New NOVA Website, TV Program Help Explain Tsunamis

Grok Headline matches for New NOVA Website, TV Program Help Explain Tsunamis

NOVA | The Elegant Universe | Watch the
Program | PBS

NOVA | The Elegant Universe | Watch the
Program | PBS 11/16/2003 05:58 AM
Watch The Elegant Universe (3 hours) [via Malin Cantwell] .. series of quick time vids .. view in streaming video .. three-hour stream .. available online .. online

pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html
track this site | 3 links

New NOVA Website Examines the Wrath of a
Tsunami

New NOVA Website Examines the Wrath of a
Tsunami 03/22/2005 03:16 PM
In "Wave That Shook the World," a special report shot within days of the tsunami, NOVA presents a clear explanation and analysis of the tragedy on March 29 at 8pm ET on PBS, revealing exactly how the deadly waves were triggered by one of the most powerful earthquakes recorded in the past century. Additional information is available at http://www.pbs.org/nova/tsunami. [PRWEB Mar 21, 2005]

DTI launches website to explain
corporate social responsibility

DTI launches website to explain
corporate social responsibility 06/11/2004 03:09 AM
PublicTechnology.net Jun 11 2004 7:06AM GMT

Website Editor Says Shoe Bomber Story
May Explain AA 587 Eyewitness Reports

Website Editor Says Shoe Bomber Story
May Explain AA 587 Eyewitness Reports 09/24/2004 07:43 AM
Rockawave.com - Fri Sep 24, 08:36 am GMT

Russian website spreading 'malicious'
program shut down: Microsoft

Russian website spreading 'malicious'
program shut down: Microsoft 06/27/2004 02:21 PM
AFP via Yahoo! Jun 27 2004 6:35PM GMT

Russian website spreading 'malicious'
program shut down: Microsoft (AFP)

Russian website spreading 'malicious'
program shut down: Microsoft (AFP) 06/27/2004 02:16 PM
AFP - A Russian website that spread a "malicious" Internet program has been shut down, software giant Microsoft said, adding that users of Internet Explorer are no longer at risk.

Kansas City Website Designers and
Software Programming Firm Launches KC
Website Design Resource Website

Kansas City Website Designers and
Software Programming Firm Launches KC
Website Design Resource Website 12/24/2004 12:26 PM
VectorVision, one of Kansas City, Missouri's leading Web design firms and software developers is pleased to announce the creation of http://www.KC-web-design.com a Missouri web site showcase and Missouri web site designers resource center. [PRWEB Dec 24, 2004]

Nova

Nova 03/14/2003 09:57 PM
Nova 1.3

NOVA scienceNOW

NOVA scienceNOW 02/01/2005 09:20 PM
NOVA scienceNOW
http://www.pbs.org/wgb h/nova/sciencenow/

For more than three decades, NOVA has been unrivaled in bringing authoritative, innovative, and entertaining science documentaries to television. Now the same award-winning producers have teamed up with veteran reporter Robert Krulwich to cover the timeliest developments and intriguing personalities in science and technology today. Presenting multiple stories in a magazine format hosted by Krulwich and reported by a diverse team of correspondents in the field, NOVA scienceNOW will air five times a year in the NOVA time slot, Tuesdays at 8 PM ET. The first NOVA scienceNOW episode premieres on January 25, 2005. It includes segments on the potential catastrophic flooding that threatens New Orleans, the "booming sands" of Death Valley, a profile of "swarm-robot" pioneer James McLurkin, and a special report by Krulwich on the brain structures called "mirror neurons," which may affect everything from language evolution to the visceral appeal of spectator sports.

From Nova Spivak

From Nova Spivak 01/07/2004 02:32 PM

'Beware tsunamis and climate': UN

'Beware tsunamis and climate': UN 01/06/2005 02:47 PM
The world must act against natural disasters as well as climate change , the United Nations says.

