27, 2005
[Commentary by Iveta Brigis] When rocks decay radioactively, subatomic particles called geoneutrinos are released carrying a signature of its chemical origin. Neutrinos have no electric charge and negligible mass (though not non-zero), and can pass through matter unseen. Enabled by KamLAND, a Japanese tool that measures neutrino oscillation, scientists are now beginning to use these geoneutrinos to look far below the Earth's crust. Prior to this development, published in the July 28 edition of the journal Nature, researchers relied solely on seismology to further their understanding of the composition and activity of the Earth. Despite the tremendous advances in recent years in what we know about cosmology and the workings of outer space, scientists remain relatively in the dark about what is going on beneath our feet. While scientists are optimistic about the contribution the study of geoneutrinos will have to our understanding of the Earth, the current detector spots an average of one geoneutrino per month. Researchers hope to build bigger and more detectors that could increase this to one a day in coming decades.
Posted by Jerry Paffendorf | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Human Space: Transparency - ATimes July 28 2005
Human Space
bodies (biology, health, neuroscience), behavior (business, education, foresight, governance, innovation, pre-digital technology, society), minds (psychology, spirituality), human systems theory (ecological psychology, memetics)
The Rise of the Participatory Panopticon, ITConversations, Jamais Cascio, May 2005 (text) (audio)
[Jerry Paffendorf] WorldChanging co-founder Jamais Cascio gave a keynote presentation at this year’s MeshForum on rapidly increasing transparency entitled, “The Rise of the Participatory Panopticon”. The talk, which makes clear that transparency is happening from the bottom-up (“souseveillance”) as much as from the top-down (surveillance), is now up for audio download at ITConversations with a text transcript available at WorldChanging.
From the abstract: “Soon - probably within the next decade, certainly within the next two - we'll be living in a world where what we see, what we hear, what we experience will be recorded wherever we go. There will be few statements or scenes that will go unnoticed, or unremembered. Our day-to-day lives will be archived and saved. What’s more, these archives will be available over the net for recollection, analysis, even sharing. And we will be doing it to ourselves.” Jamais will further explore these issues in an interactive Explorations session at Accelerating Change 2005.
Posted by Jerry Paffendorf | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Cyber Space: Flash Memory - ATimes July 28 2005
Inner Space
energy, small tech (nanoengineering, miniaturization), computer "bodies" (automation, computer hardware, nanotech, robotics), inner systems theory (acceleration, efficiency, miniaturization, reductionism)
Samsung's Gambit: Flash Gigamemory to Replace Hard Drives, ComputerWorld, Martyn Williams, June 30, 2005
[John Smart] Here it comes! Flash Gigamemory for your laptop and cellphone that is truly "instant on", is far more shock resistant, and with a battery life to die for. With flash memory you can run a tablet PC or a wrist computer that is fast and reliable enough to replace paper, but with all of e-Paper's digital storage, modification, and sharing advantages. Samsung's first large (16 Gigabyte) flash hard drives roll out this year for military and industrial markets. Expect lower cost commercial units by next year, and 100GB flash drives in 2007.
Flash memory prices have dropped 40% in the last year, and with a Sony Micro Vault 5GB flashdrive now available for $180 street price, it's now possible for bleeding edge tinkerers to consider replacing their hard drives. Give it just a bit more time and you won't need a specialist to do so. Samsung is by far the #1 leader in flash memory supply (twice #2 Intel's revenue here), while it is #5 in hard drives, so it has major incentive to make this happen soon. This will be a tremendously empowering advance. Let's hope Intel and the other leading chipmakers get into the flash hard drive game soon as well. Thanks to Jeff Thompson.
Posted by Jerry Paffendorf | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Cyber Space: Data-Mining - ATimes July 28 2005
Cyber Space
computer "behavior" (co-evolution, automation, symbiosis), computer "minds" (computer software, simulation), cyber systems theory (holism, information, intelligence, interdependence, immunity)
"When Cell Phones Become Oracles" Wired News, Ryan Singel, July 25, 2005
[Jerry Paffendorf] Wired News has a great article on tracking and predicting human behavior with information collected via cell phones. The article centers around research performed by MIT Media Lab researcher Nathan Eagle, organized under the Reality Mining Project. Eagle gave out 100 customized phones to MIT students and researchers that he usedto log 350,000 hours of data over nine months including location, proximity, activity and communication of the volunteers.
According to the article, “Given enough data, Eagle's algorithms were able to predict what people, especially professors and Media Lab employees, would do next and be right up to 85 percent of the time.” The volunteers could also use the data to create diaries of their lives. Eagle notes, “"I can go ask it, 'How much sleep did I get in October?' 'When was the last time I had lunch with Adam?' 'Where did I go after that?'" On the topic of data-mining our lives, the article also mentions a book by Chris Stakutis called Inescapable Data. Stakutis says, “We want to have our life choreographed, cataloged, witnessed and archived. Now we are heading to a world where this is possible without effort … We are going to be a planet of 5 billion data magicians."
