Integrated Man

Reflecting on Jobs... Steve Jobs

This tribute is somewhat unlikely coming from me, but well earned by its recipient, though not for the reasons most obviously stated in the news.

First, I mourn Steve Jobs passing as a human being, apart from his accomplishments, his impacts, the externalities of his existence. He is large and unique in my awareness because of all those trappings, but they should not be primary measure of his meaning and value.  Ultimately, he was a human like all of us, born into this life with certain innate abilities and shaped by acquired values that gave those abilities direction and drive.  He was most importantly the embodiment of the potential that all of us possess in varying degrees, but rarely exercise to potential.

Beware the Avatar!

The following interesting piece happened across my screen this morning, courtesy of Forbes.com newsletter: "Should Artificial Intelligences be Granted Civil Rights?"  

At first thought, this seemed the logical extension of the Supreme Court's illogical extension of campaign funding privileges to corporations.  The next stop will be voting rights. And then came a whole flood of equally preposterous possibilities that spawn in the toxic political/cultural/social environment that provides our off-cable reality shows.

Random Reflections on: Space Junk and Earth Junk

2007/12/28

I'm a little behind the news on this one, but the One Eyed Monster reported tonight on recent developments in Google's challenge to private sector entrepreneurs to put a working lunar lander on the Moon. This was first announced on or about 2007, Sept. 13.  A total purse of $30 million has been established for distribution according to various mileposts of accomplishment. One of the mileposts is for the new space junk to send back photos of space junk previously deposited by governments.

This is what happens when too much money lands in too few hands. Google has announced a number of initiatives to spur technological creativity, many of them more down-to-earth in locus as well as relevance.  But this one and its predecessor, the Ansari X prize of $10 million for private sector suborbital flight, prompt a number of questions.