The History of the Internet

Thanks to Kim Komando I was able to relive the short history of the Internet. Her site today (9/06/2008) was the National Science Foundation. There you can learn about how fast and how far we have come since the 1970's when there was just ONE network connection.

I bought my first personal computer in 1975. There was no Internet until a few years later.

As you read and listen, place yourself, as I did, in that evolving stream of technology.

Exploring the Oceans

It's hard to believe we know so little about the Oceans of our Mother Earth. Robert Ballard gives us an insight into what we are missing in a recent speech at a TED conference. This is just another gift to us all from TED.

Thank Robert!


To get to his lecture just click of the title of this post.

If all else fails copy the following and paste it to Google search

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_ballard_on_exploring_the_oceans.html

Squashed Philosophers

Image via WikipediaI recently ran onto this website created by Glyn Hughes It's a timeline of philosophers, starting with Plato at 355 bc and moving ever closer to today. . At each point along the way you have a choice of reading a condensed version of what the philosopher was stating or a more detailed version of his thinking.Cicero at 50 bc or Thomas Paine in 1792, or Charles Darwin in 1859 or Sir Karl Popper in 1957.

Mr. Hughes has listed some 45 philosophers and their ideas.
Dip into the timeline and enjoy.

http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/

Are we just Chemical scum?

I've been "prospecting" again for the gems at the TED conferences. I ran onto a lecture given by the research physicist David Deutsch. His words transports us to the furthermost reaches of space, and describes it in some detail.Then back to planet Earth and how we know about this "typical" universe so far away.

Sorry you will have to copy and paste the URL below

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/47

Timshel

Lockhart's Lament

I'll never forget my High School math teacher. I
was standing at the blackboard trying to solve a problem.
And she says to me ...."I've never seen anyone so stupid"

That pretty much did it for me as far as
mathematics was concerned. I avoided it like the plague.
My next encounter with math was a required college Statistics
class. Things went better because I was presented with ideas
and concepts.

Today, I ran onto a "math guy" I wish I had known
65 years ago. I hope you enjoy his lament as I did.

(You will have to cut and paste this link..sorry)

http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

Charlie Rose Interwiews David McCullough

Source: WikipediaI knew zip about Charlie Rose until a few weeks ago. Now I have a season's pass for him on my TIVO. The first thing I had to learn was that just because I hadn't heard of the interviewee didn't mean that it wouldn't be interesting.

A few nights ago I learned about David McCullough. I learned that he is a writer of history. His works are not history novels. They are the essence of history told by a master story teller. Since then I have traveled to Wikipedia to get the list of his books.Then to my local library. (online) There I discovered there were hundreds of copies of his books. None of which were available. So I placed a "hold" an several of them.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail saying one of McCullogh's books (The Johnstown Flood) was waiting for me to come and get it. Last night I started reading. It took me back to my high school days when I watched my first play.....Thornton Wilder's "Our Town". At the beginning of the play, the stage manager walks out and starts talking about Grover's Corners and what was going on there.The town came to life for me.

That's what I experienced as I started reading the Johnstown Flood.Here was another story teller breathing life into a place and time of yesteryear.

This is a list of the books I placed on HOLD at my library:

Path Between the Seas
The Great Bridge
Mornings on Horseback
Brave Companions
Truman
John Adams
1776

The Elegant Universe

Nova has a wonderful series of Videos showing
how scientists like Newton and Maxwell and Einstein
each contributed to understanding the physics of our
universe. I hope you will enjoy this series. (as I am)

I try to make all of my selected Links "clickable".
It didn't work this time so you will have to copy and
paste it into the address line. Sorry for the hassle,
but it is worth it.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

Charlie Rose's Science Series

This morning I discovered that Charlie Rose has put a
group of his interviews online that focus on various science themes.