The virtualized models of our planet that Google and Microsoft are competing to build with Google Earth and Virtual Earth will progressively be used as fields to display this inescapable data. Jon Udell will give a presentation on the topic at Accelerating Change 2005 entitled Annotating the planet: Freedom and control in the new era of interactive mapping. Abstract: “The explosive innovation triggered by Google Maps produced a shock of recognition. We always knew that our meatspace coordinates would merge with our cyberspace addresses. Now that it's really happening, familiar topics—identity and privacy, grassroots collaboration and centralized control, ownership and use of data—will be newly refracted through the geospatial lens.”
Posted by Jerry Paffendorf | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Cyber Space: Reality Machinima? - ATimes July 28 2005
[Jerry Paffendorf] Machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah) is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment. The majority of Machinima uses video games as the platform for their development. To see some funny samples, check out these Independent Film Channel’s shorts made using The Sims 2. The reality comes in with the first homemade Machinima using Google Earth, a virtual recreation of our planet. It’s only a short zoom in from outer space to just above street level, but you get the picture. It was made using FRAPS, a program that saves video from programs using DirectX directly to the hard drive. FRAPS is a common tool for capturing footage that will be edited into Machinima. You can learn more about Machinima at http://machinima.org or check out the book, 3D Game-Based Filmmaking: The Art of Machinima by Paul Marino, 2004.
Posted by Jerry Paffendorf | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Cyber Space: Virtual Philanthropy - ATimes July 28 2005
Mixing It Up For a Good Cause, Terra Nova Blog, Betsy Book, July 25 2005
[Jerry Paffendorf] In a piece of breakthrough philanthropy, the American Cancer Society will hold an online Relay For Life fundraiser and community awareness event this August 27-28th in the user-created virtual world of Second Life. The event will be a cyberspace extension of the society's decades-old real world Relay For Life walkathons, and donations will be made in the form of virtual dollars converted to US dollars through Gaming Open Market.
The mixed-reality event (see picture right, by Sven Johnson) is being spearheaded by Randal Moss of the ACS's Futuring and Innovation Center, prominent Second Life resident Jade Lily, and ASF's very own Jerry Paffendorf. Congratulations to Randal, who took home the National Human Service Assembly Award for Excellence in Technology Innovation for his role in pioneering this digital philanthropy project. Randal and a number of his Futuring and Innovation Center (FIC) colleagues will be colocating an ACS FIC meeting at Accelerating Change 2005. We look forward to seeing you there!
Posted by Jerry Paffendorf | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Hyper Space - ATimes July 28 2005
new paradigms, phase transitions, hyperphysics (black
holes, multiverse, string theory, supersymmetry), hyper systems
theory (computational limits, emergence, phase transitions, technological
singularity hypothesis, developmental singularity hypothesis)
Book
Phase
Change: The Computer Revolution in Science and Mathematics,
Douglas Robertson, 2003
[John Smart]
Doug Robertson is a U. of Colorado Geologist and
Environmentalist who enjoys taking a big picture look at information
technology. His earlier work, The
New Renaissance: Computers and the Next Level of Civilization,
1998, discussed the transformational impact of information processing
on human culture from the pre-linguistic to the modern age. Unfortunately
the last chapter of this book, "On Growth", has some shortcomings
with regard to its exploration of exponential growth. For one, Robertson
overemphasizes the human population growth problem, which most demographers
now say is on track to disappear entirely by mid century due largely
to the pervasive impact of global development on birth rates. More
seriously, Robertson appears to misunderstand the exponential nature
of information processing growth, which is the only known aspect
of universal change which has never run into resource limits to
growth, as it continually jumps to new more efficient computing
"substrates" over time. Yet even with these shortcomings,
The New Renaissance is a valuable broad look at the developmentalist
nature of our increasingly technological culture.
Phase
Change deepens Robertson's exploration by examining the role
of computer as a tool changing the nature of sciences and mathematics.
He demonstrates that paradigm shifts, broad "phase changes"
in our understanding of science, have often been triggered by the
availability of new visualization tools (the telescope, the microscope),
and new computational tools (the digital computer, the supercomputer,
the internet) and shows how such tools allow investigators to ask
questions previously unamenable to scientific exploration. A modern
particle accerator, for example, is a very computationally intensive
tool for peering into subatomic structure. How intensive? A particle
accelerator generates more data (albeit significantly lower level
data) in five minutes of exploration than was accumulated in the
entire Library of Alexandria between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD.
