^^^Bullhorn
I had an idea yesterday during one of the panels at PC Forum. Wouldn't it be cool if, somewhere in a Q&A, a horn would go off signaling participant role reversal? Panelists would leave the stage and stand behind the mikes in the audience, and the people standing behind the mikes would go up on stage and become the new panel.
I'm not thinking about this as a PC Forum thing, but as a new protocol for conferences of all kinds. A way to have fun breaking the mold.
Maybe the WTF? would be a good place to test out the idea.
^^^Personal Data for Personal Services
I forget what comment this morning sparked this feature request -- which underscores the value of standards and interoperability -- but I'd like certain data about me to be available to the web services I use. For example, iTunes (the software that supports the iPod) allows me to export my song list as XML. That's cool. What I then want is to use that XML to create a songroll for my weblog. I want Orkut or LinkedIn to read that XML and help me find people who have similar tastes so I can go to their blogs and read their songrolls (and their posts). Do the same for my Amazon book orders and other forms of data about the things I do and like.
This sort of automated sharing would build connections much better than anything the social networks have going now.
The alchemy of the 20th century
Neal Stephenson was asked: "What's the alchemy of the 21st century."
The context of this question was a discussion of Newton and his fascination with and attempt to "rescue" alchemy. Stephenson explained this fascination as part of Newton's attempt to reconcile his belief in God with his attempt to explain the physical world in mechanistic terms.
Upon hearing this, Dyson asked "What's the alchemy of the 21st century?" to which Stephenson answered roughly (I cannot recall precisely): "Attempts to explain consciousness, free will, the soul, etc." The 21st century is still entirely ahead of us, but I suspect Stephenson might be right: the 21st century is likely to see much unification among biology, chemistry, and physics, but it's likely that consciousness in general -- and free will in particular -- will continue to confound all three sciences.
Looking backwards, however, it seems to me that the alchemy of the 20th century is quantum mechanics. This is not a comment on quantum mechanics as a theory of physics, which explains much in the physical world and even has had utility in engineering. However, QM has been imbued with religious and mystical interpretations that go well beyond the theory itself. In these meta-physical interpretations, QM has become for many 20th century scientists what alchemy apparently was for Netwon.
An irony: Newton was so concerned about the compatibility between God and a Newtonian universe that he felt obliged to "rescue" alchemy. Although he didn't succeed with alchemy, his larger goal was achieved: Just past the start of the 20th century, when QM was first being hatched, physicists had become so comfortable with the compatibility between God and a (relativistically) Newtonian universe that Einstein discounted QM with his now famous remark, "God does not play dice with the universe."
-- Raymie Stata