by cameron | Aug 2, 2007 | Podcast, science, singularity
Rodney Brooks is Panasonic Professor of Robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also Chief Technical Officer and sits on the Board of iRobot Corp. From July 1, 2003 until June 30, 2007, he was director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; prior to that, he was director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
He chatted with me this morning about my deep-seated obsession to have a humanoid robot and HAL-like AI.
Prof Brooks will be speaking at the Singularity Summit in California next month. Get your tickets here.
For more reading about the current state of robots:
NY Times article “The Real Transformers”
Honda’s ASIMO
The robot fly spy
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The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | Jul 31, 2007 | Podcast, singularity, transhumanism
Today I had the fortune to chat with another living legend – Vernor Vinge (pronounced “vin-jee” as in, he explained off air, “stingy”). While VV may not have the public profile of a William Gibson or Neal Stephenson, in geek circles no SF author carries more respect. Why is it so?
In 1981 Vernor wrote a novella called TRUE NAMES which was the one of the earliest stories to present a fully realized concept of cyberspace which he called the “Other Plane” and which people accessed by attaching electrodes to their scalp. Inside the Other Plane, people hid their “true names” from the Government by creating avatars with pseudonyms – sound familiar? This was several years before NEUROMANCER (William Gibson, 1984) or SNOW CRASH (Neal Stephenson, 1992) and is therefore a seminal work in cyberpunk fiction.
Vinge’s novels A FIRE UPON THE DEEP (1992) and A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY (1999) both won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. In 1993 he wrote an essay called “The Coming Technological Singularity” which popularized that term.
His latest novel, RAINBOWS END, is a masterpiece of near-future Sci-Fi which explores the world circa 2025. Marc Andreessen called it “the clearest and most plausible extrapolation of modern technology trends forward to the year 2025 that you can imagine.” It has been nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
You can learn more about the huge potential ramifications of the Singularity by attending the Singularity Summit 2007.
Become part of the G’Day World conversation.
I’ve created a couple of groups inside Second Life. You can now add yourself to the following groups:
Friends Of G’Day World
MODM
The Podcast Network
If I knew how to link directly to those groups from here, I would. But I don’t. So for now you just need to search for them in-world. Or you can add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends and check out the groups I belong to.
If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.
Add me to your Twitter account.
Do me a solid and digg the show.
Get the TPN version of Particls.
Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.
You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | Jul 30, 2007 | Podcast
Richard Giles joins me tonight to talk about a bunch of questions that have been on my mind:
Are we all suffering from Affluenza?
Are the Government, the advertising industry, and the mass media all conspiring to make us feel broke and scared?
Does the car I drive define me as a human being?
Do we really want a country where the government runs our health care? (after watching SICKO)
In Second Life, does everyone know you’re a dog?
All that and more, on G’Day World 270.
Become part of the G’Day World conversation.
I’ve created a couple of groups inside Second Life. You can now add yourself to the following groups:
Friends Of G’Day World
MODM
The Podcast Network
If I knew how to link directly to those groups from here, I would. But I don’t. So for now you just need to search for them in-world. Or you can add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends and check out the groups I belong to.
If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.
Add me to your Twitter account.
Do me a solid and digg the show.
Get the TPN version of Particls.
Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.
You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | Jul 29, 2007 | environment, Podcast, Uncategorized
What does driving a Prius *say* about you? As a person?
What a load of crap.
You aren’t defined as a person by what clothes you wear or by the car you drive. You are defined by what you *do*. Are you contributing something every day towards the betterment of the human race? Or are you merely buying things you don’t need with money you don’t have to impress people you don’t like?
The average income per household (in real dollars) in Australia is up 300% since 1950. And yet two-thirds of the population believe they don’t have enough money to buy everything they *need* to be happy. The advertising industry spends billions of dollars a year trying to convince you that you are unhappy, incomplete, that you aren’t successful until you have one more piece of *stuff*. The Government, the media, big business and the advertising industry all want you to buy more stuff and they spend BILLIONS trying to convince you that you *need* it. Not just want it – NEED it. Advertising is all about creating new wants and then turning those wants into NEEDS. You can fill that hole inside of you, the hole that tell you that you aren’t quite right, if you just buy a new pair of shoes, flat screen tv, house, shares, iphone. Meanwhile, the factories that make the stuff, vomit out pollution into the atmosphere, use energy which is dug out of the ground, that requires us to invade other countries, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
Where does it end?
