PZ Myers wrote an essay claiming that "Ray Kurzweil does not understand the brain", which has some good points, but is entirely based on the premise that Kurzweil says we will reverse-engineer the brain from the genome, that contains 25 million [relevant] bytes, or a million lines of code (second-hand comments on erroneous press reports, taken out of context).

Kurzweil responded to the claims in a lengthy article, well worth the read. The relevant part regarding the quote that was taken out of context is

I mentioned the genome in a completely different context. I presented a number of arguments as to why the design of the brain is not as complex as some theorists have advocated. This is to respond to the notion that it would require trillions of lines of code to create a comparable system. The argument from the amount of information in the genome is one of several such arguments. It is not a proposed strategy for accomplishing reverse-engineering. It is an argument from information theory, which Myers obviously does not understand.

The reasoning behind the "million lines of code" calculation makes sense if you think about the Kolmogorov complexity of the DNA responsible for coding the design instructions for building the brain.

Trying to reverse engineer a complete brain biologically, in order to have a computer simulate the same principles (only faster) is dumb. I've read Kurzweil's "How to Create a Mind", and he knows his shit. He gave specific examples of how his team gained some insights that helped improve speech recognition from reverse engineering several processes.

I completely agree with HuguesT's Slashdot comment...

Mostly I think that in general the human population, myself included, is an incredibly stupid, short sighted, nasty, egotistic species with occasional streaks of artistic, political or scientific brilliance. Hopefully we can do better than simulate that.

I've been reading some of the early correspondence between Satoshi Nakamoto and famed cryptographers, right around the time of the publication of the Bitcoin white paper and pre-release of the client software, and it's just epic.

I actually did this kind of backwards. I had to write all the code before I could convince myself that I could solve every problem, then I wrote the paper. I think I will be able to release the code sooner than I could write a detailed spec. You're already right about most of your assumptions where you filled in the blanks. »

Replying to the claim "You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography":

Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own. »

Because for cutting off the heads of pure P2P networks, they just don't have the technology.

On chargebacks:

Instantant [sic] non-repudiability is not a feature, but it's still much faster than existing systems. Paper cheques can bounce up to a week or two later. Credit card transactions can be contested up to 60 to 180 days later. Bitcoin transactions can be sufficiently irreversible in an hour or two. »

And my favorite...

I'm better with code than with words though. »

Two days ago, Facebook announced they're buying Oculus for $2 billion.

I backed the Kickstarter in August 2012. $300 for an early dev kit and Doom 3 BFG. A kid in his garage, Carmack's endorsement, the promise of real VR after decades of failed attempts.

Now it's Facebook's.

The internet is furious. Notch canceled Minecraft support: "Facebook creeps me out". Kickstarter backers feel betrayed. I get it. We funded an indie hardware project, not a Facebook subsidiary.

But here's the thing: VR is hard. Really hard. The DK2 they just announced at GDC looks incredible, but getting from dev kit to consumer product requires serious capital. Facebook has serious capital. A billion for Instagram two years ago. Two billion for this.

Zuckerberg says VR is "the next major computing platform". Maybe. The form factor isn't there yet. Neither is anything else. No apps, no ecosystem, no way to actually be with someone in VR and have it feel real.

My DK1 sits mostly unused. Hard to strap a brick to your face when you have a family. But the trajectory is clear.

The question isn't whether VR will matter. It's whether Facebook is the right home.

I don't know. I do know Palmer Luckey gets to keep building. That's worth something.

[Update: December 2016]

In January, Oculus announced that all Kickstarter backers who pledged for a dev kit would get a free consumer Rift. I'd ordered a DK2 after the acquisition. Never unboxed it. But the free Rift arrived this summer.

The kids are intrigued, but we don't know enough about how it affects the developing brain, so best assume it's unsafe. I still can't justify strapping a brick to my face when there's life happening around me. But watching Barak experience it for the first time? Worth every mass-manufactured Facebook dollar.

Two years ago, I attended an event where Brad Templeton spoke about the Google driverless car and how hard it would be for society to adapt to this new method of transportation.

I've stumbled upon a recording of him lecturing about the topic at "Driving Innovation: A Speaker Series Powered by Nissan Motor Company" (also on iTunes).

Here's the transcript.

Next month marks the 8th anniversary since the registration of the tra.cx domain name. Words connot describe the way I feel right now, after reaching yet another peak in this amazing journey, with my four partners and a dream-team of amazingly talented people making Tracx a global leader, a family and a home.

For the next week our dashboards are displayed on a 15x10 meters screen in Times Square, the most visible place on the planet, showing real-time data about the Super Bowl, the most watched sporting event in America.

This is a photo of Jewish women from Subcarpathian Rus who have been selected for forced labor at Auschwitz-Birkenau, march toward their barracks after disinfection and headshaving (source, probably appearing in this book).

One of these women is my grandmother (circled below) who is celebrating her 86th birthday soon.

/u/Eclectix did an amazing job of cleaning up and colorizing the photo.

Not only did he do a professional job on the technical side, he also did some research to be as accurate as possible: