• The BA Festival of Science

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    9–14 minutes

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    Thanks to a generous grant from Trinity College at Cambridge University, I was able to attend the full week-long British Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Festival of Science in Leicester this year, from September 9th to 13th. This is a brief report of what I learned there.

  • Kurzweil and AI

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    1–2 minutes

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    Hah, I always knew that AI pundit Ray Kurzweil was up to no good, but this article proves it. Kurzweil is fond of making grand – and vague – predictions about the future of AI, but as far as I can see he his only major achievement that could possibly be related to AI is…

  • Longbets

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    1–2 minutes

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    Got back from DC last week, just been catching up on things recently. Anyway, Longbets is finally showing some interesting activity in its discussion forums.

  • The Media Lab

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    2–3 minutes

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    In one of the slower periods at the lab, I browsed through the mini library we have here and began flipping through The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT by Stewart Brand. It was absolutely fascinating reading – not because the Media Lab is an interesting place, but because the book is fifteen years…

  • Writing

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    1–2 minutes

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    Something popped into my head today as I was scribbling down some notes during a supervision: does the fact that I write with a pencil (as opposed to a pen or biro) affect my writing style, and on a higher level, my method of thinking? Pencils provide a much less constrained and linear way of…