******
Sitting at a cafe this morning, scanning the paper, saw lots of stories about celebrities out of control – Lohan, Richie, Spears, Hilton. All women. Girls, really. The media built them up into massive celebrities, role models for young girls, sexual fantasies for men and boys, and is now viciously tearing them down. It can’t be a coincidence. There must be an agenda. I’m trying to figure out what it is. Why are we seeing the destruction of the young female sex icon? What are they trying to tell us? That young women can’t be trusted? That our women are out of control? That behind every attractive young woman lies an alcoholic, drug-dependent kleptomaniac? That we cannot trust our fantasies? In this era of mass media controlled celebrity, we no longer have leaders. Who are our heroes? Who are the people we look up to?
Sporting stars. The media builds them into celebrities and then reveals that they are all secretly druggies, lying sex maniacs, violent misoginists.
Actors. But then we find out they are all druggies, racists, wife-beaters.
Reality TV stars. But then we find out they are all vacuous and slutty.
Business people. But then we find out they lied about stock options and profits, raped the environment, took the money and run.
What’s the common theme?
The mass media builds up non-entities into celebrities, heroes, and then tears them down in front of our eyes. They spend a couple of years telling you to admire someone, and then show you how shallow, cheap, flawed your hero is.
The message?
There is no-one to look up to. Your heroes are all shameful. Your politicians are liars, cheaters, bullshit artists, greasing their own pockets. Your sporting heroes used drugs to enhance their performance and have out of control egos.
So who do they want you to trust?
Them. The media. Trust them. They will look after you. Tell you who to trust and who not to trust. Tell you which politician to vote for. Which country to invade. Which products to buy. Which foreign leaders to fear. Which dark-skinned person to put in jail because they don’t look like you and don’t believe what you believe.
It’s an economy of lies and the biggest lies, the biggest fraud, is committed by the very people telling you what to believe and what not to believe.
The mass media.
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Speaking of things I *need* – check out this AT-ST Second Life avatar!
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I’ve created a couple of groups inside Second Life. You can now add yourself to the following groups:
Friends Of G’Day World
MODM
The Podcast Network
If I knew how to link directly to those groups from here, I would. But I don’t. So for now you just need to search for them in-world. Or you can add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends and check out the groups I belong to.
******
Apparently people DON’T need to be in Facebook to view or RSVP to an event in Facebook. That’s good news. One less reason for the spate of recent Facebook phobia I was subject to.
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Update on that Paypal fraud issue I had a week ago. Remember I ordered some products off a website, never received them, couldn’t get the site to respond to my emails, they didn’t have a listed telephone number? Well I took Fi’s advice (thanks Fi!) and made a complaint via Paypal. The process took a couple of minutes and, a couple of days later, the company refunded my money, claiming they were out of stock with the product. A good outcomes from Paypal! Obviously the company (DirectDiscount.us) takes Paypal’s emails more seriously than they do mine. A lesson for anyone out there who gets ripped off in a Paypal transaction – make a complaint.
by cameron | Jul 28, 2007 | Podcast
A few months ago I had the opportunity to chat with Tony Smith, CEO of new online accommodation booking startup, Roamfree. I was asked to keep the interview on hold until the site launched, which was yesterday. Tony is a former Sydney Swans ruckman who started marketing Schoolies holidays when he was in his early 20a, then created management rights business BreakFree, which listed on the stock exchange and later was sold to MFS. We talk about the new business, his business history, and entrepreneurship.
Become part of the G’Day World conversation.
I’ve created a couple of groups inside Second Life. You can now add yourself to the following groups:
Friends Of G’Day World
MODM
The Podcast Network
If I knew how to link directly to those groups from here, I would. But I don’t. So for now you just need to search for them in-world. Or you can add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends and check out the groups I belong to.
If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.
Add me to your Twitter account.
Do me a solid and digg the show.
Get the TPN version of Particls.
Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.
