Recently Linus Torvalds did a presentation at Google about distributed version control. This is a great introduction to distributed version control if you have wondered what the big deal is. Unsurprisingly, the presentation also spends a considerable amount time talking about Git and picking on CVS and Subversion.
I recently finished reading a couple of books which I think are worth pointing out to others.
The first is The World Is Flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century by Thomas L. Friedman. At 571 pages this a relatively long book. The first two hundred and thirty pages explain what the author means by “the world is flat” and describe the “ten forces that flattened the world”. The basic idea is that modern telecommunications and economic liberation has brought people all over the world closer together than ever before. On the surface this is a pretty obvious observation but the true impact of it only becomes apparent with deeper investigation. The author spent a great deal of time interviewing people in both developing and established economies in an attempt to understand the effects of these changes. The topics discussed range from software outsourcing to India to Walmart’s global supply chain. Subsequent chapters discuss the role of individuals, companies and countries in a flat world. In a way the world as outlined in this book is scary, especially if you are a knowledge worker but this book is as much about the opportunities created in a flat world as it is the negative consequences. A lot of time is spent describing what types of jobs are not as prone to flat world competition and more importantly, describing the key attributes required for success in those jobs that will face new competition. This is perhaps one of the more enlightening aspects of the book. In short, The World Is Flat covers something that is changing the world at a pace much faster than most people are aware of. If you have or are planning a knowledge based career you owe it to yourself to read this book. Even if you have a job that does not lend itself to global competition read the book anyway. On a final note I have a renewed appreciation for the importance of the education system to the continued economic success and growth of society.
The second book I want to talk about is On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. Hawkins is a very successful technology entrepreneur who has a long standing obsession with figuring out how the human brain works. This is not a book about biology although biology does necessarily creep in at some points. The goal of On Intelligence is to put forward a model of how the brain works and what intelligence is. The first portion describes some of the traditional techniques associated with artificial intelligence such as neural nets and offers an opinion on why these approaches failed. Later chapters discuss the role of memory and go on to explain that memory and prediction form the core of intelligence. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is the idea that there is a single ‘cortical algorithm’ which is used by the brain for such diverse tasks as vision processing and locomotion. This is a very interesting read and at only two hundred and thirty-five pages it doesn’t take long.
On Monday April 9th and Tuesday April 10th Western Law is hosting a conference at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada called Knowledge Policy for the 21st Century.
Speakers include:
The conference fee is pretty cheap so if you are in the area it may be a great event to attend.
The latest episode of CBC’s Dispatches covered Internet censorship. Well worth the 30 minute listen. Dispatches is available as a podcast.
Of particular interest was the interview with Ronald Deibert of the OpenNet Initiative and CitizenLab.
There is probably something else I should be doing right now but instead I decided to take a bit of time and see what is new in the WordPress world. Here are a few interesting things I found.
Latex support on wordpress.com blogs
A Latex wordpress plugin for people who host their own WordPress instance
If you are looking for local blogs checkout Local Thoughts.
University of Western Ontario (UWO)
If you happen to know of other local blogs you can add them to the above pages.
Learn 10 good UNIX usage habits from IBM Developer Works.
Worth reading even if you think of yourself as a shell veteran.
There is a major construction project going on at UWO right now called the Biotron. For details of this really interesting project take a look at the main Biotron website or this article from Canada.com.
A new biology super-lab under construction in London, Ont., will make Canada a testing ground for the latest ideas in disease, ecosystems and agriculture from all over the world.
They will be able to create the frigid darkness of Arctic winter, or the steamy heat of a tropical rainforest. They’ll be able to see what happens to a genetically modified crop under realistic conditions, without letting it escape into the environment.
“This is the first time anything like that has ever been built. So we’re absolutely unique,” says Duncan Hunter, associate dean of science at Western.
“There is no other facility like this in the world.”
“Everybody likes to describe their project, their facility, as being unique and world class. This one truly will be when it’s up and running.”
IN the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.
The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.