Robertson notes a profusion of new computationally-aided tools our
physicists, chemists, biologists, engineers, geologists, astronomers,
and other scientists are gaining access to. He shows how many of
these open up permanent phase transitions in the nature of the scientific
environment, creating dynamics that were unpredictable prior to
the computational advance, yet are predictable today within the
new scientific language that has emerged. On the mathematics side,
computers are becoming so powerful that specialized, computation-intensive
domains of mathematics, such as cellular automata, covered most
elegantly in Stephen Wolfram's A
New Kind of Science, 2002, are now opening up their modeling
insights for us to discover. If you are looking for a book to update
your understanding of the way computers are permanently changing
the nature of scientific exploration, this is good choice.
Posted by Jerry Paffendorf | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
July 22, 2005
Smart Radio Future Salon Webcast Details
Update: For better sound we changed the compression and unfortunately also the webcast link. New: http://mfile.akamai.com/14947/sdp/finnern.com/salon_07_2005.mov?obj=v0003
Reading my last post Spot Draves who once presented his Electric Sheep at the Future Salon wrote me back:
hey mark, just want to let you know that the future salon is the only thing that sometimes makes me wish i lived in the south bay :)
cya, -spot
Yes, I bolded the only thing, it just made my day. Don't miss it tonight, and if you can't be in the south bay, you can point your media player to the following address: http://mfile.akamai.com/14947/sdp/finnern.com/salon_07_2005.mov?obj=v0003
and enjoy the Webcast.
IRC chat as always: Server: irc.freenode.net Channel: #futuresalon
Also Jeff Schwarz approached me at AlwaysOn he promised to be there and tell us 5 minutes about Sandbridge technologies that are developing low power chipsets, which makes smart radios doable on mobile devices too.
They have a link to an Economist article (pdf unfortunately): SMART RADIOS: How the radio changed its spots
WHEN is a radio not a radio? When it's a computer program. Whether in a mobile phone, a fireman's walkie-talkie or a laptop's Wi-Fi card, a radio plucks a raw signal from the air and translates it into a useful stream of information (and vice versa).
Find out all about it tonight in person or on the Webcast.
P.S. Even if you come in person don't forgot your wireless devices so you can take part in the chat too.
Posted by Mark Finnern in Events | Permalink
| Comments (0)
July 21, 2005
Intelligence at the nodes
I'm at the AlwaysOn Summit. George Gilder interrupted his book writing for a presentation. More on that later. He will be paired up with Bill Joy and Jaron Lanier at 2:30 this afternoon. Check out the Webcast.
George said that the pipes of the network are getting harder as in more baked into silicon, versus the nodes (or is it the leaves) of the network will get softer more intelligence built into the software.
Exactly the theme of this Friday's Future Salon: Software Radio with Matt Ettus. Join us to get the details of that interesting development and all the great things you can do with it. Matt will even do a demo:
Friday 22nd of July 6-7 networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP . From 7-9+ pm presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D, Room Southern Cross, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [ map ] As always free and open to the public, bring your friends. Improve your commute by sharing it with a fellow Futurist. Check the Ride Board for opportunities.
[More details]
Posted by Mark Finnern in Events | Permalink
| Comments (0)
July 16, 2005
RSVP now for Radio Future Salon
Reminder there is a great Future Salon coming up this Friday the 22nd of July. Matt Ettus will talk about Software Radio. Details in my previous post. Same place same time. Please RSVP so that we have the right amount of food and drinks.
Friday 22nd of July 6-7 networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP . From 7-9+ pm presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D, Room Southern Cross, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [ map ] As always free and open to the public, bring your friends. Improve your commute by sharing it with a fellow Futurist. Check the Ride Board for opportunities.
See you on Friday.
P.S. Almost forgot, we will Webcast the event again. We will tell you the link a day or two before. IRC chat as always: Server: irc.freenode.net Channel: #futuresalon
Posted by Mark Finnern in Events | Permalink
| Comments (0)
July 12, 2005
Radio Future Salon
Future of Radio? You may ask, what can there be new in a pretty straight forward technology, that was invented in 1893?
Well, if you create a universal receiver and put the intelligence into the software, all in a sudden you open up possibilities that your moms tube radio just didn't have. Now you are able to tune into your Microwave oven, which is fun for about 30 seconds.
Software radios can play up and down the frequency band, which is pretty cool. Now let's add transmission to the game, again universal transmission up and down the frequency band. This is so interesting, that the FCC and may be even the FBI would like to know about it.