You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | Jul 28, 2007 | CIA, Podcast, Uncategorized
Just went to pay the speeding fine I got leaving Bundaberg and discovered there are no online payment options?! Can’t even pay it over the phone?!? Have to send a cheque. By post. Wow. Queensland. Amazing.
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I’m fascinated this morning watching the shit-fight between Arrington and Furrier/Scoble over Podtech. Having met all three of those guys over the last couple of years, I would have figured them to be pretty tight. It does sound, though, like Podtech have been burning through their $7 million in funding. The business model for podcasting is still in the early days and I hope they make it through. People tend to forget that new business models tend to take 5 – 10 years to stabilize. The first banner ads were run in 1993, but it took nearly a decade before online advertising started to overtake radio advertising in most markets. I think the time frames will be compressed with podcasting, but it is still going to take a few more years before it’s well understood. Most ad agencies and media buyers still aren’t even considering podcasting in their spread. That’s starting to change, but we’ve got a long road ahead of us yet. The TPN model is to keep our overheads low, grow the audience and the content as much as we can, and grow the business through revenue. It’s a slower path but, hopefully, more sustainable in the long run and you don’t get crunched by investors when the journey takes longer than they would like (which seems to be what is happening to Podtech).
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TPN’s Digital Photography Show has been nominated in TWO categories at the Podcast Awards! Please click on the link below to vote for them in both the Cultural/Arts category and also nominated in the People’s Choice category! Congrats to Scott and Michael, this is just another piece of kudos for the great work they do every week on their show!
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According to this post about the CIA:
There are currently at least two criminal trials underway in Italy and Germany against several dozen CIA officials for felonies committed in those countries, including kidnapping people with a legal right to be in Germany and Italy, illegally transporting them to countries such as Egypt and Jordan for torture, and causing them to “disappear” into secret foreign or CIA-run prisons outside the U.S. without any form of due process of law.
Oh, but you think the CIA is being watched by the Oversight board set up 30 years ago to stop the bullshit they were involved in from the 50s through to the 70s? Think again.
However, on July 15, 2007, John Solomon of the Washington Post reported that, for the first five-and-a-half years of the Bush administration, the Intelligence Oversight Board did nothing — no investigations, no reports, no questioning of CIA officials. It evidently found no reason to inquire into the interrogation methods Agency operatives employed at secret prisons or the transfer of captives to countries that use torture, or domestic wiretapping not warranted by a federal court. Who were the members of this non-oversight board of see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkeys? The board now in place is led by former Bush economic adviser Stephen Friedman. It includes Don Evans, a former commerce secretary and friend of the President, former Admiral David Jeremiah, and lawyer Arthur B. Culvahouse.
And whose daddy ran the CIA in the late 70s? That’s right – Dubya’s. The CIA gets $48 Billion in funding every year, yet nobody knows where it goes or how they spend it and they still haven’t been able to catch bin Laden, they didn’t want America about 9/11 and they were pretty wrong when they said they had conclusive evidence that Saddam had WMD stuffed down his undies. If you want to search for the main reason we have terrorism in our lives these days, start with looking into the activities of the CIA. Get an independent, citizen-helmed inquiry happening. Set it up so it can’t be bought or threatened out of existence. I think we’d all be amazed what it would uncover.
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As my car lease is up in a couple of months, we spent some time this afternoon test driving cars. Or a car, actually. We initially went back to the BMW dealership we bought our last car from. After standing there for 20 minutes without anyone asking if they could help us, we left and went to a Toyota dealership to test drive a Prius. I took a Prius out 3 years ago and couldn’t talk myself into it. This time, I actually quite liked driving it. Okay – it looks ugly and the interior finish just doesn’t compare to a BMW. But I like the efficiency and the tech. And it’s $25k cheaper than an equivalent Beemer. However, on the way home, the wife said to me “I’ll cry if we don’t buy another BMW. I love my BMW.” I asked her how long she’d cry for, thinking, well, I could handle a bit of crying to save the planet. “For the entire time I have to drive a Prius.” Sheesh. And she only drives the car about 30 minutes a week on average! It’s not like she’s even IN it every day. Anyway – score one for BMW’s engineering department. Nobody tell anyone at BMW marketing.
