I had an eye exam last week and opted to have ultra-widefield retinal photos of my eyes taken instead of dilating them. I asked them to email the images to me and they did!

I also had wavefront images taken; this kind of analysis was used in the past for Lasik, but it is now being used with eye glasses too. The image represents a topography of the eye and allows them to construct lenses that compensate for the irregularity.

It turns out that with my old prescription my eye sight was 20/40, but I’ll be back to 20/20 again with my new lenses; no more squinting during planning meetings!

The United Villages project offers internet to remote areas of the developing world, via a fleet of buses and motorcycles!

Someone has been tagging “Lotek” in the Mission recently.

Gv: 18th between mission and valencia?
AA: That’s the one! There’s also one on a mannequin on mission near 20th… on the neck!

We don’t think that it is anyone we know, just a coincidence.

My friend Akiha sent me a link to this video. It promises to build space and connections with/between photos.

UK scientists have developed technology that enables artificial limbs to be directly attached to a human skeleton.  BBC article link.

Microsoft is getting into robotics

This weekend I had the pleasure… neigh, the privilege of attending the Accelerating Change conference at Stanford University. This is a futurist conference produced by the non-profit organization ISAC – The Institute for the Study of Accelerating Change.

The attendees and speakers represented a wide range of people from many various backgrounds… in summary: interdisciplinary… but futurists one and all.

The highlight of the conference for me was when Doug Engelbart; inventor of the mouse shook hands with Richard Marks; inventor of the Eye-Toy following Richards’s presentation which had followed Mr. Engelbart’s. man…

David Brin was also VERY entertaining.

I was pretty much in amazement the entire weekend… and guess what the overwhelming view of the current political/world situation was by some of the world’s leading pioneers of technology, business, entertainment, and futurism was??? come on… guess! It turns out that intelligent, forward thinking people see the America of today very similarly…

I would like to make a point that Futurists and Integralists are not Democrats, despite that we all voted for John Kerry. Liberalism and Conservativism are really outdated concepts… though very much active today in the majority of the world’s populace.

It is really a question of Progressive vs. Regressive, Pragmatic vs Inane. I have a lot of problems with Liberals, Democrats, and Kerry… but the problems with the Neo-cons and Bush are far greater. I look forward to a day when good ideas can win over more people than outdated ideological/tribal allegiances. A day when someone who is actually qualified for office is able to effectively run for office.