Douglas L. Ross - My Personal Reflections

Here's a brilliant idea. So why can't everyone buy one for $100 if big governments can do it the underdeveloped world. Just put a check mark on your IRS form and Uncle Sam sends you a new computer instead of a refund.

Ray Kurzweil's new book "The Singularity Is Near." was published today. At the Gilder/Forbes Telecosm Conference tonight we had the privilege of hearing Kurzweil outline many of the key concepts from his book and from his work generally on artificial Intelligence. To me the most profound of Kurzweil's many fascinating observations was the idea that despite his assertions that; technology acceleration will result in the emergence of "forms of nonbiolobical intelligence superior to human intelligence" and, that "most of the intelligence of our civilization will ultimately be nonbiological", "the intelligence that will emerge will continue to represent the human civilization, which is already a human-machine civilization."

Dion Hinchcliffe uses O'Reilly's Meme Map of Web 2.0 as an illustration of the broad implications of Web 2.0 and proof that it's really happening today, not something academic. [A " meme " by the way is basically "some sort of a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution" resembling the gene in biology/genetics.]

Sign up to donate a sample of your DNA, contribute to an amazing scientific project, and find out about the human journey of your ancestors.

Here's a great idea [and an interesting potential investment]. Hydrogen Battery technology [borohydride-based through a patented chemical process] that safely stores and delivers hydrogen energy to power portable devices. The technology scales to fit applications requiring high energy density, for long running times [~3x rechargeable batteries] and compact spaces.

In September, I'm going to a conference which I hope will give me some deeper insight into what kind of experimentation is going on with online access to television and other types of video content. The organizers bill the conference as: "...one-day conference, created by Archival.tv and Intelligent Television , brings together archivists, educators, technologists, entrepreneurs, producers, legal experts, and investors to explore the enormous promise offered by the availability of online video and television content. Demonstrations and interactive panel discussions will highlight new video technologies, services, legal issues, and economic models. Participants from diverse -- and until now, largely disconnected -- specialties will be especially encouraged to interact."

Alas, yet another controversy at my alma mater. I didn't realize the extent of the Baylor connection to Intelligent Design until President Bush ignited the debate and I began to look into what all the fuss was about. Dembski, who was at the center of the Baylor mess, chronicles it here . In the June issue of The American Spectator , columnist Dan Petterson wrote an article entitled "The Little Engine That Could...Undo Darwinism." It was a needlessly controversial title for a reasonably good summary of the debate from the conservative point of view. [Which is not the same as the "creationist" religious right point of view despite what the left would have you believe.] In July [or thereabouts] The New Republic , among others. Fired back with " The Case Against Intelligent Design. The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name. " The article by Professor Jerry Coyne from the University of Chicago, which is poorly written and drones on for thirty pages making it h...