Netizen

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Gates Live

Watch the full Bill Gates keynote from Microsoft Research Faculty Summit 2013

100 billionaires have signed the foundation’s “giving pledge,” promising to give away most of their wealth. ...... As for how governments help, the bulk of the money flowing to the world’s poorest countries comes from foreign aid budget ..... A researcher from London asked Gates if he thought about unintended consequences. Killing billions of mosquitos might prevent the spread of disease, for example, but there could be unintended consequences on the food chain. ... “I’m always glad there are people around to dampen my enthusiasm,” quipped Gates, who said he tends to focus on the good. He then said there are serious issues raised by the work of scientists and researchers. Bioterrorism is a real threat. Privacy is always a concern in an online, digital world...... “If you go out to the developed world and see kids dying of malaria, or see a woman who can send her kids to school because she has better crops, it’s hard to feel too bad about the general arc. Because I see how innovations can help, I mostly see the positive. But we should be aware of the negatives and how to mitigate them.”

"Large, Complex Systems Spanning Entire Industries"

Bill Gates Addressing Health Ministers at Meeting on Polio Organized by the Gates Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bill Gates on the future of education, programming and just about everything else

..... he cautioned, the world of programming probably has to evolve if we’re going to accomplish some grander goals such as large, complex systems spanning entire industries. There are more programmers and they’re better than they were 10 or 20 years ago, but there is no objective metric by which someone could say the state of the art has significantly improved...... In 20 or 30 years, Gates predicted, maybe robots in remote areas without a lot of doctors will be able to perform C-sections. ..... systems as complex and multifaceted as ecosystems, oceans and forests. ..... interestingly, Gates said, rich individuals in China tend to be more generous with their money than those elsewhere because so much of that wealth is first-generation wealth. There aren’t ruling-class families who consider themselves dynasties, but rather people who recognize the ridiculousness of one person accumulating so much money so fast. .... nuclear and bioterrorism as the thing we most want to avoid — but not the world’ biggest problem. .... the “ongoing disaster” that is 7 million children a year dying. .... 20 million when he was a kid and 12 million when the Gates Foundation began, citing new vaccines as a major cause for the improvement. In several years, he predicted, the number of children dying each year should be down to 3 million. ..... political disfunction, unemployment and war are all important concerns. So is the fact that malnourishment and other environmental factors have reduced the average IQ in sub-Saharan Africa to 82. But, Gates said, “Childhood death gets pretty high up for me.”

Bill Gates is easily one of the most remarkable individuals of my lifetime. For me computers are exciting because of the Internet and this guy is primarily a PC era guy, but his software contributions are revolutionary enough. What really gets me is his foundation work. He has been breaking a lot of ground with the Gates Foundation.

As for tech, a true challenge is adding artificial intelligence to the planet's entire ecosystem, all of the atmosphere, so we have an exact idea as to the planet's environmental health at any point in time. The same could be applied to the domain of people, so political and social and economic mass movements are not as arbitrary and we collectively have a greater say in uplifting humanity.

Ingress: And I Am Back

Not really. Over the past few days I have learned that (1) I don't miss Ingress, (2) Push-ups are much better exercise, more fulfilling, and way more fun than walking around staring at the phone pretending to get exercise through walking, and (3) The make money department is more gripping than the game of Ingress and I am better off increasing my hours there, since I work for myself and don't have/need regular "office hours."

Some decisions.

(1) I am going to completely avoid the COMM like I did all the way to hitting Level 8. In future my use of the COMM will be almost completely for Squad members. Even there a value is that COMM/G+ socializing is largely a waste of game time.

(2) I am going to wait for my 1,000 portal submissions to go through before I make a serious effort at team building.

(3) There is going to be a Greater Jackson Heights Resistance for agents that might not qualify for The Squad, but even that is later, I am in no hurry.

(4) When I play, I will just rack up some more AP, that is all. I will play rarely. Life/Work/Ingress balance is a value to strive for.

(5) I am glad for the reinstatement. But mostly I am going to act like the reinstatement never happened. I am going to play much less, if that.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Virtual Mall

I have been doing some legwork for the idea of a virtual mall.

Ingress: Enjoying Not Playing

It has been a few days but by now I am really enjoying not playing, surprisingly. As soon I hit Level 8, my thought was, now I wish to slow down. But I still kept racking up AP, month after month. Then when I left timtomhuze behind like so much exhaust fume one of the values I wrote down for the team I wanted to build was Life/Work/Ingress balance. As in, less time playing Ingress. I think it is unhealthy to play for more than 20 hours a week. 15 might be a better limit. 10 might be the most healthy amount. But right now zero hours is making the most sense to me.