Software radios can also use the spectrum way more efficient. Now if on one frequency someone is sending everyone else has to be silent. Software radios can filter out of a cacophony of transmissions the packages that are relevant for them. I read somewhere that if it is getting too noisy they can switch to a different band without missing a beat in Beethoven's 5th. Which gives you almost unlimited bandwidth (the thing that the telcos paid billions for in Europe).
Matt Ettus one of the driving forces behind GNU Software Radio will bring some clarity into these new developments next Friday the 22nd at the Radio Future Salon.
Session Abstract:
Matt Ettus, GNU Radio team member and Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) creator, will be discussing both the technical and regulatory aspects of open source software radio, and how GNU Radio and the USRP fit in. He will also cover software radio's impact on spectrum policy, and will conclude with a small demo of the USRP.
In a software radio, software defines the transmitted waveforms, and software demodulates the received waveforms. GNU Radio is an open source software radio framework which allows for experimentation, rapid prototyping and deployment of complex Software Radio systems on generic microprocessors. Software radio is becoming increasingly important as a technology for implementing communication systems. By performing most or all processing in software, it allows for extremely versatile radio systems and makes multi-standard systems possible.
The Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) is a hardware component which allows for the physical realization of complex wideband software radios using commodity PCs. It allows for up to 4 antennas, enabling MIMO and Smart Antenna systems. The hardware design is completely open and free.
Bio:
Matt Ettus, founder of Ettus Research LLC, has been working in wireless design for 8 years, and has extensive experience in ASIC-, FPGA-, and software-based communication systems, as well as System-on-chip RF architecture and board-level RF design. Matt is a major contributor to the GNU Radio project, a free framework for Software Radio, and is the creator of the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP). He holds an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and dual BS degrees in EE and CS.
In his copious spare time, Matt likes to SCUBA dive, sail, and play soccer. Matt is also a longtime amateur radio operator (N2MJI), and is getting into Radio Astronomy.
Ettus Research LLC, based in Mountain View, CA, serves clients in the areas of Wireless Communications, DSP, and Software Radio design.
Clients of Ettus Research come from a variety of industry sectors, including commercial wireless, fabless semiconductor, government, academia, defense, test and measurement, and navigation.
Friday 22nd of July 6-7 networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP . From 7-9+ pm presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D, Room Southern Cross, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [ map ] As always free and open to the public, bring your friends. Improve your commute by sharing it with a fellow Futurist. Check the Ride Board for opportunities. Please RSVP so that we have enough food and drinks. See you there.
P.S. We moved the Future Salon to the forth Friday of July because Jared Diamond, author of "Guns Germs and Steel" and "Collapse" is speaking at the Long Now foundation, I didn't want to miss that.
Posted by Mark Finnern in Events | Permalink
| Comments (2)
July 09, 2005
Squid Labs at Emerging Tech SIG
If you are fascinated by personal fabrication (and who isn't?) you may want to check out the Emerging Tech SIG this Tuesday July 12th.
They are hosting Squid Labs. Looks to me like a bunch of guys having the time of their life developing cool products. I am just a we bit envious. Abstract further down.
Update: Kennita reminded me that Cubberley Center has many buildings [map] and I remember running around there and no one knew where the event was. It is in H-1:
Cubberley Community Center
4000 Middlefield Road, Room H-1
Palo Alto, CA
Directions
We have just survived a brief period in history where we all disembodied ourselves from the physical world and focused on the digital and the informational. It was definitely fun times for many, but more interesting is the way the experience allows us to re-engage with the physical world now we are on the other side of it. Atoms and bits need not be strangers and looking at the physical world with a mind to how bits describe it looks like it might be a pretty interesting new perspective. This talk will wander across some of the ramifications of looking at structure as information - physically self replicating machines, open source hardware, file sharing for hardware hobbyists and why the hottest tool in your garage may soon be connected to your PC.
Posted by Mark Finnern | Permalink
| Comments (0)
Fab Future on the Internet Archive
Finally the fabulous April Future Salon video with Neil Gershenfeld is available on the Internet Archive. More details at the Personal Fabrication Future Salon post.
At the beginning of his presentation, he is covering so many things so fast, that he left a lot of people scratching their heads. It is really great now to be able to watch it again and again and again :-)
Things that they are working on in the lab. Covered in the first couple of minutes:
- Internet Zero
- Internet Protocol survived 7 orders of magnitude of growth. Let's bring the lesions learned from the Internet to physical goods.
- Computers as building materials, you spread it out like paint.
- Fault tolerant digital fabrication
- ... Much more you should really check it out.
This is also a mayor shift in your personal power the more things you can create on your desk, the less you are depending on the current corporate powers. One reason I can't wait to get my own little Nanofactory.
This trend is one of the reasons why the rights to the blueprints, the intellectual property is heating up.
