the last two posts where on video lectures from that TED talks thing - theres a number of good talks in there, some are just downright brilliant, they are mixed up with another number that I'm uncertain about, but most are pretty interesting, despite the somewhat corporate feel to it.
i'll tag my favourites there http://del.icio.us/jaysen/tedtalks+@rated.01.
maybe drop a note in the comments if you stumble across any good ones yourself.
30 March 2008
17 March 2008
african fractals
This ones on fractals and self-organising algorithms in African culture/history. Check it out if you're at all interested in fractals, bottom-up self-organising patterns, or using indigenous knowledge in current solutions
synthetic genomics
Good video (another of the worthwhile from the tedtalks series) with plenty to think about in microbiology, genetics, the upcoming synthetic genomics, and its potential..
heres an audio npr interview with Venter with some additional info.
heres an audio npr interview with Venter with some additional info.
04 February 2008
independent diplomat
A profile of former British diplomat Carne Ross, who resigned in protest to the Iraq war, He now offers his service as an independent diplomat - currently working on the Western Sahara issue.
29 January 2008
the tag in negative
Just had an idea for del.icio.us. Well actually, for tagging in general, and in particular, for additions to a set of tagging plugins for wikidpad that i'm working on.
You know how you can ask delicious to give you bookmarks with an intersection of tags by using tag1+tag2+tag3 in the url. As with:
http://del.icio.us/jaysen/dev+audio ..which will show all bookmarks with both the tags, 'dev' and 'audio'.
Well, wouldn't the following form be useful:
http://del.icio.us/jaysen/dev+audio-radio - to give us all those tagged with 'dev' and 'audio', but not with those also tagged with 'radio'
It would mean that we'd have to say goodbye to hyphenated tags, but still, i think the added functionality would be worth it.. and i never liked hyphenated tags anyway.
to be continued..
You know how you can ask delicious to give you bookmarks with an intersection of tags by using tag1+tag2+tag3 in the url. As with:
http://del.icio.us/jaysen/dev+audio ..which will show all bookmarks with both the tags, 'dev' and 'audio'.
Well, wouldn't the following form be useful:
http://del.icio.us/jaysen/dev+audio-radio - to give us all those tagged with 'dev' and 'audio', but not with those also tagged with 'radio'
It would mean that we'd have to say goodbye to hyphenated tags, but still, i think the added functionality would be worth it.. and i never liked hyphenated tags anyway.
to be continued..
02 January 2008
radical voices
a free and easy to access online radio station with Alternative-News, Political Discourse and Commentary.
listened to some good material so far. good aggregation.
"Radical Radio is a non-commercial news, analysis and commentary-based alternative news radio that is comprised of an 18 - 25 hour program that is updated every 2-3 days and features current alternative news from sources like Democracy Now, Free Speech Radio News, the Shortwave Report and international Indy Media reports and mixes them with political speech from groups or personalities such as Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis and many, many others. This is peppered with music and poetry. We aim to offer the best in alternative news radio available on the web. We hope you like the taste more than the bland pablum of commercial radio, or the middle of the conservative perspective that NPR dishes out.. Stay tuned, stay informed and stir it up!"Click here to listen or here.
listened to some good material so far. good aggregation.
25 December 2007
25 November 2007
21 November 2007
a good brain theory?
slightly annoying, but sharp..
i liked the bit about intelligence having more to do with predictive power than it does behavior .. Maybe if this idea holds out, we might eventually do away with the Turing test for artificial intelligence -which was always so anthropocentric as to be, well, just a little bit silly ;)
The idea is that the frontal neocortex -not the older (and possibly more complex) pre-mammalian brain- is basically a mechanism to predict the future. That the neocortex can be simply modeled as vast networks of hierarchical elements that predict their future input sequences.
So, as far as i can make out, predictive subsystems
- that are based on a hierarchical theory of memory,
- and are strongly sequential/temporal.
