If you are interested in semantics, taxonomies, education, information overload and how libraries are evolving, you may enjoy this video of my talk on the Semantic Web and the Future of Libraries at the OCLC Symposium at the American Library Association Midwinter 2009 Conference. This event focused around a dialogue between David Weinberger and myself, moderated by Roy Tennant. We were forutnate to have an audience of about 500 very vocal library directors in the audience and it was an intensive day of thinking together. Thanks to the folks at OCLC for a terrific and really engaging event!

Video from my panel at DEMO Fall ’08 on the Future of the Web is now available.

I moderated the panel, and our panelists were:

Howard Bloom, Author, The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century

Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google Inc.

Jon Udell, Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation

Prabhakar Raghavan, PhD, Head of Research and Search Strategy, Yahoo! Inc.

The panel was excellent, with many DEMO attendees saying it was the best panel they had ever seen at DEMO.

Many new and revealing insights were provided by our excellent panelists. I was particularly interested in the different ways that Google and Yahoo describe what they are working on. They covered lots of new and interesting information about their thinking. Howard Bloom added fascinating comments about the big picture and John Udell helped to speak about Microsoft’s longer-term views as well.

Enjoy!!!

Scoble came over and filmed a full conversation and video demo of Twine. You can watch the long version (1 hour) or the short version (10 mins) on his site. Here’s the link.

You probably think that Tai Chi is a slow, gentle form of exercise for old people and new agers. But in fact, what most people have seen is extremely watered down and whimpy. The real Tai Chi is a fast, deadly, forceful martial art. But almost nobody teaches it that way in the West.

However, my brother, Marin Spivack, does. He speaks fluent Chinese and went to China to seek out and study with some of the greatest living teachers, for many years. Now he’s one of the few people teaching the real deal in the USA (in the Boston area). Check out these videos of him showing the form and then toppling various people who outweigh him. They’re beautiful and impressive.

This first video is really cool — make sure to watch all the way through. Towards the end he starts doing some of the more intense fighting moves, which you’ve probably never seen before.

Next, here’s a video of Marin demonstrating grappling techniques with a guy who is not only much taller but probably 3 times his weight and strength:

The next two clips show some various fighting techniques…

Thanks to a recommendation from my folks, I just watched the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Have you ever seen him? He’s a Scottish comedian with his own US talk show and his monologues are awesome. He changes personalities on a dime, his jokes are edgy, intellectual, and trippy all at once. It’s amazing to watch. He reduces his guests to quivering heaps of stunned laughter. If you haven’t seen Craig in action, don’t miss it! I’m going to TIVO this from now on. Here are some suggested clips from his site. Here are some examples of his stuff on YouTube.

Note: After watching a lot more Craig Ferguson, I have one criticism: He recycles his jokes! He often tells the same jokes and repeats the same gags. This is actually annoying. I guess it makes sense economically — he doesn’t have to come up with as much new material, but I find it awkward. His jokes are still very funny and good — but not as funny or good the second, third and fourth time. Craig, if you are listening, pay your joke-writers to work a full week!!!

I recently listened to a talk by Dr. David Martin, given at the Arlington Institute, a think tank I advise. You can listen to it here. It takes some patience to get to the main point — but you will be rewarded with a mind-blowing new perspective on what may unfold in the next few years.

Dr. Martin describes why he predicts a very likely total collapse of the US Banking system in 2008.  Even more surprising is that he explains how the only hope for bailing out the US economy at that time may in fact be Muslim financial institutions — the financial entities of the Muslim world — because they are the most cash rich entities on the planet, and unlike our banks they are not exposed to intangible asset risks.

In other words, as Dr. Martin explains, if for no other reason than this, we should think twice before bombing Iran and the rest
of the Middle East back to the Stone Age — they may in fact be our
economy’s only hope and we may soon be in dire need of their help. This is a radical hypothesis, but based on very realistic data and in particular, new laws that are going into effect in the global banking world in January, 2008. On the other hand this could be Y2K all over again.

In any case, this is one of the more intriguing ideas I’ve come across in a long time. Please listen to the talk and then share it with other people. Dr. Martin’s hypothesis may or may not be correct, but it certainly should be heard by more people so that it can be debated and brought to the attention of global decisionmakers as soon as possible.

OK this is a clip from Fox News, which is not normally a source that I consider to be factual or trustworthy — but it cerrtainly is an interesting story. The video clip profiles an inventor who has developed a novel method of converting water to useful fuel. He powers a welding torch and a car in the video. It’s pretty interesting to watch. What is most strange to me is that although his welding torch can generate enough heat to burn holes in rock, the tip of the torch stays cool enough to touch. Check it out.

My congratulations to Paul Ford, who was just profiled in a New York Times article. Paul is a friend and one-time advisor to Radar Networks, and is fast becoming a Big Writer. Paul wrote a widely-read article on the Semantic Web once.

Many years ago I spoke with Will Wright — one of the most interesting visionaries I’ve met (and who happens to be the creator of Sim City) about his dream of a universe game — one in which the player could evolve life from the simple cellular level all the way up through galactic scale civilizations. Well it seems he has been busy working on this dream, and it sounds fascinating. He previewed it recently at a meeting of game designers, where he discussed the emergent, unpredictable and open-ended nature of the game, which is called Spore. When I spoke to Will about this years ago, I remember that he spoke of wanting to create a game that would enable players to experience the wonder and creative potential of the universe at all levels of scale. It sounds amazing, I can’t wait to try it.