It is so funny, the Internet Archive is giving you thumbnail pictures, one shot per minute unfortunately only for the first 30 minutes. Because Neil had to rush to the airport, we didn't do the round of introductions, this is why we only have pictures of Neil and me this time.
Mark your calendar: Next Future Salon Friday 22nd about the Future of Radio.
Future of Radio? Isn't that an old technology? Yes, but what happens when you put the intelligence into the software and give the radio flexibility that wasn't there before? Matt Ettus will give us an introduction. More soon.
Posted by Mark Finnern in Big Picture, Events, Long Term Future | Permalink
| Comments (0)
July 01, 2005
Resources and Tools - ATimes Jun 30 2005
Beyond
Wi-Fi, David Pogue, New York Times,
6.23.05
[Commentary by John Smart] Great article
about Verizon's EV-DO Wireless Broadband. A $70 Kyocera KPC650 card (the best
option) plus $80/month to Verizon will get you wireless cellular broadband for
your laptop, with 400-700 Kbps download (cable modem speed), and 100 Kpbs upload
(crippled to keep you from using it as a wireless server). Fortunately, Skype will work on a minimum of 34 Kbps, so you
can now use your EV-DO-equipped laptop for unlimited-length free calls to PC
users anywhere with Skype, or super low-cost calls (see SkypeOut
global rates, often just 3 cents/minute) to any standard or mobile phone in
the world.
Verizon's $1
billion, true 3G network presently covers 32 major U.S. cities, and will cover
half the country by December. Fortunately, Sprint will also offer EV-DO by the
end of this year, so the $80/month corporate-level rate may fall to a consumer
level as early as 2006. This is a very empowering development!
Philips Sonicare IntelliClean
Toothbrush and Decapinol Oral
Rinse
Here are two great new tools for healthy teeth. The first
is the $120 Philips Sonicare toothbrush, whose sonic technology and liquid
toothpaste dispensing system is "one step closer to daily flossing," for those
millions who don't floss regularly as there is as yet no convenient way to do
it.
The second is a new oral rinse for combating one of the
most common diseases of aging, gingivitis, or inflamed and shrinking
gumlines. Rather than killing natural oral bacteria, delmopinol hydrochloride
(Decapinol) takes away their ability to stick to teeth, gums, and each other,
reducing bacterial plaque and the toxins they release at the gumline. Decapinol
has just been approved
by the FDA, so expect it in U.S. stores soon. In the meantime, you can call
your friends in the United Kingdom who have had it for years and have them mail
you some. Decapinol also
doesn't interact with toothpaste, unlike anti-gingivitis treatments like
chlorhexidine, so with luck we may even see it added to liquid toothpaste in
these sonic systems a few years hence. Sounds like intelligent cleaning to me!
Thanks to Bryan Hall for the Decapinol link.
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (2)
| TrackBack
Affiliates - ATimes Jun 30 2005
Institute
for the Future @ Anne Arundel Community College (Arnold,
Maryland)
Director Steve Steele
describes IF & AACC (http://www.aacc.edu/future) as "a growing
vehicle to deliver future thinking by acting locally." It is a great model for
building a futures network at the community college level. At IF, Professor
Steele has collected a range of AACC professors with interest in the future into
a speakers bureau available for anyone seeking a talk on present trends and
future "P's and a W": possible, plausible, positive, preferable, preventable,
and wildcard future scenarios within their field of study.
Some one-question interviews
with futurists at: http://www.aacc.edu/future/qandaarchives.cfm
Browse
their online ezine, Future Portal, at http://www.aacc.edu/future/futureportalarch.cfm
Sign up at http://www.aacc.edu/future/form/interested.cfm
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
The Acceleration Story in Five Spaces - ATimes Jun 30 2005
ATimes
covers world news and insight in five "spaces," giving one to three briefs in
each space. The story of accelerating change, the most fascinating story of our
time, appears to be one of movement from outer, to human, to inner, to cyber,
and ultimately, to hyper space, the world beyond the present. Each of these
deserves understanding for a multidisciplinary perspective on the
future:
Outer Space (the world around us: science, the
natural and built environment, universal systems theory)
Human Space (the human world: our bodies, behavior,
minds, human systems theory)
Inner
Space (the world below: energy, small tech, computer "bodies",
inner systems theory)
Cyber Space
(the virtual world: computer "behavior", computer "minds", cyber systems
theory)
Hyper Space (the world
beyond: new paradigms, phase transitions, hyperphysics, hyper systems
theory)
If you have
important stories to share with our 3,100 acceleration-aware readers, we'd love
to hear from you at mail(at)accelerating.org.
