from the memetics dept.
Senior Associate Glenn Reynolds writes: The alternative-rock group "Our Lady Peace" has a new CD out called "Spiritual Machines." It's a concept album (well, kinda) based on Ray Kurzweil's work, and features snips of Ray reading from his book. It's pretty cool. (Downloadable music at www.ourladypeace.com)."
from the cost/benefit-analysis dept.
Michael Mestre suggests that members of the Foresight community may want to weigh in with their opinions on this short discussion thread on NanotechNews.com. Michael writes: "Some discussion about this would be welcome : ) — in short, a former Senior Associate from Foresight is being critical of the commercial (and costly) aspect of the Senior Associate gatherings."
from the spreading-geographically dept.
Anonymous Thinker writes "I would like to ask if foresight is planning on having events on the east coast? If not I would like propose starting a local chapter here in Atlanta. The Georgia Institute of Technology has an excellent research center for Nanotechnology and I think that it would be an ideal place to begin spreading and discussing the benifits of nanotechnology on the east coast. thanks, G-Man" CP: The current plan is to alternate U.S. coasts for the Foresight Conferences on Molecular Nanotechnology (East in 2000, West in 2001, etc.). Regarding local chapters, we suggest setting up Nanotechnology Study Groups at universities. Georgia Tech would indeed be a good place to have one of these.
from the accelerated-memetic-evolution dept.
The preliminary program is available for the Annual Foresight Senior Associate Gathering, April 20-22 in Palo Alto: "Exploring the Edges."
from the realtime-attempt-at-foresight dept.
Recently the Association of Internet Professionals in San Francisco invited five Foresight folks to discuss the future of the Internet. Naturally, we discussed nanotechnology as well. Meet advisor Stewart Brand, member James Canton, Senior Associate Dan Gillmor, media advisor Ed Niehaus, and moi (president) as we debate the future in MP3 format, including challenging audience questions.
from the and-now-a-word-from-our-sponsor dept.
Sunday, December 31, is the last day to have your tax-year-2000 donation to Foresight doubled by our $35,000 Challenge Grant. To get your year 2000 U.S. federal tax deduction: donate online, fax, or write your check by tomorrow. (Donations to Foresight are tax-deductible in the U.S. to the full extent allowed by law.) Save more by donating stock. Read more for the various options, from $5K and up, down to $45 or even $0.
from the he's-our-hero dept.
Credit goes to Brian Berg for spotting this San Jose Mercury News article on Foresight advisor Doug Engelbart's new honor. Excerpts: "On one hand we have instant gratification — the shiny, happy kids at bigfatjackpot.com who went from zero to seven figures of net worth in a matter of months before things cooled off. On the other hand we have delayed gratification — in the noble personage of one Douglas Engelbart. Friday at a black-tie dinner in Washington, D.C., Engelbart will be one of two individuals to receive the National Medal of Technology, to be bestowed by President Clinton. The award, the nation's highest honor for technology, comes more than 30 years after he developed many of the basic tools that define today's digital world…Engelbart is more than just a great technologist. He's a humanist who sees computer-assisted communications as just a means to achieving far loftier goals. What he envisioned more than 30 years ago was comprehensive systems that would augment human decision-making. The big picture, which he continued to flesh out over the years, boiled down to this: Better tools led to better collaboration processes, which in turn led to more innovation, better decisions and better organizations. And to better chances of managing nanotechnology well, which is why Doug is an advisor to Foresight. Congrats to him!
from the keeping-track-of-our-biases dept.
Senior Associate PatGratton writes "On a sociological/ethical note… Around the time of the Fall Foresight Gathering, I was reading Jane Jacobs' Systems of Survival and came up with some interesting applications of her ideas to people interested in transformational technologies….When I tried to apply Jacobs' categories to the attendees of the Foresight Gathering, I quickly reached two conclusions: 1) there are virtually no Guardians present within the Foresight membership, and 2) Jacobs missed a syndrome….I contend that the Foresight community is split between Idealists and Traders, and that this leads to a certain amount of unavoidable conflict….Because Guardians are underrepresented within Foresight, Foresight discussions are likely to strongly biased towards Commercial and Idealist views and solutions. More importantly, we're likely to fail to address or to take seriously concerns that would come naturally to a Guardian. This in turn implies that we're likely be underprepared when we take our ideas/solutions to the general public…" Read More for Pat's full post.
from the gigahands-make-nanowork dept.
ChrisPhoenix writes "(This was written as a letter to Foresight leadership; Chris Peterson asked us to get Nanodot feedback.)
In a spontaneous group that formed Sunday night after the recent Foresight Senior Associates Gathering, four of us discovered that we all felt similarly: that the time has come to build on the suggestions and issues produced by previous Foresight work and gatherings. Having attended several Gatherings and heard several issues from multiple perspectives, we are ready to start filling in the details. Although large and random groups are great for brainstorming, they are perhaps not the best structure for producing detailed, focused, mature work on specific issues. Small working groups or think tanks would be useful at this point, to begin processing the excellent suggestions that have flowed from the Gatherings." (Click Read More… for the rest.)
from the be-there-or-be-confused dept.
Save $100 by registering for the Sept 8-10 Foresight Senior Associate Gathering by TODAY, Friday, Sept 1. See the speaker list and program. Topics include nanotech, encrypted money, machine intelligence, healing the environment, the "art of honesty", and reforming our bizarre intellectual property system. If you miss this one, it could be spring 2001 before you get another chance. Please join us.
