“The legacy of (Alan) Turing the mathematician rises above any possible sensationalism. His contributions were supremely elegant and foundational. He gifted us with wild leaps of invention, including much mathematical underpinnings of digital computation. The highest award in computer science, our Nobel Prize, is name for him.
I recently went to see “Avatar.” I give it an “A” for special effects (with reservations) and a “D-” for plot.
Here are my random comments about the movie:
It would seem to me in this electronic age, the traditional committee and/or staff meeting is becoming outmoded. The evening of November 1, I attended a small gathering of individuals to listen to a lecture on Mormonism and the environment. After the BYU prof made his PowerPoint presentaion, there was a lengthy Q&A session. This latter activity was dominate by one very loud, overbearing, and foul-mouthed individual. While I didn’t disagree with most of her points, but why did she think her opinions were more cogent than those of others in the audience? By her dominating the conversation, we will never know what others attending were thinking. We will never know what the silent individuals could have brought to the discussion.
The following is an quoted from the book “Mountain Beyond Mountains:”
“Farmer (Paul) was learning about the great importance of water to public health, and he was conceiving a great fondness for technology in general, also scorn for ‘the Luddite trap.’ He liked to illustrate the meaning of that phrase with the story of the time when he came back to Cange (Haiti) from Harvard and found that Pere Lafontant had overseen the construction of thirty fine-looking concrete latrines, scattered through the village. ‘But,’ Farmer asked, ‘are they appropriate technology?’ He’d picked up the term in a class at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a rule, it meant that one should use only the simplest technologies required to do a job.
According to Time Magazine, the 17th best invention of 2009 is: “The Planetary Skin.”
“What happens to Earth when a forest is razed or energy use soars? We don’t know because environmental data are collected by isolated sources, making it impossible to see the whole picture. With the theory that you can’t manage what you can’t measure, NASA and Cisco have teamed up to develop Planetary Skin, a global “nervous system” that will integrate land-, sea-, air-, and space-based sensors, helping the public and private sectors make decisions to prevent and adapt to climate change. The pilot project–a prototype is due by 2010–will track how much carbon is held by rain forests and where.”
This is the type of effort I would like to see on a river-basin scale.
After flying from Utah to New Mexico, we headed north out of Albuquerque and then turned left at Taos. After crossing the volcanic Rio Grande Canyon, we arrived at Earthship, a troglodyte community located in the New Mexico desert. While waiting for our host, we walked around the visitors center . . . and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into?
Time Magazine (Sept 28, 2009) has an interesting short article on Wikepedia:
“. . . early in 2007, something strange happened: Wikipedia’s growth line flattened. People suddenly became reluctant to create new articles or fix errors or add their kernels of wisdom to existing pages.”
It is estimated that 8,000 homes in the Navajo Nation are without reliable water. And many are without commercial power. The Indian Health Service (IHS) and Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) will not be able to provide services to many of these homes anytime in the foreseeable future because of geographic isolation and cost constraints. At stake is the traditional culture of the Navajos. As they move into subdivision to get “modern” conveniences, they are increasingly separated from their pastoral heritage.
I feel strongly that members of the human race are co-creators of the Earth with God. That we will be held accountable for the impact we have on this planet. The creation was not a static event, but very much a dynamic event. The earth is evolving even as I write.
The following article appeared as a side bar in Government Executive (July 2009). It illustrates some of the collaboration potential of the new electronic media options:
“When the U.S. Coast Guard’s Boutwell made a recent port call in Djibouti, Commandant Adm. Thad Allen boarded the high-endurance cutter for an all-hands meeting with the crew. The Boutwell is circling the globe, so Allen figured it would be nice to shoot some video “shout outs” with the crew and post them on the Web, so families could see and hear their loved ones during the deployment. It was a typical gesture for Allen. Rarely does a day pass when he or his aides aren’t posting photos, video or a blog item for anyone who wants to know what he’s up to.