Ray Kurzweil "How to Create a Mind", Authors at Google

I thought this was a great lecture by the futurist, Ray Kurzweil. I have yet to read his new book, How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, which might be my next purchase.

About the book:

In How to Create a Mind, The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, the bold futurist and author of The New York Times bestseller The Singularity Is Near explores the limitless potential of reverse engineering the human brain. Ray Kurzweil is arguably today's most influential—and often controversial—futurist. In How to Create a Mind, Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization—reverse engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines. Kurzweil discusses how the brain functions, how the mind emerges from the brain, and the implications of vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence in addressing the world's problems. He thoughtfully examines emotional and moral intelligence and the origins of consciousness and envisions the radical possibilities of our merging with the intelligent technology we are creating. Certain to be one of the most widely discussed and debated science books of the year, How to Create a Mind is sure to take its place alongside Kurzweil's previous classics.

Legalize Drugs: A Debate from Intelligence Squared U.S.

An interesting debate from the Intellegence Squared series.

Intelligence Squared U.S. Presents "Legalize Drugs" with Paul Butler and Nick Gillespie for the motion, Asa Hutchinson and Theodore Dalrymple against the motion. Moderated by John Donvan. It was 1971 when President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs." $2.5 trillion dollars later, drug use is half of what it was 30 years ago, and thousands of offenders are successfully diverted to treatment instead of jail. And yet, 22 million Americans-9% of the population-still uses illegal drugs, and with the highest incarceration rate in the world, we continue to fill our prisons with drug offenders. Decimated families and communities are left in the wake. Is it time to legalize drugs or is this a war that we're winning?

RIP David S. Ware

One of the most unique tenor sax players to emerge in the post-Coltrane era has died at age 62. Here he is with his quartet: Matthew Shipp on piano, William Parker on bass and Guillermo E. Brown on drums. Parker is laying down this amazingly bizarre bass line. I counted out the beat and I believe the song is written in a 10/4 time signature...

Watch a Facebook Photo Go Viral

Beautiful fractal data visualizations of a Facebook photo going viral. From Hyperallergic:

There are now more than one billion people using Facebook every month, and there’s no doubt that a huge number of them are sharing photos. To help illustrate what that means, the company teamed up with design studio Stamen to create animated visualizations of three different pictures going viral. The results are totally mesmerizing. In the short videos, the photos spread in branches, each one starting from a different person. As the pictures are shared by more people, new branches sprout off from the previous ones, with each color representing a different gender and the colors fading to white as time passes. The forms look wonderfully organic, like groups of tiny organisms moving under a microscope. There are periodic, pulsing bursts of activity that remind me of fireworks, and meanwhile, the tendrils of the photo maps spread out as if they were time-lapse videos of plants growing.

Cities at Night Seen From Space

Images such as this are a big influence on my artwork. Be sure to watch this one full screen.

Narrated by Dr. Justin Wilkinson to help make sense of exactly what is passing by down there.

Jennifer Steinkamp: Video Installation Artist

Here are a few videos by a digital artist I've just been introduced to.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson - Greatest (Secular) Sermon Ever

Neil deGrasse Tyson has the knack of making the seemingly dry scientific subjects of astronomy, physics, chemistry and humanism come to life with his words almost like a Disney animator can captivate an audience in pictures... Science has the facts on its side, now all it needs is more storytellers of facts to make those facts interesting and captivating...