THE KONGQUEST

Cities & Food

Brian — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:40:06 +0000

Beautiful presentation on how our modern cities are connected to the world community of arable land and how we are on an unsustainable path at upkeeping our food distribution and consumption.

Wireless Electricity

Brian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:45:24 +0000

Yeah, it’s closer than you think…

Persistence over Intelligence

Brian — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:29:52 +0000

Great article from the Boston Globe about how “grit” may be a better indicator of success than IQ testing. I have recently been trying to pare down my interests and focus on strengthening my current set of skills. It takes persistence and passion for a singular stated goal to be successful and impressive in life. I remember my parents telling me as a kid that it doesn’t matter how smart you are, you can succeed at anything if you work hard at it. I guess it’s about time they have scientific research on this. Have a quick read for yourself:

The truth about grit - The Boston Globe

Trickle Down Economics

Brian — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:13:08 +0000

Ah ha!

Running & Reading

Brian — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:28:32 +0000

This video made an impact in my life today. Watch it:

Strengthen the Signal

Brian — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:04:56 +0000

I thoroughly enjoyed this post by Diana Kimball about changing her life from loving the internet for the serendipity of vast information flow to high fi well thoughtout information in books, music and entertainment. Moving from noise to signal.

I have been thinking about doing this myself for a while but still do not know how I am going to execute it. The lure of RSS, Facebook, and Gmail are always pulling at me all the time while stacks of books and unfinished projects lay on the side. I believe in creating systems and have experimented in blocking out what I can access online and channeling my free time towards higher pursuits but long lasting habits have not formed yet. I guess I need continual reminder of what my goals are to solidify new habits at this stage. We’ll see how things go 60 days from now.

Check out the blog post yourself:

Diana Kimball: Trying

Gamechanger: Google Wave

Brian — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:31:45 +0000

I just watched the Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O and was completely blown away by future potential of this application. Google has rethought the way communication should be done and put it all into one neat little package.

The premise of a “wave” begins with a message that is the start of a dialog between one person and another or a group of people. From there it can transform into a number of things simultaneously. It can become a static back and forth conversation like email, a real time back and forth conversation like instant messaging, or a work in progress like a word document or presentation that can be presented as a whole thought in it’s final state.

The impact of having these options to transform mediums immediately and fluidly will decrease the chances of online miscommunication dramatically. Because you can have a conversation and pop in a comment in any position you want to call attention to or re-write any part of the message and be accountable for it in the conversation playback, accountability for correct informatin lies on all participants.

What I like most of this application as the “email and instant messager killer” is that the Wave can be taken as far as you want it to. Open a wave with a friend and just treat it like you do as email. That’s fine. Open a wave with someone who is currently online and talk in real time. That’s fine too. Take it to the next step in the conversation and brainstorm a trip idea and put some pictures into the email and you can transform that whole conversation into a travel itinerary or travel guide for a book, ready to be exported immediately with some of Googles tools in the Wave.

This is THE application that all the collaboration and web 3.0 and tech geeks have been talking about when they say the future of the internet is content streamed through different portals (RSS makes it so that we do not see the original websites built around blog content) and that information will be collaborated in real time instead of statically in silos all over the web. I am interested in seeing how the world takes on this new technology and runs with it. I hope it’ll reach mass appeal like the advent of email, instant messaging, blogging, and now tweeting and just replace all those older communication channels.

Liz Colema and Education Reform

Brian — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:33:06 +0000

Wow. This is a great video inciting people to action on changing the way education is done in our country. We all have a duty as citizens to take action for our shared better future. I love the quote she cites in the speech:

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed. - Thomas Jefferson

Watch the video:

The World’s 2nd Language: English

Brian — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:08:16 +0000

Interesting. Jay Walker says that English is the world’s second language. English is the common language to solve the world’s common problems. I’m not too sure about the mania part of his speech because English has been put into adoption by many countries for a long time but he makes a good point that English is the default bridge between many people from different regions of the world. Having this common communication channel is key to moving forward as a world community.

Pandemics are Avoidable

Brian — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:00:22 +0000

I just caught Nathan Wolfe’s talk at TED about how viruses are passed from animals to humans and how him and his team at the Global Virus Forecasting Initiative are tracking down and educating people to deal with problematic animals. It’s a great talk and an eye opener on how deadly viruses begin and spread to the mass population on our world.