What's obvious about Tsunamis- we need
better predictions

What's obvious about Tsunamis- we need
better predictions 12/31/2004 04:54 PM
Technocrat.net Dec 31 2004 7:20PM GMT

South Asian Tsunamis

South Asian Tsunamis 12/26/2004 05:27 AM
A massive earthquake - the largest since 1964 - centred off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra has caused tidal waves that are devastating coastal areas around the Indian Ocean including Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia.

Eyewitn ess report from the south coast of Sri Lanka. The death tolls are still rising, there is the risk of further tsunamis and it is being estimated that 100,000s of people will be left homeless.

Nova gets read to ship

Nova gets read to ship 06/28/2004 11:40 AM

Danny Ayers review of Nova Spivacks From Semantic Web to Global Mind. I guess Nova's getting ready to ship. Hopefully he'll (Nova) be able to make it to our "micro-content" dinner in NYC at Keen's on Aug. 19th.

=============

A post from Nova Spivack, From Semantic Web to Global Mind, in which he looks at…well, the title says it all. It’s funny, I don’t really disagree with any of his major points, though I wouldn’t have put things in this way at all.

My personal take on each section:

Distributed Intelligence
A nice line here: …whereas basic written languages simply make raw information portable, metalanguages make knowledge and intelligence about information portable. But I disagree There’s the usual problem of differentiating between x and meta-x, if that matters in the slightest. Existing human languages are pretty good at making at making knowledge portable, but there are certainly at least two related aspects of web languages that do make a difference. That the (meta-)data is machine-readable is one big step, and from that the data being machine-processable is another. A practical key is that the web languages are allow declarative expression of the information independent of processing, something which Nova is obviously aware with his reference to there being no need for hard-coding.

The Internet is a Brain…and the Web is its Mind
Again I kind-of agree, but would be very reluctant to put it in these terms. The Internet has features like those of a brain, but isn’t yet at all smart like a mouse, and the web is currently nothing like a mind apart from in the sense of carrying a whole load of jumbled information around in it. The analogy to the animal brain only works to a point, the nature of the system is so very different. I’d have probably thrown in the phrase ‘hive mind’ somewhere around here, the net as a whole gets what intelligence it has from lots of little stupid entities. But even then that isn’t a very good analogy, as the millions of individual humans sat on the edges are an incredibly important part of the system.

Memes are Evolving Minds of their Own
Hmm, sounds nice but I’d be tempted to use the meme notion as it currently stands - pretty self-unaware little items of belief (or knowledge).

The Infrastructure of Distributed Intelligence
This is more on ground I’m comfortable with, whatever analogies you use for net intelligence, the wiring is a significant part. A distinction I think Nova blurs here is between design and emergence. Viewed holistically I suppose the XML spec could be seen as an emergent property of the human+machine system, but if we’re talking about the net as an mind in its own right then the watchmaker isn’t blind.

The Evolution of Metalanguage
Not sure about the angle of this section at all, many of the ideas of the Semantic Web languages have been around for thousands of years (leading up to first order logic), it’s only when they’re combined with computers, in particular a big network of computers that the utility explodes. The feedback loop, that the philosophers can now use the computer as a practical tool is probably quite significant too.

Mutter - we might have these metalanguages, but still I can’t link to the individual paragraphs in Nova’s piece, can we really expect a global mind before TypePad features named anchors? MARC's answer = NO!

How the Global Mind Thinks
This section gives a high-level view of the layers of the Semantic Web, and notes the role grassroots stuff like RSS is likely to play. But “Thinks” should either be in italics or at least a courier font (as in (cwm –think).

Can the Global Mind Pass the Turing Test
I like Nova’s example here, he was able to get the answer to a math problem quicker than an expert by farming it out to other semi-expert folks. But I think the Turing Test only makes sense for a very human kind of intelligence, and a future clever web is highly unlikely to think like like that.

Reading the Global Mind
Here Nova discusses data mining and meta-metrics on the cognitive web. It’s an interesting area, the fact that we can safely probe inside live systems makes everything a lot easier than analysis of biological systems. But I think there’s a caveat here - beware of reading too much into statistics. Just because it talks and wears the same clothes as a causal relationship doesn’t mean to say it is a causal relationship.

