computers and technology, dance music, snowboarding
I'd like to meet:
the leprachaun
Music:
Let's play name the MC:
"I'm the undisputed king of the parking lot"
"Cars drive by with the boomin' system...I must be getting old 'cause the bass sounds ridiculous"
"While I'm shovelin' the snow, man, call me frosty, lover"
"I slowed my 'lac down to a nice speed, the brain was that fried egg, I might need..."
"Fuck karate, ***** practice gun-fu"
"Jacked her then I acks'd her who the man, she said ***, then I bust in her E-Y-E"
"I come to throw monkey wrenches in your program, sleep
and Ima grow, like a rash on ya nasty ass
In a whip, with no breaks and I'm hittin the gas"
"Just wakin' up in the mornin' gotta thank god
I don't know but today seems kinda odd
No barkin' from the dogs, no smog
And momma cooked a breakfast with no hog
I got my grub on, but didn't pig out"
"What the hell is wrong? I'm askin' in this song
One time I smoked hash out of the hippies' bong"
"Niggaz throw darts, I’m shootin' flamin' arrows
Pierce through your physical faculties
With pin-point accuracy
You don’t wanna battle me..."
Check the blog for the answers!
Books:
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson
Wired editor Anderson declares the death of "common culture"—and insists that it's for the best. Why don't we all watch the same TV shows, like we used to? Because not long ago, "we had fewer alternatives to compete for our screen attention," he writes. Smash hits have existed largely because of scarcity: with a finite number of bookstore shelves and theaters and Wal-Mart CD racks, "it's only sensible to fill them with the titles that will sell best." Today, Web sites and online retailers offer seemingly infinite inventory, and the result is the "shattering of the mainstream into a zillion different cultural shards." These "countless niches" are market opportunities for those who cast a wide net and de-emphasize the search for blockbusters. It's a provocative analysis and almost certainly on target—though Anderson's assurances that these principles are equally applicable outside the media and entertainment industries are not entirely convincing. The book overuses its examples from Google, Rhapsody, iTunes, Amazon, Netflix and eBay, and it doesn't help that most of the charts of "Long Tail" curves look the same. But Anderson manages to explain a murky trend in clear language, giving entrepreneurs and the rest of us plenty to think about.
Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos by Michio Kaku
Well-known physicist and author Kaku (Hyperspace) tells readers in this latest exploration of the far reaches of scientific speculation that another universe may be floating just a millimeter away on a "brane" (membrane) parallel to our own. We can't pop our heads in and have a look around because it exists in hyperspace, beyond our four dimensions. However, Kaku writes, scientists conjecture that branes—a creation of M theory, marketed as possibly the long-sought "theory of everything"—may eventually collide, annihilating each other. Such a collision may even have caused what we call the big bang. In his usual reader-friendly style, Kaku discusses the spooky objects conjured up from the equations of relativity and quantum physics: wormholes, black holes and the "white holes" on the other side; universes budding off from one another; and alternate quantum realities in which the 2004 elections turned out differently. As he delves into the past, present and possible future of this universe, Kaku will excite readers with his vision of realms that may exist just beyond the tip of our noses and, in what he admits is a highly speculative section, the possibilities our progeny may enjoy countless millennia from now; for instance, as this universe dies (in a "big freeze"), humans may be able to escape into other universes.
Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes by Charles Seife
In a book that's all but impossible to put down, science journalist Seife (Alpha & Omega) explains how the concepts of information theory have begun to unlock many of the mysteries of the universe, from quantum mechanics to black holes and the likely end of the universe. Seife presents a compelling case that information is the one constant that ties all of science, indeed all of the universe, together. His skill with language permits him to do what many have tried and few have accomplished—making complicated concepts of quantum mechanics accessible to the average reader. Seife demonstrates how quantum oddities so alien to classical physics actually are consistent with the same physical laws that govern the world we see. For example, the fact that entangled particles half a universe away can instantaneously communicate with one another (what Einstein called "spooky action" at a distance), apparently violating the law that nothing can exceed the speed of light, can be understood through information theory. Seife takes all of this to a most bizarre, but logical, conclusion reached by many cosmologists: the universe as we know it is but one of an infinite number of universes, all brought into being through information transfer.
Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds & David Diamond
Most 31-year olds can't boast of being the instigator of a revolution. But then again, the world's leading promoter of open source software and creator of the operating system Linux does humbly call himself an accidental revolutionary--accidental being the operative word here. Just for Fun is the quirky story of how Linus Torvalds went from being a penniless, introverted code writer in Helsinki in the early 1990s to being the unwitting (and rather less than penniless) leader of a radical shift in computer programming by the end of the decade.
The Singularity is Near - When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil
Humankind is at the threshold of an epoch ("the singularity," a reference to the theoretical limitlessness of exponential expansion) that will see the merging of our biology with the staggering achievements of "GNR" (genetics, nanotechnology and robotics) to create a species of unrecognizably high intelligence, durability, comprehension, memory and so on.
Programming the Universe - A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos by seth lloyd
Lloyd, a professor at MIT, works in the vanguard of research in quantum computing: using the quantum mechanical properties of atoms as a computer. He contends that the universe itself is one big quantum computer producing what we see around us, and ourselves, as it runs a cosmic program. According to Lloyd, once we understand the laws of physics completely, we will be able to use small-scale quantum computing to understand the universe completely as well. In his scenario, the universe is processing information. The second law of thermodynamics (disorder increases) is all about information, and Lloyd spends much of the book explaining how quantum processes convey information.
On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkings
Jeff Hawkings is the founder of Palm computing and is the designer of the Treo Smartphone. On Intelligence is his attempt to lay down a new framework for how our brain works in hopes of inspiring people in neuroscience and computer science to work together to forward the field of artificial intelligence.
