blog.spathis.com

This (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2005/tc20050324_7462_tc024.htm) is totally insane. If anyone needed to understand why monopolies or near monopolies need to be crushed should go read that article.

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Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | ‘Idleness is good’

Wow, pretty interesting indeed. Semler sounds like a fascinating guy and his company sounds really interesting.

I have spent the last few days playing around with Mac OS X 10.3.8, its come along way since the 10.2 days. I can quickly summarize my thoughts in one word: stunning.

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The Titticut Follies is one hell of a disturbing movie. The conditions of psychiatric institutions a short 40 years ago was truly appalling. This film really drives it home. The film was banned by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court because it was deemed an invasion of the inmate’s privacy. The film is so shocking and disturbing it will make you think twice.

One of the things I enjoy most about living in Gotham is the yearly 92nd St Y lecture series. This year along they have Craig Venter, Brian Greene, and the always fun Malcom Gladwell.

Last night was an incredible lecture by Ray Kurzweil. Ray is a Big Thinker. His ideas are honking huge and highly controversial. Last night he touched on:

* The rise of 3-dimensional computing
* Exponential decrease in cost (in time and money) of sequencing a base pair
* Radical shifts in what computing will look like
* Integration of computing with the human body
* Artificial blood cells
* Rapidly accelerating innovation
* By 2015 the ability to live for signficiantly longer time than now
* And perhaps the most controversial: By 2020 the ability to live forever. Yes, eternal life.

You say wow maybe? Ray puts it out there like few people I have seen. He is a controversial big thinker no doubt about that, but he has been right in the past and he makes a compelling case. I think he may be on to something. The lecture was focused on Ray’s new book Fantastic Voyage, picked it up at the lecture and had him sign it. Updates on thoughts soon….

I can highly recommend picking this up. Nothing beats old-skool rap. Run DMC & crew made hip-hop what it was and can’t really be blamed for what is has become…

The Economist had a fascinating story about the impact of technology on the developing world. In particular how mobile phones are really impacting the poorest nations on earth.

Consider the case of the telephone man. Using a mico-loan a villager will buy a cellphone. When the cellphone rings he will take it to the person who the caller wants to speak to and charge them a small amount for use of the phone. The impact of this business is dramatic on the life of the villagers and also provides a good income for the “telephone” man. Awesome…

In southern china people take their cellphones to be blessed by the local buddhist monks….

In china phone numbers with the number 3 in them are considered bad luck. People pay good money for phone numbers with 4’s in them.

Amazing…

First off, in the interest of full disclosure, I know the guys at UpTo11.net and they are probably some of the most innovative bunch of guys imaginable. Their new site is simply the most amazing music recommendation engine, its at UpTo11.net. It seems to be using some interesting techniques to recommend artists based on artists you search one. The engine works great, I really am amazed, very nice job guys. It seems to have me pegged perfectly. If you haven’t been there, get there now. It just made del.icio.us most popular link of the day, its that good!

How well do its recommendations work? Good question. I love underground and obscure music. There is something about it. I hate alot of the overproduced crap coming out of the music industry these days, but that obscure stuff is sometimes just amazing. The last couple of months I’ve been really obsessing over Bill Frisell’s Gone Like A Train. It really is an awesome album by an incredible jazz artist, and the perfect acid test to see if upto11 could really recommend some artists I know and don’t know. Now here is the amazing thing, pop that into the UpTo11.net search engine and lo and behold, up comes Dave Holland, another ass kicking jazz artist I’ve been enjoying. There is also a boatload of other interesting artists I plan on exploring. I love this, its sort of an exploration of musical space with concrete suggestions.

Now, you put in a jazz artist and out comes a jazz artist, ok not that great right? Well, it actually goes way beyong that. African blues artist Ali Farke Toure, another artist in heavy ipod rotation, is also there. Toure isn’t a jazz guy, he does Mali blues (which if you haven’t heard you should particularly if you like american blues, it is amazing). Somehow or other the UpTo11.net engine figured out they go together well. I could have told you that, but how did they do it?

Ok, next I figure I would get even more obscure, Old Crow Medicine Show (OCMS) has also made it into heavy rotation. Their song Wagon Wheel is amazing, I had a chance to see Norah Jones cover it at Irving Plaza (that was amazing). Now, consider yourself warned, OCMS is bluegrass. Yes hillbilly music, and just plain fun! I’ve been going through a bluegrass phase and enjoying a whole bunch of artists. It is kind of hard to figure out where to go next, but upto11 has already pointed me in some interesting and suprising directions. Spend some time with it, you will enjoy it. It also has this killer feature where it links ot wikipedia entries for the artists. I love the wikipedia and have blogged about it before. This is so freaking cool, I applaud them for doing that stuff.

I’ll be exploring the engine and the site over the next few weeks and tell you how the recommendations have panned out. I can’t wait to see what new musical realms it takes me too. Another absolutely brilliant effort by some really good friends!

If you haven’t heard Jef Raskin passed away. This has saddened me greatly. I love the macintosh, particularly the early ones. I spent much of my youth exploring the mysteries of that machine (not to mention hacking the crap out of the thing). Jef is the guy who invented alot of the magic in that machine & brightened my days quite a bit. Its sad to see him go….