Minding Your Business
As the global mind develops it will initially be focused around making information more useable. Indeed. Nova goes into the high-level sharing of knowledge in organizations here, which does make sense, those which take advantage of these developments are likely to have an advantage. I don’t think the mind analogy is needed for that.

Knowledge Objects: A New Medium for the Web
Here Nova goes into discussion of the framework his company, Radar Networks is developing. Sounds interesting, the approach seems to be something along the lines of signed RDF Objects or CBD’s. There seems to be emphasis on the separation of data (e.g. media objects) and metadata, which is interesting - other folks (like Adobe) go the other way, embedding the metadata. I’m sure both have their place.

Knowledge Networks
I can’t comment much about this because a lot relates to the approach taken by Nova and co. I’m not sure whether the Knowledge Networks he refers to are the semantic ‘islands’ that when joined will for the Semantic Web, or whether it’s a different (proprietary) idea. Whatever, if you stick the stuff on the web you can have whatever knowledge networks you choose.

On a personal note…before the Semantic Web ideas were around (before the web or IBM-compatible PCs in fact) I myself carried the flame of the realisable global mind. I’d got the idea from old SF novels, and it fitted with the growth in computing power and distribution (particularly of early personal computers). But in recent years I’ve tended to avoid this angle, being more interested in making what we’ve got just one (big) step more useful. I still think the old-AI notion is basically reasonable, just the timescales and expectation of the work involved were completely out. That’s another reason I’m wary of talking in old-AI terms, the hype angle - engineers are much more likely to be receptive to a tool that does work today rather than a vision that might work tomorrow. Let’s just get the RDF and OWL designed in, the vision emergence will take care of itself.

My own change in focus has more and more pointed to the notion of human augmentation as an alternative (but not incompatible) long-term vision. Right now the distributed communications angle offers a major augmentation, when the Semantic Web parts kick in a little more I believe we’ll start to exploit computing power of computers a lot more. There were I suppose two major sci-fi angles to all this - the individual cyberman and there’s the global mind. Those of us with access to computer technology already are cybernetic, just that the human-computer interface is a whole lot clunkier than we expected. Right now the global mind is maybe bigger, thanks to the distribution of hosts, but an awful lot dumber. Really, really dumb. But an enormous benefit is already coming from a third avenue, those two pretty crude things mixed together, an augmented humantity. Not that it shows very much outside science and technology.

Anyhow, Nova has a word along those practical, next-step lines:

Note: The patent-pending Radar Networks Semantic Applications platform represents four years of stealth R&D. The platform is in pure Java and complies with open standards for the Internet and Semantic Web. A lightweight, unsupported version of the platform will be released to the public under an LGPL open-source license in summer of 2005. The full, commercially supported version of the platform will be available via a commercial license from Radar Networks.

Looking forward to it.

Marc's final note: Oh goodey, Nova's technology is patented. That way it'll attract investment and THEN they can fuck us - right? Why would we get involved in something that's patented?

Escape Velocity: Nova 1.0.8

Escape Velocity: Nova 1.0.8 05/10/2004 02:50 PM
A sprawling universe dominated by a myriad of warring factions and territorial contentions.

The Dark Nova Project

The Dark Nova Project 04/23/2004 10:41 AM
Dark Nova 0.1.3 Alpha released

Escape Velocity: Nova 1.0.4

Escape Velocity: Nova 1.0.4 03/13/2003 10:24 AM
A sprawling universe dominated by a myriad of warring factions and territorial contentions.

NOVA | The Elegant Universe | PBS

NOVA | The Elegant Universe | PBS 10/29/2003 09:10 AM
Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe becomes TV show (via Jason Kottke) .. de Theorie die alles verklaart .. three-part series on PBS

pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant
track this site | 8 links

Asian Quake Tsunamis Assistance for Next
Of Kin

Asian Quake Tsunamis Assistance for Next
Of Kin 12/29/2004 03:34 AM
Those who have family members visiting or living in the Asian Quake, tsunamis area can register vital information. [PRWEB Dec 29, 2004]

Charles Darwin on Tsunamis (1835)