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Human Space: Education - ATimes Jun 30 2005
Human Space
bodies (biology, health, neuroscience), behavior (business, education,
foresight, governance, innovation, pre-digital technology, society), minds
(psychology, spirituality), human systems theory (ecological psychology,
memetics)
Education
A Visit to the
University of Advancing Technology's Tech Forum
2008
[Commentary by Iveta Brigis] Last week,
John Smart and I traveled to Phoenix for UAT's
Tech Forum 2008 (they say
they are three years ahead of the curve). Twice a year, the university flies in
industry leaders to speak to and network with their students at a three-day
conference. The ASF was privileged to have
John present How to Be a Tech Futurist (slides available here).
UAT is a haven
for teenage techies whose parents want them to have a solid liberal arts
education along with their CS, video game design, and network securities
classes. And the administration really cares about preparing their students for
jobs in the real world, which is why they bring in experts from companies like
Microsoft, Red Storm Entertainment, and Security Horizon. I sat in on some very
informative sessions, like Anna Sweet's presentation on
Women in Gaming and Evan Robinson's Software
Development Practices: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Anna shared some
personal experiences being one of the few women at Microsoft Game Studios and
recommended that all the students, not just the women, jump on the chance to
work on games tailored for women because it is such a large potential market.
Evan shared some practical management tools and tips for working in software
development.
UAT's balance of hard-core techi-ness and liberal arts is a
boon for young adults growing up in this time of accelerating change. We applaud
UAT for their work and look forward to seeing where they go next.
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Human Space: World Security - Jun 30 2005
The
End of War?: Explaining 15 Years of Diminishing Violence, Gregg Easterbrook,
The New Republic, 05.24.2005
[JS] Excellent coverage of a worldwide
trend that seems a direct result of our increasingly interdependent,
media-saturated environment. Synopsizes the recent findings of Monty
Marshall of George Mason University and Ted Robert
Gurr of the University of Maryland. Unfortunately, TNR doesn't
have an option for you to buy this without a subscription, but you can read the
first paragraph. Fortunately, another recent piece, "Warfare
Waning Across the World," by David Sands,
Washington Times, 06.27.2005,
synopses the same findings and is freely available.
In fact, there are a host of
developmental processes we can statistically predict today with increasing
accuracy given past history, such as more globalization, higher GDP's and per
capita incomes, more democracy, transparency, less warfare, faster and smarter
computers, etc. ASF believes futurists need to be making that special class of
things much more obvious to the general public, and we will do our part in
coming years to advocate for statistically-backed prediction as a core futurist
methodology. Thanks to Jerry Paffendorf for the link.
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Human Space: Online Collaboration; The Voluntary Economy - ATimes Jun 30 2005
The Power
of Us, Business Week, 06.20.2005
[JS] Concise coverage of the
way the positive sum opportunities of easy collaboration have turned our online
lives into a cornucopia of the commons. They discuss the radical disruption of
free P2P VoIP systems like Skype, the 180,000 (and counting) new independent
service businesses created by eBay, the way Microsoft is losing global ground to
Linux in servers, commodity OS environments, and in emerging nations (China,
Brazil), the vast value of Amazon's millions of freely-created product reviews,
the advancement of collective online innovation communities like InnoCentive,
the continuing wonders of Google, the creativity of 3D worlds like Linden Lab's
Second Life, and the emerging sophistication of free open source
platforms like SugarCRM, a tool that will redefine the lower end of the market
for large customer relationship management companies like Siebel Systems and
Salesforce.com
Bottom line: The easier and
more powerful collaboration becomes, the more stunning the new products and
services we will see. What's more, we are still only at the beginning of what we
might call the "Voluntary Economy." Business visionary Gary Hoover,
in his excellent online article, "Beyond the Corporation,"
summarizes the work of Nobel-prize-winning economist Robert
Fogel (The Fourth
Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism, 2000) who tells us
that the lifetime discretionary hours of first world residents has risen from
43,800 in 1880 to 176,100 in 1995, and will reach 246,000 in 2040. The longer
people are able to live, and the less total lifetime hours they need to work to
support a voluntary lifestyle, the more freely-given, nonprofit, and other
creative projects the world will see. Our life in the voluntary commons is just
beginning.
The more we all become
digital activists, the faster we improve the quality of these products. How do
you keep track of all the cool stuff? You can't, but you can have fun trying.
Pick of the month: deli.ciou.us, an open
source tool for managing and collaboratively sharing bookmarks. This lets us all
continually discover the current most
popular sites, by consensus.
