Richard Gabriel essay/presentation about designing ultra large scale (ULS) systems (those beyond the abilities of contemporary humans to design).

Walt Disney’s original vision for his Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow (EPCOT) is astounding.

Unfortunately, what was later opened as “EPCOT Center” is only a terribly faint echo of the original vision.

Mark Pilgrim laments that the closed nature of next generation of computing devices (“New World” devices as described by Steve Frank) will mean an end to curious folks (especially kids) learning to hack (in the traditional sense). Other folks argue that the hacker spirit has always found an outlet, despite the ever increasing prevalence of closed environments and complexity. It does seem likely that some potential hackers would be discouraged if all the devices at hand are more closed than open. Still others argue that the creativity channeled into hacking will move into other areas (instead of hacking hardware (already a much withered past time) or even software, they will start to hack content (HTML, JavaScript, etc.)).

Interesting take on the iPhone OS devices as “Old World” (personal computers) vs. “New World” (iPhone OS devices). The “New World” devices are inherently stripped down to provide an overall better experience. These are truly ‘end user’ devices. A shocking visual played through my mind as I was reading it: New Worlders gasping and shuddering in abhorrence at the thought of having to use an Old World device with all its inherent complexity despite the fact that (for the time being) the Old World devices are still the wellspring (development environment) of the New World experience. The world actually divided between implementors and users. It was moderately shocking. It makes me wonder when a fully New World development environment will arrive and what it will be like. Does that portend a future New New World vs. the Old New World?

The article's author seeks advice on why investment advisors have been doing a disservice to their customers and how to recover from the losses in his 401(k).

Here is a quote from Seth Klarman, as used in the article: “Here’s how to know if you have the makeup to be an investor. How would you handle the following situation? Let’s say you own a Procter & Gamble in your portfolio and the stock price goes down by half. Do you like it better? If it falls in half, do you reinvest dividends? Do you take cash out of savings to buy more? If you have the confidence to do that, then you’re an investor. If you don’t, you’re not an investor, you’re a speculator, and you shouldn’t be in the stock market in the first place.”

A report from the National Academy of Sciences warns that a potential sun storm (coronal mass ejection) would likely cause global damage to the power grids of industrialized parts of the world. The damage could be severe enough that it could take a decade to recover.

Cringley makes an analogy between forests (where regular fires are normal, helpful and where preventing them sets the stage for conflagrations) and the economy (where recessions are "normal", and where preventing them sets the stage for bigger recessions). He posits that the politicians know that a recession is inevitable but that they always do whatever they can just to delay it. He terms it "not on my watch, please". That would make the politicians willfully evil instead of just misinformed and misguided.

There there is an idea about outlawing incandescent bulbs. He thinks it would end up saving 25% on domestic electricity bills.

Steve Yegge transcribes his talk about how an increasing number of fancy runtime optimizations are poised to give large performance boosts to dynamic languages.

A little article about Ray Kurzweil's vision of the future where he expects immortality to be achieved and a bit on what he is doing to get there.

Cringely writes about how all-tin (lead-free) solder joins grow tin whiskers. No one knows why and no one knows how to stop it. Lots of all-tin soldered electronics are doomed to short out and die.

Cringly writes about new electronics fabrication process technology that will enable the continuation of advances attributed to Moore's Law.

A blog-entry about how body modification is becoming more commonplace and what that might lead to in the future.

How the world is increasingly influenced by agile non-governmental entities and what it may mean for the future.

The root of John McCarthy's pages on sustainability of progress.

This blog entry mentions how the Edge Foundation's question of the year is "What is Your Dangerous Idea". The author notes that most of the ideas aren't very dangerous, and notes a few more ideas that he thinks are dangerous.

World maps by population over time.

"the grim meathook future"

The Ray Kurzweil Reader is a collection of essays by Ray Kurzweil on virtual reality, artificial intelligence, radical life extension, conscious machines, the promise and peril of technology, and other aspects of our future world.

Cory Doctorow article/interview with Ray Kurzweil on the possibilities of a singularity in human+tech development.