Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

An interesting set of concepts out of FiRe and an on-stage discussion with Sam Pitroda (the man who introduced rural digital telephone exchanges to India in the 1980s) on the Indian renaissance of the last 20 years, and the role of the country's Knowledge Commission.

There are four phases of knowledge:

Knowledge concepts - fostered by education
Knowledge creation - coming from research
Knowledge applications - coming from businesses
Knowledge services - changing the role of government

I suspect that this is something I need to think about, as it's a very different set of axioms from the standard Western approach of applying value and costs, rather than considering the overall social impact of something. I suspect it's a much better way of considering the role of information and knowledge in a global context.

As an aside, this is a conference that many of my SF writer friends and acquaintances would love - it's wide ranging, inquisitive and built around conversations on many different themes. Fascinating stuff - and not surprising that two of the speakers are well known SF writers...

There are lots of little jokes scattered through Vernor Vinge's new novel Rainbows End. You'll find characters involved in cryptography called Bob and Alice, and a university library named after Dr Suess.

Oops. Time to back up a bit. That library? It really is named after Dr Seuss. Or rather, his real name, Theodor Geisel.

Meet the amazing architecture of UCSD's Geisel Library.



Oh, the places we go!

Elon Musk of SpaceX at FiRe on the fact that all the Falcon launches until 2008 will be from a small tropical island:

"I feel like I should have a small white cat".

marypcb wonders if he has minions...

Woo... live-blogging conferences now...