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Inner Space - ATimes Jun 30 2005
energy, small tech (nanoengineering, miniaturization), computer "bodies"
(automation, computer hardware, nanotech, robotics), inner systems theory
(acceleration, efficiency, miniaturization, reductionism)
Desalination
GE's Water-Treatment Group to Unveil Its First Major
Project, Kathryn Kranhold, Wall Street Journal,
6.24.2005
[IB] General Electric has announced plans to build
what will be Africa's largest seawater desalination plant in Algeria. The Hamma
Water Desalination SpA will produce 53 million gallons of potable water each
day, enough to supply 25% of the capital city Algiers' population. Due to
relentless advances in nanotech, today desalination is a $5 billion market,
growing between 10% and 15% annually, according to the WSJ.
It's very
exciting to see that desalination costs have declined sharply (see this
interesting piece on
desalination in Israel by Dr. Pinhas Glueckstern) because
of accelerated progress in desalination technologies. GE has plans to build and run water
treatment plants all around the world and accordingly expects to earn 60% of its
desalination revenue growth in emerging markets in the next decade. By providing
a consistent, inexpensive source of drinking water for people all around the
world, desalination really has the potential to increase quality of life for
many individuals. One pioneering industry group that is working on the
desalination solution is the International Desalination
Association.
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Cyber Space - ATimes Jun 30 2005
computer "behavior" (co-evolution, automation,
symbiosis), computer "minds" (computer software, simulation), cyber systems
theory (holism, information, intelligence, interdependence,
immunity)
Datacosm
Digital
Newspapers: Today's Front
Pages and NewspaperDirect.com
[JS] The Newseum's exhibit of front page PDFs of 300
English language newspapers is an interesting design idea. Just mouseover the
mini pictures and click, and a popup (turn your popup blocker off) will give you
a readable PDF of the daily front page, as well as a link to the paper's
homepage, where you can often read the rest of that day's stories for free.
Their "list by region" interface is very slow for finding papers, but this is a
free site, and they were the first to do this kind of aggregation, beginning
back in 2001, so give them credit where due.
Newstran
is a newspaper portal site with free access to an astonishing selection of
American and autotranslated international newspapers. It's also worth a look,
but the time lag between click and view will be an issue for some.
For those wanting the best commercial
solution, for $10/month, Press
Display/NewspaperDirect will electronically download thirty one
newspapers to your regular or Tablet PC. They now have 200 papers from 50
countries available. Their web display updates with the top half of front page
pictures every day, and is quite fast. The ability to bookmark is limited, and
text search is currently restricted to only one of your subscribed papers, but
this is an excellent next step for scanning multiple papers daily.
For the future?
Imagine your favorite story subjects, culled from every participating newspaper
globally, all autotranslated and downloaded to the Media Servers that connect to
our Tablet PCs, lightning-quick, annotatable and searchable using Google
desktop. Major new subscriber base! Reader heaven! Thanks to Clive
Pearce, and to Harland Harris of Newseum.
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Hyper Space - ATimes Jun 30 2005
new paradigms, phase transitions, hyperphysics (black holes, multiverse, string
theory, supersymmetry), hyper systems theory (computational limits, emergence,
phase transitions, technological singularity hypothesis, developmental
singularity hypothesis)
Ethics in a Voluntary
Economy
Only the
Ethical Need Apply, Susan Llewelyn Leach, Christian
Science Monitor, 03.30.2005
[JS] How will the first world workforce
transform over the next two generations, as people increasingly work as they
choose, on ever more abstract, "high-touch," service-based jobs? Leach cleverly
outlines the position of Dick Samson, Tom Malone and others
that as automation replaces our more rote cognitive and behavioral tasks,
workers will transition into an increasingly transparent, highly connected
society. In that environment our ability to be fair, responsible, dependable,
trustable, and credible (doing what we promise), as well as our ability to
empower and help others, as determined by their public feedback, will become the
primary propositions differentiating our value to the system.
These are excellent insights into a world
where technology will increasingly replace even many of today's knowledge worker
jobs, pushing us all into ever-more-abstract sectors of the service economy. The
basic liberal arts education that stresses good communications skills, civics,
and a broad understanding and valuing of diversity will never have been more
valuable. The more things change, the more some things stay the same.
Ethics are game
theories for successful conflict resolution, and as the change of pace increases
successful conflict resolution will continue to increase in importance, even as
they get more refined. Looking for good books to guide you in your increasingly
high-stakes, high-value interactions? Joseph Grenny and
Kerry Patterson's books, Crucial
Conversations 2002, and Crucial
Confrontations, 2004, are excelent places to start. For corporate
interpersonal skills training, see also the VitalSmarts website.
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
Fun - ATimes Jun 30 2005
Fun
We all deserve a little fun every day. Send your entries
for the next ATimes!
Websites
The Onion in
2056.
If you like this online humor site, you'll enjoy their parody of our mid-century
future. A few precious bits, like "Million Robot
March Attended by Exactly 1,000,000 Robots." Hilarious! Thanks to
Brent Bushnell.
