Alex Barnett blog : mindcamp3.0

Mind Camp 3.0 - Singularity Session Video

alexbarnett — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:03:00 GMT

I love Mind Camp. When I'm asked what Mind Camp is I answer that it is what ever you want to make it. (more on the unconference format here). When I arrived on Saturday morning I browsed the sessions that other attendees had proposed and there a number that I wanted to attend.

(pic by ario)

I popped out to get a coffee from Starbucks and on the way I asked myself the question: what session isn't there that I would turn up to if it was proposed? My answer was a session on Ray Kurzweil's book 'The Singularity is Near'.

So I got a hold of session submission form when I got back from Starbucks, filled it out and the next thing I knew I was in a room moderating a discussion with 20 smart people disucssing the idea of the Singularity for an hour.

Lazy me: no preparation (could you tell? ;-), no slides, no objective of the session other than to discuss with others something that interests them and me. Most people in the room had either already read the book or were some way through it, so I started by asking the group which questions we should have a go at discussing and writing these up on the chalkboard (what are the risks? what about individual identity? what would 'its' motivation be if a collective intelligence emerged? would 'it' care about us? would we retain 'free will'? etc). And we went from there.

Thanks to Bryan Zug Vids who recorded a video of the session and has posted on to blip.tv. The video starts about five minutes into the session.

Mind Camp 3.0 sessions

alexbarnett — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 06:18:00 GMT

Here are some of the sessions that caught my eye at this year's Mind Camp. I couldn't attend these all, but those I could attend were great. I especially enjoyed the Living the Second Life session, learning loads about this upcoming nation.

Real World Software Development using Ruby on Rails (by Laurel Fan)

Building Seattle's Ad Hoc Community (by Stuart Maxwell and Justin Martenstein)

The Online Toolkit for the Modern Web-Savvy User (hosted by Blue Dot)

IGNite in Seattle (by Brady Forrest)

Coffee Hacks III (by Jack William Bell and Chris Burns)

Lucid Dreaming (by Jesse Ferguson and Nate True)

The World is Flat = Gospel? Hype? (by ?)

Startup Pitch (by Justin Laing)

The Myths of Innovation (by Scott Berkun)

Living the Second Life (by ?)

The Singularity is Near (by Alex Barnett) - of course, I didn't miss this one ;-)

More Mindcamp pics here.

Potato shots

alexbarnett — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 18:00:00 GMT

Yesterday morning I had the chance to fire a potato into a forest using a rocket launcher.

A first for me and found it to be a strangely gratifying experience.

The spud gun is capable of shooting a potato 200+ yards. Courtesy of Make Magazine's Bre Pettis who was at Seattle Mind Camp 3.0.

Below is Bre preparing the gun with hair spray.

Google's Peter Wilson is to his left, an engeering director at their Kirkland office, who appears to be considering how he might search for his foot after he's blown it off with a potato cannon.

Off to Seattle Mind Camp 3.0

alexbarnett — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 17:28:00 GMT

Off to Seattle Mind Camp 3.0 in a few minutes...If I remember correctly, it was raining hard on the mornings of the first two SMCs. Looks like today might be different.