Future Salon

The future was broken [1],...

The future was broken, but thanks to the support of Lawrence Lee from the Userland team it works again. Bummer that I don't have time to post.

Second [1] Book/Theme suggestion for...

Second Book/Theme suggestion for our December Futurist Salon. Bob Adler was asking in our last meeting, whether we are experiencing the move of coding jobs to India or other countries too.  The Future of Success from Robert B. Reich is about the future of work. As a reviewer writes: "This is an excellent book if you are interested in understanding what the changes resultant from technological advances will mean to you in the future as a worker, spouse, parent or a member of this society. This is an extremely well written book. I recomend it to all. Robert Reich explains the reasons why many of the events that we are watching in today's society are taking place."

One can also find more interesting books at the bottom of the reading group section of John Smart's Singularity Watch website. Check it out.

The future is broken ...

... or at least my front page to it is.

Sorry, my companion weblog to the Bay Area Futurists  is showing a blank page :-( 
In urgent cases, yeah as if, there is Google's cached version from the 19th of August.  Also the calendar on the right with links to days with posts works too.

I wish I could say it is a hacker attack, like the one that was trying to bring down the internet this week, or the one that succeeded at Pyra this morning. But that would mean that I am so poplar or controversial that someone would bother to hack my site. - Ahm, please don't bother. The real reason is I tried something out, wanted to add a permanent section with all the books we have covered so far, but it did not word and destroyed my first page. Hopefully up soon again.

We [1] haven't decided on...

We haven't decided on the December book for our Futurist Salon yet. My first suggestion is Smart Mobs: The next social revolution from Howard Rheingold. "How the convergence of mobile communications and computing is driving the next social revolution-transforming the ways in which people meet, mate, work, buy, sell, govern, and create." Howard and it looks like a few friends of him are also writing an accompanying weblog to the book.

You may be able to experience it first hand if you join me this Saturday 11 o'clock at the Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco. This story I hope will motivate you enough. Send me an email if you are coming. Thanks to cell phones we will actually be able to hook up.  

The next man against the...

The next man against the machine chess game is on it's way already. In December Kasparov will play against Deep Junior. The Wired article supports one of the arguments we had last Friday at the Futurist Salon regarding brute force and intelligence: "If you want to understand intelligence, the game of Go is much more demanding," he said. "It doesn't have the silver bullet: deep search. Chess has somewhat outlived its usefulness. It turned out to be easier than we thought."

Draw ???

Kramnik versus Fritz 4:4 What, this is the end? A tie? Neither the human nor the machine is carrying the crown out of Bahrain? Where is the overtime, the penalty shootout, the sudden death? I feel a bit cheated. Well, if you can't decide it on the chess board how about some bench pressing :-)

Special Futurist Salon: Kevin Mitnick Friday November 22nd ...

Our brothers and sisters in L.A. hosted him already and they told me it was a great event. I am looking forward to the 22nd of November when Kevin Mitnick will come to the Bay Area to introduce his book 'The Art of Deception'. 

We expect a full house. After the introduction of the book there will be a question and answer session. So spread the word, read the book and come, it is going to be great.  

Where: Barnes and Noble bookstore at the Hillsdale Shopping Center just across of the San Mateo Caltrain Station. See the Map. (The star is a bit misleading. The shop is right at the El Camino across from the Caltrain station.) 11 West Hillsdale Blvd., Hillsdale Shopping Center San Mateo, CA 94403 650-341-5560  

When: 7:00 to 9:00 pm. You can also join us for dinner afterwords next door at Romano’s Macaroni Grill.

This is the story about...

This is the story about a big black hole being the center of our galaxy that I was talking about at our last Futurist Salon:

Sagittarius a Black Hole?. By charting the path of a star dubbed S2, a group of scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany have discovered "the strongest evidence yet" that Sagittarius A is a black hole at the center of our galaxy. [kuro5hin.org]

View Pop!Tech from your computer ...

There is a great conference going on right now in Camden Main: Pop!Tech. It's about technology's impact on life. This year's theme is Artificial Worlds. If you have broadband you can follow the presentations and discussions via Live Streaming Video.

Or you can follow the blogs that are summarizing the events:
Pop!Tech Blog; Dan Gillmor Day One Day Two; Ernest Svenson; David Weinberger

Memory Sin #7:

This is the persistent reminder: Come to our futurist Salon tomorrow Friday the 18th. Details.

Fritz vs. Kramnik is 3:3 and they are playing the 7th game right now(7:30PST). You can watch it live http://www.brainsinbahrain.com/
I am no expert, but it looks as if Kramnik has a slight advantage, but is running out of time. Go Kramnik go, as a human I would love to see him win. 
*** Evening update: It ended in a draw. Kramnik vs. Firtz 3.5:3.5 Now it all depends on the last game on Saturday. ***

The theater piece about Buckminster Fuller was great: He said in the 70s that we have all the means to feed and put a roof over the head of all people alive, which in his opinion would take away the reason for war. He then also predicted that at until the year 2000 we will have solved the hunger problem. Puts us and our current priorities to shame.

He was a deep thinker. It is well worth to see the show at the theater Artaud or to pick up one of his books.