Tiny infobits, huge shockwaves

Excuse me, when you wanted to tell me about the four dimensions.

Posted 10 March 2010 - 7:16pm

If you want to relax and learn something about Physics, I suggest you watch these lectures by Richard Feynman. They were filmed in 1964, the year before Feynman was awarded the Nobel Prize. If you ever thought about the relationship between Physics and Mathematics, that is the place to start.

I am in Lugano at the third conference on artificial general intelligence

Posted 6 March 2010 - 3:38pm

First time it took only 1 hour by train to get to a conference in a different country ;-)

Some presentations are interesting. The conference venue is very good, free WI-FI and fast, power plugs on each chair ...

E tu, Apple? Patents as nuclear weapons; how to use them as a deterrent to slow down competition.

Posted 4 March 2010 - 11:19am

E tu, Apple?

Apple has finally decided to use patents to slow down the competition, represented by Android in the current form. The interesting spin to the news is that Apple is not suing Google, which develops Android, but is suing HTC, a handset manufacturer and one of the main adopters of Android.

From geeks to the masses, from culture to economics and politics. Internet is changing everything.

Posted 3 March 2010 - 2:40pm

Internet and technology in general are changing just about everything we can think of. What gets hit first by this transformation?

This article about politics is one of the first of its kind that I have read so far. It describes a pretty simple idea to change US politics by abolishing the Senate and replacing it with a Reddit style platform that would allow all citizens to vote on propositions.

Patent for what? It seems that this Facebook patent covers what we were already doing in 2001/02

Posted 27 February 2010 - 11:54am

I did not have time to go through the details, except reading the Slashdot story, but this patent, the way it is described in the abstract, covers what Splinder (the largest Italian blogging and community platform) was already doing in 2001/02; and BTW, Splinder was part of a US company based in NY (Tipic Inc. of which I was the co-founder and CEO).

A sad tale, by Charles Munger (Warren Buffett partner)

Posted 25 February 2010 - 11:14am

This story can be applied to other economies in the world. Unless we dispose of the zombie institutions that are blocking the restructuring of our economies and societies, it will be very hard to come out of the mess we are in.

Also this article, about the widening income disparity, confirms what everybody knows.

Data at the center: this is the way to go. Invert the paradigm and let data organize itself (as much as you can).

Posted 24 February 2010 - 10:45am

I have been exploring this concept for a while now. Again, this is the right direction, and, as you can see from the video, the most interesting application of the concept is the innovative text input. Cool innovation from Germany.

Interesting concept: telepresence robot that allows social interaction

Posted 24 February 2010 - 9:41am

This is a bit counterintuitive. Why would you want to put a videoconferencing system on a robot? Well it actually works, and it can be just the beginning of an interesting concept. 

The other way around. The US is following Europe's footsteps on this.

Posted 10 February 2010 - 12:43pm

This is an interesting article about the impact of unemployment on the American society. Being Italian, I know all too well what is going on:
- less opportunity for new generations coming into the job market
- increased risk aversion (once you get a job, you hold-on tight to it)
- less innovation in the economy because less young people are willing to take risks starting-up companies
- kids competing with their parents and sometimes with they grandparents in the job market

Evolution of evolution

Posted 3 February 2010 - 12:10am

Evolution is a complicated beast. It seems so easy, yet there is no formula, no theorem, just a description of a phenomenon. This does not mean that the description is wrong, it means we are just scratching the surface of something much deeper than we currently know.

This article presents an interesting spin to the subject. 

A broader look at our economic future

Posted 18 January 2010 - 5:11pm

If you think the financial crisis was created by the housing bubble in the US, then you should probably think better, says Jeff Rubin.

Links about apps, programs and programming

Posted 14 January 2010 - 1:51pm

- How the software industry is changing.
- How to look for applications.
- How to improve your programming skills, from a theoretical point of view.

Maximizers vs. "satisficers"

Posted 9 December 2009 - 1:49pm

This article about the search for better quality of life out of the Bay Area reminded me of the reason why I tend to move around looking for new places.

According to the article, the need for better quality should be balanced against what one really loses leaving a big urban environment to settle in a more provincial one.

Multimedia at home

Posted 4 December 2009 - 9:32pm

I spent a few days configuring my new Acer Revo 3610. I installed Ubuntu 9.10, Boxee, UbuntuwinTV and Minitube (among other more mundane stuff).

I had to figure out how to fix the sound and the screen resolution, because I am using an HDMI cable to connect the Revo to the Samsung LCD TV.

Some links

Posted 13 November 2009 - 4:15pm

Yesterday a friend asked for links to interesting videos and posts to "consume" during the weekend. Here they are:

- Designing society for posterity

- The singularity Summit 2009 videos

- For the future of the Media Industry, look inside the Apple store