Tech Tuesday: Computational Complexity (Introduction)
So far in the Tech Tuesday series on the theory of computer science we have covered questions of computability. We have looked at ways of formalizing computation through abstract machines such as the Finite State Machine and the Turing Machine [...] Read more
More Bitcoin as Protocol
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post on bitcoin as protocol that got a couple of hundred comments from which I learned a lot. This is an important topic and Chris Dixon has done a lot of good [...] Read more
More on Basic Income Guarantee: Minimum Wage is Not a Longterm Solution
On Monday I posted about looking for a Research Assistant primarily to look into questions around using Basic Income Guarantees as a way to deal with what I believe is the end of work as we know it. Then yesterday [...] Read more
Homeschool Wednesday: Wolfram Alpha
There is an amazing tool out there for teaching and learning about Math (and the world) and not enough people know about it. If you have never tried it out before, you should head over to Wolfram Alpha right now. [...] Read more
Looking for a Part-time Research Assistant (Paid Position)
Early next year I will be giving a talk on the challenges and opportunities arising from the current transformation of economy and society by technology and technology enabled globalization. I am rapidly realizing though that I don’t have nearly enough [...] Read more
Support Jailbreaking: Open Societies Require Open Computing
So earlier this week while in SF, I was trying to get some work done on my way from the city to Sand Hill road. As per usual I turned on tethering on my Android phone and started up my [...] Read more
Technology for Train Safety
There have been a spate of deadly train derailments including two in the summer (one in Spain and one in Canada) most recently the Metro North one. Human error played a significant role in all of these. For instance, in [...] Read more
Homeschool Wednesday: Push vs Pull
The biggest challenge of homeschooling is letting go of push and waiting for pull. It is really hard to remain patient when kids are goofing off. The instinct is to push more things at them in the hope that they [...] Read more
Tech Tuesday: Halting Problem (Implications)
Last Tech Tuesday, I introduced the halting problem. As you may recall the upshot was that there is no general algorithm that will determine whether a Turing Machine will stop for a particular input. Now you might at first think [...] Read more