* The Brain
* The Human Genome
* Longevity
* Cancer
* Stem Cells
* Obesity
* HIV/AIDS
* Pandemics
* Heart Disease
* Global Health
* Human Sexuality
* Diseases of the Brain

Here's your chance to watch and listen to the leading
thinkers on these subjects.

http://www.pfizer.com/think/episode_1.jsp

I Need A Good Book to Read

Librarians are wonderful resources for finding good book ideas.When I was 17 and on leave in a little town in Florida called Green Cove Springs I chanced on a Librarian idea that shaped my life thereafter. Over the years I have found good books just by asking librarians.
Recently, I discovered another good way. It's a website called "Goodreads". It is easy to post titles of books that you have read.
AND invite your friends to do the same. Now you have other book ideas as well.You can rate your books and comment on them.Then you can read what others thought about their books too. I am reading a book right now that I would never have run onto in any other way. Try it out and find plenty of goodreads ideas.

http://www.goodreads.com

A little something from my right brain....I think?

I just discovered Charlie Rose. He has been interviewing people for 16 years and I never even knew of him. Go figure... Anyway, he recently had a special program honoring the life of William Buckley (who recently passed away). It turns out he had interviewed him many times. In one of the clips Buckley talked about his religion and the people that had impacted his life. He mentioned Malcolm Muggeridge and one of his books...."A Third Testament"

The first chance I got I went to wikipedia to learn more. That took me to:

http://www.ploughbooks.co.uk/ebooks/

At that site I found the book and discovered that I could download it for free in a PDF format.
I now have it on my computer and I'm about half way through it. It's heavy reading(for me). The front page gives you a clue.

A Third Testament......The spiritual wanderings of Augustine,Blake,Pascal,Tolstoy,Bonhoefer,
Kierkagaard & Dostoevsky

So far I'm leaning towards Pascal's Wager

The World of Free

There is a free lunch....sort of.

Chris Anderson is the editor and chief of Wired Magazine.

He recently was the keynote speaker at Nokia World. His speech was spellbinding to me. We are seeing what happens when various internet commodities become free...such as storage, and bandwidth. Remember when our e-mail in-box was limited in size? Why did Yahoo and Google for instance give us an unlimited storage size? Anderson says it's because it costs so little...... as to be virtually free. Commodity suppliers give away the commodity and dream up other ways to make their bucks.

This video will deepen your understanding about what's going on today in the internet world

http://www.netvision.de/uk/dispatching/?event_id=5bb1b5e95afabb2e62d2b148ded47706&portal_id=369401748e8249f142a700d8098a3473

I'm a lefty

After watching and listening to the TED lecture by Jill Bolte Taylor I realized that I am a habitual left brainer (hence the thrust of my blog)

18 years ago I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Besides radiation I embarked on everyday sessions of meditation and creative visualization. The cancer is gone and who can say by what means?

All I know is that I still suffer the ill effects of the radiation (small price to pay) But I have NEVER suffered from my meditations nor visualizations. I think it's about time I tried to be more balanced in my thinking.

As Paul Simon said in song......Who Am I To Blow Against The Wind?

Her stroke of insight

In an earlier blog I posted the URL for TED. It's a annual conference of outstanding people from all over the world that meet to share their ideas with each other.


The TED conference 0f 2008 is over. Those lectures are just now being put online.
Be sure and watch and listen to Jill Bolte Taylor!

My stroke of insight"
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/२२९

FORA.tv

The Fora site calls itself,"The brilliant Ideas Network for video,discourse and debate".... I love it.

You can get there just by clicking....FORA.tv

If you are into science or politics or cultural or social issues just sit back and enjoy the most interesting of lectures and debates.

checkout.............

Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Death by Black Hole
City Arts & Lectures
Feb 19 2008

and you will see what I mean

This looks and sounds good. This is a new search engine that is still in private बेटा

Recent discovery

I'm excited to share this with all of you. There is a new media player similar to Windows Media player that can show all of the TED lectures. It is a free download at:
http://www.getmiro.com/blog/?p=363

If you are not familiar with TED, you can learn more about that organization and what they do each year at:
http://www.ted.com/

Now that's the question

So I went to school
volunteered for WWII
went back to school
got married
had kids
got a job
quit, and started my own business
sold it, and went sailing
came home and "settled down"
volunteered for stuff
gave up volunteering

Now I sit at my computer and travel the world....the cosmos....past times....present times...and future times.

I look into the nano world.....and the macro world....The world of ideas

When I "discover" something really neat I want to share my discovery with others. Who?......What?.....How?

Now that's the question