Saturday, November 10, 2007

 

Larry Lessig at TED


I just watched Larry Lessig's TED talk. WOW! Not only was the content of his talk brilliant, his use of historical analogy was stunning, and the presentation slides were pure genius. It was a masterful production. I am going to practice his style in my next presentation.

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Thursday, November 08, 2007

 

Don't let the Bozos Grind you Down

Guy Kawasaki, in a talk to O'Reilly's 2007 MySQL Confernece, entitled The Art of Innovation, lists 9 rules of Innovation.
  1. Jump to the next curve.
  2. Don't worry, be crappy.
  3. Churn, baby, churn.
  4. Don't be afraid to polarize people.
  5. Break down the barriers.
  6. “Let a hundred flowers blossom.”
  7. Think digital, act analog.
  8. Never ask people to do what you wouldn't do.
  9. Don't let the bozos grind you down.

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Mapping Life

Juan Enriques in his 13 October SALT talk (summary, mp3) made an interesting comparison between agriculture and energy. It used to be that in agriculture we threw bigger machines (tractors, combines, etc.) and chemicals (pesticides, fertilizers) at the little plant. Then in the 1960's we changed the plant itself -- the green revolution. By changing the plant itself, we solved the food problem we could never solve by throwing more machines and chemical at the plant.

Now consider hydrocarbon fuels (coal, oil). We are currently throwing more machines at them (digging deeper, oil extraction from shale, etc.). But what if we could change the coal itself? Could we make a bacteria that eats coal or oil and excretes natural gas? Just let them loose in a coal mine or oil shale and harvest the natural gas. Or could we genetically engineer the bacteria in the ocean that absorb carbon out of the air to also absorb hydrogen out of the water and produce hydrocarbons for us? We could build power generation plants that run off of air and water and a domesticated bacteria.

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