Here’s the blurb on Dr Jack who was the opening Keynote for the 2011 ULearn conference in Rotorua:
Jack is one of the most requested speakers in the world for topics concerning technology and the factors that shape human society. A noted futurist and a technological historian, he has written three popular books entitled “My Grandfather’s Clock,” “My Stepdaughter’s Watch,” and “The Parallel Bang,” with many thousands of copies sold of each.
He wrote a book called My Grandfather’s Clock– in which he details a day in the life of 24 generations of his family. The point was how to describe the average day of his grandparents, who have seen so much change in the last 70 years. Much of this engaging talk was about the rate of change the world has witnessed.
Notes:
- Linear vs non-linear (4 minute mile
- we keep improving models of the world
- complexification (development of art from cave paintings to Egyptian paintings to bayeux tapestry to da Vinci to Avatar
- convergence of knowledge & data storage & speed of communication
- Parallel bang ~ when increase in knowledge meets fibre enabled online communications
Links:
- www.drjackbacon.com
- www.worldcommunitygrid.org: use your computer idle time to help compute solutions to the worlds problems!
- open courseware-links to courses from some of the world’s top University’s.
