Monthly Archives: September 2010

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Khan Academy

Salman Khan sees his on-line learning center as the world’s first free, world-class virtual school where anyone can learn anything–for free. He just won a $2M Google 10^100 prize – one of five selected from over 150,000 entries.  There are over 1,600 training videos on every K-12 topic. Sal made all the videos himself, and continues to make videos almost every week. My son has been “attending” the Khan Academy, when he needs to brush up on his algebra mostly. Sal is an engaging, motivated teacher, and his educational videos are first class. Information wants to be  

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I Am From

My son (15) was given a writing assignment this week in his English class. His learning style really shines when a teacher is deeply interested in helping students excel. His teacher “Ms. G” is fully engaged and awesome. This week’s assignment is to write a one page poem called “I Am From” in which the student explores the influences that have molded them into who they are today. This gloating dad thinks Dan’s poem is a work of art, which is why I want to share it with you. Enjoy. I am from I am from a white house with a little black gate. I am from a race associated with bigotry and hate. I am from influences of a culture against which those of my race discriminate. I am from a background of people who at the first sign of injustice become irate. I am from my 8th grade science teacher who I cherished and now through death we commemorate. I am from the motto don’t hate just evaluate then initiate the plan by which you dominate. I am from witnessing crimes that the victims did absolutely nothing to instigate. I am from the belief that nobody controls my life which means I don’t believe in fate. I am from spirituality but not necessarily structured Christianity. I am from a failing economy. I am from autotune which is killing my musicality. I am from a generation of Tupac and Jay-Z wanna-bes. I am from a girl to whom I’ve given myself whole heartedly. I am from wishing I could be like the Jabbawockeez. I am from finally realizing all I want to be is me. I am from not understanding women’s psychology. I am from the influences of Kierkegaard, Rousseau, Pascal and Homer’s Odyssey I am from somehow always failing to be all I can be. I am from thankfully not having to deal with the struggle of living in the inner-city. I am from a Family where education comes first. I am from influences of Rap music within which I’ve become immersed. I am from friends who got my back (I hope) when worst comes to worst. I am from a family who wanted the best from me and even if I failed they never cursed. I am from a life of privilege and then some. I am from a life where we have never felt the need to sing we shall overcome. I am from sweet little nothings like flowers, white clouds and bubble gum. I am from those mysteries that overflow my inner consciousness and leave me numb. I am from the belief that everyone is smart in their own way and that no one is truly dumb. I am from the foolishness of the middle finger or biting thumbs. I am from the wings of eagles which take me away from my problems in the form of dreams. I am from the belief that almost nothing in life is as it seems. I am from wishing that the people in this world were on the same team. I am from the sweet sensation of whipped cream. I am from spending everyday wishing someone was a little less mean. I am from sadness at abortions and all the little lives that will never be seen. I am from you and you are from me because thanks to Mrs. G in this class we help each other be who we want to  

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Information Ecology

William Gibson (who gave us the term “cyberspace”),  interviewed in TIME Magazine “My guess has always been that the thing our great-grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we made the distinction between here and the Internet… Here [is being] colonized by what used to be the other place.” New and emerging technologies are allowing historically repressed creatives to rise and collaborate. While these voices have always been present, pre-virtual “information ecology” kept them marginalized and suppressed. But yesterday’s social platforms are now appearing as structural relics, allowing (for the first time in human history) the latent creative population to flourish. Many said Rousseau’s dream of a true city-state “peoples’ republic” became less plausible as populations grew. They could not have conceived of a global connective network that, when allowed to remain free of state or corporate control, opened new doors of unprecedented global empathy and equality. “The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine,” and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”  - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1754 Our “social contract” is being rewritten by the new voices of a virtual world. As Gibson notes, what used to be the “other place” is being transformed into “here and now.” What was once “them” is now us. This seismic shift in social identity will take longer to impact strongly embedded patterns, such as religion. But fundamental global change is moving forward and inevitable. The TED phenomenon is a prime example of this global flattening. TED’s curator Chris Anderson gave a talk this year at TED Global adding yet another voice to this growing awareness that we are not meant to be separated into ideological ghettos, but forged together in a grand creative enterprise. It’s a good talk and I encourage you to watch it. Imagine a global communications pool in which all persons can share their thoughts, dreams, faith, best ideas, etc.. in the spirit of Rousseau, the protocol intelligently prioritizes experiences and brings the collective mind into view of all participants. But it’s more than a “view” from a distance. Fundamental inequalities, suffering, and marginalization is brought forward as if experienced in our own household, in our own family. The plight of others becomes our plight. Global horror and injustice becomes our nightmare, as well. But with this, the boundless creativity, resources, and potential of the new collective also becomes our own, so that one day we may say with complete authenticity (quoting Michael Roe) “what’s been done to you feels like it’s been done to me.” And most importantly, we will live and prioritize our lives in accordance with these newly experienced global realities. ich all persons share their thoughts, dreams, faith, desires, etc.. the communication protocol amasses the collective ideals and dreams and experiences together and brings the collective mind into view of all participants. What we get is a bell curve distribution. The same average ideology we have today in today’s dead tree iconography, but on the grandest human scale. But here’s the good news. Most people won’t participate at this collective level. Many people will be mostly watching TV, or engaged in some other passive activity. The passives vs. the actives. The creatives vs. the ____________. Refined leadership will always be a part of community. But that leadership will move from a small, professional, clergy, CEO-style, stage-centric hierarchy model to a vastly larger, distributed, creative mind – a true collective mind of the amassed creative population working in common resonance, with a common Spiritual center, yet not bound by inherited institutional  

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Post Facebook

“…we are individuals, we invent ourselves, we’re not going to have some third-party advertising business define us. We invent our own taste, and furthermore, we decide what friendship means.’” – Jaron Lanier on the “post-Facebook”  

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The Divine Proportion

Sometime in the mid-80′s, I decided to build a redwood deck in the back of our Mountain View home, just down the street from where Google is today (off Stierlin Road). I had been studying the Golden Mean and was inspired to build a spiral-shaped deck. As I struggled through the mathematics, I realized it was much harder than I had thought. We needed 3.5″ integrals of linear dimensions on a spiral-curved plane. Wicked hard math. So I called my friend Larry (MIT, Ph.D. Math, Magna Cum Laude). The next day he brought me two pages of calculations which concluded in a formula that translated polar coordinates to linear dimensions relative to the location of boards. Wow. Another friend, Martin, built the structure from the most perfect redwood sticks we had ever seen. Not one knot in the entire deck (ironically, the entire house was built of redwood – back when it was about the same price as Douglas Fir). We have photos of that deck somewhere around here, but couldn’t find them. Actually, I hadn’t thought about the spiral deck until someone sent me this stunning video animation which captures the mathematical essence of universally perfect spirals:  the golden rectangle – the Fibonacci Series – the Divine Proportion. One part of the animation looks EXACTLY like the deck we designed. Imagine a matrix of exquisite redwood planks forming a spiral that looks just like this (about 6 meters across). Anyway, here’s the visualization from Spanish filmmaker Cristobal Vila. It is under 4 minutes, and very much worth your