Hangover

England lost. :/ I really didn’t get much sleep last night. I am stressing over my exam tomorrow.

In the morning I did go to the Millennium Technology Conference (Day 2), and watch a couple of panels.

First one was on data communications and one thing that stuck out most of the 4 speeches was this fella Keen who said were moving from a Text to a vision to a voice interface.

I say the voice interface is pooh. Maybe this is my backlash for stupid voice answering phones.

With text you can:
* Use it even in noisy environments
* Read it fast, read it slow
* Skip over portions, skip back
* Index and search
* Manipulate in countless ways
* Translate
* Capture, by means of easily recording and therefore transcribe
* It’s more accessible to deaf and blind people
* Pipe, redirect in Unix
* Convert to any medium
* And so forth (there must be more)

Second panel was quite interesting. About making molecular production systems. Drexler really stood out. An economist gave a talk summing up why there has been so much progress in the 20th century. It’s because with Intellectual Property and patents. It’s because people with ideas have had the means to meet people with money, but with no ideas. Hmmm… I should have dared to ask him if he thinks the system is now horribly abused (software).

After the 3 hours I was absolutely shattered. I feel disappointed with myself for being so out of it, and for not asking any questions. But it’s almost rude to ask questions with all those old Finns about. Jeepers.

So I have come home. Had some sleep, and will now study survey statistics. I have missed a panel with TBL and Tim Sebastian, which I a bit gutted about. And tonight there is a “white tie” dinner at the City Hall. I don’t a have a white tie.

Generations apart.