Nearly Hairless
Club
Another example of the amazing variety that evolution
hides in reserve. The Chinese Crested Hairless toy dog (more crazy pictures)
is pictured here. More
Call
for Submissions
ASF is always seeking interesting submissions for our Accelerating Times
(AT) web publication. AT is a "free and priceless" monthly
newsletter covering scientific, technological, business, policy, and social
dialogs in accelerating change. Anyone may submit scan hits, mini-articles,
pictures, artwork, quotes and questions to mail(at)accelerating.org. Accepted work
will appear, fully credited, in future issues. Please submit your feedback to
the Future Salon
Weblog, where these articles are posted.
Free Email Subscription: http://accelerating.org/atsignup.html
Posted by John Smart in Accelerating Times | Permalink
| Comments (0)
| TrackBack
ASF Announcements
AC2005: Last Day for June Registration!
On Saturday, July 2nd, the conference registration price goes up another $50. Join us now if you can! AC2005 will feature 40+ world-class speakers and 350+ distinguished attendees discussing the increasing intelligence of machines (artificial intelligence or AI), the evolving effectiveness of technology-aided humans (intelligence amplification or IA), and how these twin trends are shaping our future.
Come meet Vernor Vinge, Ray Kurzweil, Daniel Amen, Esther Dyson, Harold Morowitz, Marcos Guillen, Beth Noveck, Colin Angle, Philip Rosedale, Eric Boehnisch-Volkmann, Blake Ross, David Fogel, Robert Hecht-Nielsen, Ruzena Bajcsy, T. Colin Campbell, Steve Jurvetson, Peter Thiel, Scott Rafer, Cecily Sommers, and special host Moira Gunn of TechNation. See the speakers confirmed to date.
Sign up now with your Accelerating Times discount code (AC2005-ATIMES, entered in all capital letters) and get $50 off! This special $350 post-discount conference rate is available to ATimes readers until July 1st. Coming to AC2005? Tell your friends! Get and post a "meet me at" button (see right) at your site.
Accelerating Times Articles Posted at Our FutureSalon.org Weblog!
Beginning this month, Accelerating Times articles will be posted at FutureSalon.org, courtesy of ASF Board Member Mark Finnern. Have any feedback to share on these articles? Post it there for everyone in our community! RSS-savvy? You can RSS-subscribe to posts and comments as separate feeds. The leaders of all four of our physical world salons (Palo Alto, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego) have posting privileges to this weblog. Link to it and visit us regularly to stay in touch.
Ready for 3D Online Community? Last night ASF held our third Second Life Future Salon (picture right, speaker line-up here). For more, see our Second Life Future Salon Blog, run by ASF Director Jerry Paffendorf. Download Second Life and join in! More
Visit the Future Salons Start Page to see where our Salons are presently located and the Upcoming Calendar for each. Don't see your city there yet? Email us and let us help you create a Salon in your area.
ASF is Hiring!
Our Executive Director Iveta Brigis starts her UC Irvine MBA program this fall, so ASF is hiring a new ED to start with us in August. We are starting interviews next week. See ASF positions for more. Know anyone who would be a great fit for our
Jerry Michalski is one of my favorite forward thinkers and experimenter. We are planning to do a Future Salon about Abundance in the fall with him and others. 
Recently added speakers include Janna Anderson, Elon U. Professor, head of the Internet Predictions Database, and author of Imagining the Internet, 2005; George Gilder, Editor in Chief of the famous Gilder Technology Report, Chairman of Gilder Publishing, and author of the bestselling books Microcosm, 
Keynote speaker and internationally-renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil will present free signed advance copies of his upcoming book, The Singularity is Near, which will be released nationally four days after the conference, to the first 200 registrants at Accelerating Change 2005. Additional copies will also be available for sale to conference participants. One of 2005's most anticipated new books, The Singularity is Near extensively makes the provocative case for accelerating and increasingly human-surpassing technological and computer advances in coming decades, and proposes a global "phase transition" circa 2040 where many forms of higher human thinking may be exceeded by global computing systems. 
Robotics pioneer iRobot has donated five Roombas to Accelerating Change 2005. We will raffle all five for the best 100-word (or less) answers to the question "What's Next in Commercial or Consumer Robotics?" by AC2005 attendees by 2pm on Sunday, Sept 18th. These brief, paragraph-length ideas can propose new commercial or consumer robots, new features for future Roombas, new and untapped market segments for existing or future robots, new technologies, or any other innovation you think needs to be or will soon be addressed. The time horizon can be as short as next year, and should be limited to ten years. You can discuss research, development, production, marketing, or any other aspect of the business model. All ideas are released to the public domain.