On the fifth of September we will board a China Air flight to Bangkok. After forty-two days of exploration (Thailand, Vietnam?, Malaysia?) we will begin our journey home:

Bangkok -> Amsterdam -> London -> Montreal -> Winnipeg (Friday 04 November 2005)

***

Three thousand years from now, when keen minds review the past, I believe that our ancient time, here at the cusp of the third millennium, will be seen as another such era. In the years roughly coincidental with the Netscape IPO, humans began animating inert objects with tiny slivers of intelligence, connecting them into a global field, and linking their own minds into a single thing. This will be recognized as the largest, most complex, and most surprising event on the planet. Weaving nerves out of glass and radio waves, our species began wiring up all regions, all processes, all facts and notions into a grand network. From this embryonic neural net was born a collaborative interface for our civilization, a sensing, cognitive device with power that exceeded any previous invention. The Machine provided a new way of thinking (perfect search, total recall) and a new mind for an old species. It was the Beginning.

—Kevin Kelly [quote]

***

Culled from the connections:

• Stoned scientists
• An Introduction to Quaker Business Practice
• less grammar, more play
• A Celebration of Women Writers
• Yntrodxkshxn tu Nuspelynh
• Douglas Adams - How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet
• What to Do If You Have a Proposal for the Unified Field Theory
• Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sleep, But Were Too Afraid To Ask
• Good sleep, good learning, good life
• O’Reilly Open Books Project
• Bibliomania Study Guides
• Literary Resources on the Net
• The Literary Machine

All links via zniff.com.