Charles Darwin on Tsunamis (1835) 01/03/2005 12:14 PM
Xeni Jardin: During his crew's historic voyage on the Beagle in 1835, Charles Darwin experienced an earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Snip from Darwin's description:

Shortly after the shock, a great wave was seen from the distance of three or four miles, approaching in the middle of the bay with a smooth outline; but along the shore it tore up cottages and trees, as it swept onwards with irresistible force. At the head of the bay it broke in a fearful line of white breakers, which rushed up to a height of 23 vertical feet above the highest spring-tides. Their force must have been prodigious; for at the Fort a cannon with its carriage, estimated at four tons in weight, was moved 15 feet inwards.

A schooner was left in the midst of the ruins, 200 yards from the beach. The first wave was followed by two others, which in their retreat carried away a vast wreck of floating objects. In one part of the bay, a ship was pitched high and dry on shore, was carried off, again driven on shore, and again carried off. In another part two large vessels anchored near together were whirled about, and their cables were thrice wound round each other: though anchored at a depth of 36 feet, they were for some minutes aground.

The great wave must have travelled slowly, for the inhabitants of Talcahuano had time to run up the hills behind the town; and some sailors pulled out seaward, trusting successfully to their boat riding securely over the swell, if they could reach it before it broke. One old woman with a little boy, four or five years old, ran into a boat, but there was nobody to row it out: the boat was consequently dashed against an anchor and cut in twain; the old woman was drowned, but the child was picked up some hours afterwards clinging to the wreck. Pools of salt-water were still standing amidst the ruins of the houses, and children, making boats with old tables and chairs, appeared as happy as their parents were miserable.

Link (Thanks, Avi Solomon)

"Asia Earthquake & Tsunamis Fund"

"Asia Earthquake & Tsunamis Fund" 01/01/2005 04:44 AM

Deadly Tsunamis and the Power of the
Internet

Deadly Tsunamis and the Power of the
Internet 01/03/2005 07:44 AM
Wcbs880.com - Mon Jan 3, 06:25 am GMT

Despite tsunamis, outsourcers stay in
Chennai

Despite tsunamis, outsourcers stay in
Chennai 12/30/2004 03:03 PM
Indian outsourcing companies that have operations in Chennai, one of the locations on the southeast coast of India that was hit by tsunamis on Sunday, have decided to stay in the city.

Asia Quake's Tsunamis Kill Over 11,000
(AP)

Asia Quake's Tsunamis Kill Over 11,000
(AP) 12/26/2004 08:15 PM
AP - An earthquake of epic power struck deep beneath the Indian Ocean on Sunday, unleashing 20-foot tidal waves that came crashing down on beaches in eight Asian countries across thousands of miles, smashing seaside resorts and villages and leaving more than 11,350 dead in their wake.

Red Cross Urges Immediate Aid After Asia
Tsunamis

Red Cross Urges Immediate Aid After Asia
Tsunamis 12/26/2004 02:53 PM
Reuters via Wired News Dec 26 2004 6:13PM GMT

The pride of Nova Scotia...beer?

The pride of Nova Scotia...beer? 04/09/2004 04:02 PM
Today after school decorating Ben's locker for his birthday...too funny. I could list 13 teachers who I knew who saw...

Local firm's device may warn of tsunamis

Local firm's device may warn of tsunamis 12/31/2004 10:24 AM
Houston Chronicle Dec 31 2004 2:11PM GMT

Dogs can not only predict Tsunamis, but
save people as well

Dogs can not only predict Tsunamis, but
save people as well 01/03/2005 09:45 PM
Technocrat.net Jan 4 2005 12:19AM GMT

"Tsunamis hit Asia, killing thousands.
The beginning of the end?"

"Tsunamis hit Asia, killing thousands.
The beginning of the end?" 12/27/2004 11:25 AM

CNN.com - Tsunamis shatter celebrity
holidays - Dec 28, 2004

CNN.com - Tsunamis shatter celebrity
holidays - Dec 28, 2004 12/29/2004 10:53 PM

In Past Tsunamis, Tantalizing Clues to
Future Ones

In Past Tsunamis, Tantalizing Clues to
Future Ones 01/04/2005 04:54 AM
Undersea quakes are inevitable. The questions are where and when � and the recent catastrophe may provide clues.

