Been keeping clear of demo reviews deliberately. Not sure it’s my forte, possibly not my main thing here. Prefer myself to keep the thoughts in the “cloud”, unclouded by sneak peaks of the many real tools and applications shown here, if simply to ensure a lucid mind and clarity of perspective.But this demo caught my attention.Switchr. (see picture)The company’s in…

Liz Lawley, David Weinberger, George Siemens, Will Richardson and Doug Thomas were my new friends and fellow panelists last week at the Milken Institute Global Conference. It was quite an experience. It’s not often that mealtimes are had in the company of nobel laureates (lunch), champion athletes (dinner), and drinks, investment bankers and astronauts. Themes ranged from bird flu preparation…

How often do you get a news summary like this?! Libby Trial Poses Problems for Bush Team–by Libby Lewis http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4981605

I’m cheating today and blogging by proxy through an observer of interactions and human behavior far more astute and verbose than even I. Myself? Me? I always get a bit lost on that bit… I like this one because it’s true, and though i’m always looking for ways in which these details occur online, this one does so completely capture…

Stephen Lansing “Perfect Order: A Thousand Years in Bali” PDF: http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/workingpapers/03-05-030.pdf This lecture at the Long Now foundation was a fascinating look at how one thousand years of Balinese ritual, ceremony, and social organization have resulted highly optimal methods of regulating water distribution, rice crop and pest control in Bali. Lansing pointed out that a simulation of adaptive networks produced…

The coming clash of civilizations, if it arrives, is going to be so boring. Boring because it will be a confrontation of two incompatible systems: one modern, one traditional. There’s nothing to make one better than the other, to make one smarter than the other. Nothing will be said, really, because the two cultures don’t share a common language. And…

(This story has been modified to fit your view of the world) Iran tells IAEA to remove cameras (CNN) — Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove its surveillance cameras and other equipment from its unclear sites by mid-February, the U.N.’s unclear watchdog has said. The declarations were made in a letter from E. Khalilipour, vice president…

“I now have a face like everyone else,” she told reporters Monday… Photos making the rounds today would seem to cast that into some doubt. But whereas the discussion a couple months ago centered on the transplant operation, there’s no turning away now: this is her face. I dont think we can look at a person and not see their…

There were several interesting articles in the recent New York Times Magazine annual “Year in Ideas” edition (which was short on ideas, somewhat perturbingly) that focused on technologies and how they have been changing the warp and woof of our social fabric. This one, on DUI calling, just got me wondering why my cel phone provider doesnt have it. Not…

In Silence of the Lambs, an FBI agent played by Jodie Foster hunts two serial killers in a chase that unfolds on a therapist’s couch as much as it does in backlot abductions. Each killer wants to transform himself (according to the explanation provided by Mr. Lechter), has the psychological need to change his identity. One does so by consuming…