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Stephen Wolfram, a child prodigy and creator of the very successful Mathematica software application, locked himself away for several years and produced a 1000 page plus, mammoth tome - A New Kind of Science. He shunned peer review, suppressed findings from people working for him and duplicated much of the work of others either by accident or, as some have suggested, as the result of direct plagiarism. Nevertheless, there is something in what Wolfram says when he talks about a new kind of science, based upon cellular automata and emergent iterative systems, the unpredictable iteration of equations rather than equations themselves. This is an idea that is brewing in a different form in the work of others such as Stuart Kauffman and Lee Smolin.

Running time: 1 hour 27 mins.

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Talk by Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith

February 13th, 2007 · 2 comments or link to (permalink)

Harris looks at the dangers of the Intelligent Design movement.

Running time: 23 mins

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The Impact of Web 2.0 - at Davos

January 31st, 2007 · 2 comments or link to (permalink)

The World Economic Forum at Davos is where presidents of countries and global corporations meet. It is the conference to end all conferences, and whenever there is a technology bubble, Davos organizers quickly jump on the bandwaggon and invite a bunch of bewildered nerds to explain the ‘Internets’ to them. The end result is absolutely fucking hilarious, in a very understated way.

This year, alongside Global Warming and WWIII, with a straight face, Davos attendees examined the ‘Impact of Web 2.0′. They did not suggest that the impact relative to the aforementioned topics is that of a mosquito farting on the moon.

Running time: 56 mins.

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