Deadly Tsunamis Rivals Waves of the Past
(AP)

Deadly Tsunamis Rivals Waves of the Past
(AP) 12/29/2004 06:12 AM
AP - The tsunamis that claimed thousands of lives across the Indian Ocean are the deadliest great waves in more than a century and probably in modern history.

Super-nova pre-dinner/party June 23

Super-nova pre-dinner/party June 23 06/02/2004 05:09 PM

I'm going to try to help plan a dinner/party that I can't attend. David Beckemeyer et al to are working on Heckelbot so I can be there virtually. The dinner/party is scheduled for June 23, the day before Supernova 2004 at the Westin in Santa Clara. I ALWAYS go to Supernova, but this year I just can't make it since I have to be in Tokyo for a shareholders meeting.

Here a wiki page for the planning.

Speaking of Supernova, I'm hoping I will be able to participate in the conference via rigged Hecklebot as well. Stay tuned for more on this. ;-)

Ambrosia updates Escape Velocity: Nova

Ambrosia updates Escape Velocity: Nova 03/13/2003 10:20 AM
Ambrosia Software today posted Escape Velocity: Nova 1.0.4, an update to the company's popular action/adventure game...

Identity mgmt. predictions from Nova
Scotia

Identity mgmt. predictions from Nova
Scotia 02/01/2005 08:20 PM
We've been looking at predictions for what's going to happen in the identity management area in 2005, and the returns from Nova Scotia are now in (hey, it's winter up in the Maritime provinces and it takes longer to get to the mail box!). Abridean CTO Greg O'Malley has chipped in with what his crystal ball is showing for the near future. Among the things O'Malley sees happening this year:

Asian Tsunamis Surge Against East
African Coast

Asian Tsunamis Surge Against East
African Coast 12/26/2004 02:53 PM
Reuters via Wired News Dec 26 2004 6:21PM GMT

Asian tsunamis leave IT industry largely
undamaged

Asian tsunamis leave IT industry largely
undamaged 12/29/2004 11:31 AM
Tsunamis that killed tens of thousands and ravaged coastlines around South Asia on Sunday are unlikely to impact the region's IT industry, which is centered away from affected areas.

MSNBC - Toll from Asia quake, tsunamis
tops 23,000

MSNBC - Toll from Asia quake, tsunamis
tops 23,000 12/28/2004 01:18 PM
Tidal wave toll tops 22,000 in southern Asia .. All the planet is vibrating .. devastating tsunamis .. MSNBC

msnbc.msn.com/id/6754820
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Wired: Arthur C. Clarke essay on
tsunamis, technology, and sf

Wired: Arthur C. Clarke essay on
tsunamis, technology, and sf 02/05/2005 09:25 PM
Xeni Jardin: In this month's Wired magazine, a thought-provoking essay by Arthur C. Clarke on roles of tech and sci fi in predicting disasters.

The New Year dawned with the global family closely following the unfolding tragedy via satellite television and the Web. As the grim images from Banda Aceh, Chennai, Galle, and elsewhere replaced the traditional scenes of celebrations, I realized that it would soon be 60 years since I conceived the communications satellite (in Wireless World, October 1945 -- I still think it was a good idea).

I was also reminded of what Bernard Kouchner, former health minister of France and first UN governor of Kosovo, once said: "Where there is no camera, there is no humanitarian intervention." Indeed, how many of the millions of men and women who donated generously for disaster relief would have done so if they had only read about it in the newspapers?

But cameras and other communications media have to do more than just document the devastation and mobilize emergency relief. We need to move beyond body counts and aid appeals to find lasting, meaningful ways of supporting Asia's recovery. In that sense, the Asian tsunami becomes a test for information and communications technologies (ICTs) in terms of how they can support humanitarian assistance and human development.

Link (Thanks, Blaise Zerega!)

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New NOVA Website, TV Program Help Explain Tsunamis

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