LIRR Car

subway car

It's rare that I get on a subway car that's empty so I thought I would take a picture... The last stop in this case is Times Square, although since we were headed in the direction of Queens it became the first stop.

Also had a little fun photoshopping some art into this one ;)

Lightmatter_Sistine_Chapel by Aaron Logan" used under a creative commons license

Down the rabbit hole

A friend sent me a link to this article today: IBM Unveils a Computer that Can Argue

I don't know that I'd agree this computer is "thinking" and "learning" but it is impressive...  scary and impressive... personally though, while some scientists are trying to create artificial intelligence (did they not watch Terminator?!?!?!?!?!?), I think there's a good chance that the first true AI or AIs will actually come from the Internet.... 

Some food for thought:

Minding the Planet: From Semantic Web to Global Mind

some of the other places (in no particular order) that I wandered after visiting that article....

http://stko.geog.ucsb.edu/sw2022/sw2022_paper1.pdf

http://keet.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/some-ideas-about-what-the-semantic-web-will-look-like-in-2022/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Data

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBpedia

http://mmt.me.uk/slides/iam121009/#(1)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind

http://longbets.org/1/

http://singularityhub.com/2011/04/04/kurzweil-is-confident-machines-will-pass-turing-test-by-2029-video-2/

Scientists say this 191-year-old symphony could help your heart health.

This is pretty cool.

“ According to a group of fancy Oxford University scientists, listening to the third movement of Beethoven's No. 9 might actually lower your blood pressure and help fight heart disease. In real life. Music therapy has been a thing for a while. But British researchers just hit upon some of the first concrete evidence that it's actually, like, a thing.”

Eugenie Clark

There was a great post in my FB stream on Eugenie Clark-- a marine biologist who was an advocate for sharks and science.  I can remember reading her biography “Shark Lady” in 2nd grade, not only was it the book that got me fascinated by sharks but also inspired me to think maybe one day I could be a scientist too.   

Nat Geo had a great article on Eugenie back in February:  'Shark Lady' Eugenie Clark, Famed Marine Biologist, Has Died

Also see my previous post on Sharks

thoughts on google glass

cool...   actually, I think google glass is pretty important in that it's a transitional technology--- kind of in the way that Martin Cooper created the first handheld mobile phone:

that in no way resembles what our smartphones look like today, or what they're capable of...  but, that phone was a critical piece of electronics in the evolution of technology...  I already have my eyes on what's next, by the time they "do a good job" on glass, I think we'll be close to seeing that...  GG can still be useful, there's actually a bunch of cool ways that it can be used in education too-- the problem is that it's poorly executed, clunky and is just the start of what can be done with wearables, AR, and IoT...  

Talk about timing...

It's amazing that it's been a year since Glen met with Snowden and the NSA landed in the headlines for violating our 4th amendment rights to privacy, a cornerstone of democracy.

Last week the USA Freedom Act passed in the house- doublespeak from our government that allows this abuse to continue. This week Snowden gave his first American Network TV interview.

Why does this issue of privacy and democracy matter so much? After all, "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide"?

----- excerpt from The Eternal Value of Privacy by Bruce Schneier-----

"Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watches the watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time.

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.

and

"Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide."

For the link to a short collection of other related articles, visit http://americanvirtueproject.wikispaces.com/readinglist

FTS wikis

Flipboard Focus:

Productivity, Positivity, and Creativity

The latest flip into my magazine on Productivity, Positivity, and Creativity:

The Deadline Effect: How to Work Like It’s the Last Minute—Before the Last Minute link.

Christopher Cox is a graduate of Harvard and Cambridge. He was a 2020 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and a visiting scholar at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He was the former chief editor of Harper’s magazine and executive editor of GQ, where he edited—and set deadlines for—stories that won Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine Awards.

In the article Christopher shares about these 5 key insights from his new book:

1. Stop feeling guilty about procrastinating. 2. The worst deadline you can set is “as soon as possible.” 3. Short deadlines are better than long ones. 4. Add enforcement mechanisms. 5. Embrace interim deadlines.

If you liked that article, check out the other articles in my Flipboard magazine:

Flipboard magazine link

Lesson Plan Book

Paths in My EdTech Landscape v3 Third version of a graphic I had started a while back... it started out as a map of some technology trends I research and talk about (see techtrendsineducation.wikispaces.com/ and treglia.wikispaces.com/).... Read more on on Flickr