Dr. Ian Stevenson has amassed 3000 documented cases of children remembering events from past lives.

In each case of children’s past life memory, Dr. Stevenson methodically documents the child’s statements.  Then he identifies the deceased person the child remembers being, and verifies the facts of the deceased person’s life that match the child’s memory. He even matches birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records. His strict methods systematically rule out all possible "normal" explanations for the child’s memories.

Dr. Stevenson has devoted the last forty years to the scientific documentation of past life memories of children from all over the world. He has over 3000 cases in his files.  Many people, including skeptics and scholars, agree that these cases offer the best evidence yet for reincarnation.

Dr. Stevenson’s credentials are impeccable. He is a medical doctor and had many scholarly papers to his credit before he began paranormal research.  He is the former head of the Department of Psychiatry
at the University of Virginia, and now is Director of the Division
of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia.

As one reviewer put it, "Either Dr. Stevenson is making a colossal mistake, or he will be known as the Galileo of the 20th century." (Dr Harold Lief in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease)

Learn more about Dr. Stevenson’s research here.

The New York Times has published a wonderful and fascinating set of mini-essays by leading scientists about their beliefs in the unknkown and unexplained — from consciousness, to God, to life on other worlds, and the existence of true love.  There are some terrific thoughts in it — one of thoses rare articles that breaks through stereotypes and opens the door to new paradigms. We rarely hear scientific voices venturing this far. It’s a great read for anyone interested in science and the Big Mysteries of life, the universe and everything… (you have to register with NYT to read it if you haven’t already; do it — it’s worth it to read just this article alone!). (Thanks to Joe Rockmore for finding this article!)

This just in: Read this article about an amazing child prodigy who may be one of the greatest musical geniuses in 200 years. Not only can he compose like a master, but he can compose multiple pieces of music at once! How does he do it? It’s a bit spooky — maybe he’s the reincarnation of Mozart? Or maybe his brain is just different in a special way?

Think outside your cable box! My long-time friend, the legendary Ken Schaffer, has finally come out of stealth with his new project, TV2ME. In a nutshell, it enables you to watch your own cable subscription channels live from anywhere via broadband over the Net. The system connects your cable box to a video streaming system that only you can access via the net. So for example, when you are on the road you can still catch your local broadcasts and home team games, right from your laptop! It’s a new spin on the concept of video-streaming and P2P. Instead of sharing your video with others, you are accessing your own video from anywhere. Read this article for an overview of TV2ME, and Ken Schaffer, one of the most colorful geniuses I know (picture Lenny Bruce crossed with Richard Feynman).

My friend Maribeth Back builds reading machines — devices that provide new ways to read and experience written text. It’s part art, part technology. For example, she has one reading machine that lets you drive through texts, changing direction as you go — but only seeing one line at a time — at super high-speed. It dramatically enhances the speed at which you can read, and is also an interesting new way to think about reading. She’s a genius. If you are in SF this Thursday, check out her show at the Center for the Book:

Hello, friends,

Many of you have expressed interest in actually seeing these Reading Machines I build…so…

just for you all, there’s a very informal showing coming up this week. The machines are on exhibit at the SF Center for the Book Gallery, 300 De Haro on Potrero Hill. (The show is called “Show Me a Story: Childrens’ Literature and the Technology of Enchantment” and will continue through Nov. 5). I may or may not give an actual short talk, depending on who shows up; but if people have questions about tech, etc. I’ll be happy to expound :>

This Thursday, Oct. 14, I’ll be there from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, and would love to see you there. Here’s the address and brief blurb. (There’s also a wonderful “paper engineering” exhibit in the front part of the gallery — pop-up books of gorgeous complexity.) Also, if you haven’t seen the Center for the Book, it’s a wonderful thing — a working space devoted to book art, full of gorgeous hand presses etc. and with a huge variety of book-art related hands-on courses.

What: mbb + reading machines

Where: San Francisco Center for the Book Gallery
300 De Haro St. (foot of Potrero Hill)
San Francisco

http://www.sfcb.org/

When: 5:30 – 7:30 PM
Thursday, October 14

Free admission. There may well be wine and nibblies or something of the sort. Hope to see you there!

best, Maribeth

In August of 2003, I posted an article that suggested the SETI folks ought to look at our own DNA to see if there happens to be a hidden message from aliens in there waiting to be discovered. Putting a message in human DNA, particularly in the junk DNA regions, is guaranteed (a) not to degrade significantly over long periods of time and (b) to be found by humans when we reached a suitable level of technological development, and (d) to go with each of us wherever we went on earth and beyond. So, thinking like an alien, DNA would be a much better place to leave a message for future humans than just about anywhere else. Now, the well-known science writer, Paul Davies has come up with the exact same suggestion.

By the way, I wouldn’t be surprised if we look and actually find just such a message. Most likely it will read, “Property of Microsoft Corporation, patent-pending” or something to that effect.