And the model of the neocortex plugs into other components of the brain (that aren't modeled here). The intelligence (the memory and predictive components) providing the input to the older, pre-mammalian brain, which then uses this intelligent prediction to drive action and behavior via those older systems.
Anyway, sounds good so far. Probably worth keeping an eye out for On Intelligence, his book on the subject
i liked the bit about intelligence having more to do with predictive power than it does behavior .. Maybe if this idea holds out, we might eventually do away with the Turing test for artificial intelligence -which was always so anthropocentric as to be, well, just a little bit silly ;)
The idea is that the frontal neocortex -not the older (and possibly more complex) pre-mammalian brain- is basically a mechanism to predict the future. That the neocortex can be simply modeled as vast networks of hierarchical elements that predict their future input sequences.
So, as far as i can make out, predictive subsystems
- that are based on a hierarchical theory of memory,
- and are strongly sequential/temporal.
And the model of the neocortex plugs into other components of the brain (that aren't modeled here). The intelligence (the memory and predictive components) providing the input to the older, pre-mammalian brain, which then uses this intelligent prediction to drive action and behavior via those older systems.
Anyway, sounds good so far. Probably worth keeping an eye out for On Intelligence, his book on the subject
09 November 2007
The Unnatural History of the Sea
direct link to the mp3 from the Science and the City podcast.
Callum Roberts is a leading authority on the ocean environment and author of the new book The Unnatural History of the Sea, an unprecedented history of the exploitation of the ocean, its fisheries and marine life, and a look at what our future may hold. In this lecture, he shares his research, nicely highlighting the short sightedness of our past and current fishing strategies and policies.
His idea of what needs to be done is
- first, to fish less, or at least more intelligently - with more selection, and using less destructive means.
- to create marine reserves,
- and to eliminate risky decision making...
"One of the key things to do is to remove the decision making power of politicians in fishing. Politicians are not the right people to be making decisions about how many fish can be caught, because they think in the short-term, not in the long-term welfare of the industries, or the long-term welfare of the environment. Yet in most countries in the world politicians are the ones that make decisions about how much to catch.
The decisions also involve the very large presence of industry - this also involves the potential for risky decision making (what understatement!), because again, the perspectives are more in the short-term
...
we need to move to a system where we think much less about the short term and much more about the long term, because fishing and fish stocks are really too important to squander in the way that society is doing at the present."
i agree ..All serious collective decisions, like about things that impact our survival, or the future of the planet, amongst other things, deserve open processes with proper scientific rigor and method - a long way off the greedy, narrow minded bullshit we seem to put up with currently.
anyways, its a good listen. 30 minute..ish
Callum Roberts is a leading authority on the ocean environment and author of the new book The Unnatural History of the Sea, an unprecedented history of the exploitation of the ocean, its fisheries and marine life, and a look at what our future may hold. In this lecture, he shares his research, nicely highlighting the short sightedness of our past and current fishing strategies and policies.
His idea of what needs to be done is
- first, to fish less, or at least more intelligently - with more selection, and using less destructive means.
- to create marine reserves,
- and to eliminate risky decision making...
"One of the key things to do is to remove the decision making power of politicians in fishing. Politicians are not the right people to be making decisions about how many fish can be caught, because they think in the short-term, not in the long-term welfare of the industries, or the long-term welfare of the environment. Yet in most countries in the world politicians are the ones that make decisions about how much to catch.
The decisions also involve the very large presence of industry - this also involves the potential for risky decision making (what understatement!), because again, the perspectives are more in the short-term
...
we need to move to a system where we think much less about the short term and much more about the long term, because fishing and fish stocks are really too important to squander in the way that society is doing at the present."
i agree ..All serious collective decisions, like about things that impact our survival, or the future of the planet, amongst other things, deserve open processes with proper scientific rigor and method - a long way off the greedy, narrow minded bullshit we seem to put up with currently.
anyways, its a good listen. 30 minute..ish
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