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Anno Domini is a term applied to our Gregorian calendar by the lovely Christian Church to define an "era" representing the time after the birth of Jesus Christ. Well, atheists like me who do not recognize this defining moment and who do not want the calendar based on this Anno Domini notation seem pretty much screwed and left without a choice. But that's not true.
Many academic fields now use the neutral and non-religious term Common Era, or CE, synonymously with Anno Domini. So here we are, riding the trailing end of the year 2006 CE, and without a doubt it has been, by far, the best year of my life!
Daniel's Journey through 2006 CE
| January: | I was one of the ultra-lucky folks in geekdom who landed a tech job in the sweet spot: downtown San Francisco! Also this month, the U.S. government's abuse of wiretaps finally gained national attention and drew worldwide criticism.
| | February: | I rebudgeted myself and was able to break those old spending cycles. My personal savings started growing. I found a comfortable place on a hill in San Francisco that would be my home for the rest of the year. The situation in Iraq wasn't getting any better, and the famous Golden Mosque was destroyed.
| | March: | Forty days and forty nights of endless rain made it the wettest March ever in San Francisco, but it didn't dampen my spirits. My drug-addict ex-roommate launched a hopeless lawsuit to vindicate himself, so I spent most of this rainy month fighting the little bastard. Strangely, I welcomed the lawsuit and found strength in the battle. Meanwhile, over a million protestors went on strike in France, causing riots and crippling the French economy.
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| April: | The skies cleared up, and said lawsuit ended without favoring either party. Said little bastard did not extract one penny from my pockets, which was the outcome I wanted. Don't worry, I'll write the whole story later.
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| May: | I began covertly reseraching several fields of science that caught my eye over a decade ago. I spent evenings and weekends delving into the research, planning to reveal this later in the year, towards December. Over five thousand died in an Indonesian earthquake, and our favorite Enron ex-execs were convicted.
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| June: | Summer happened, and hedonism ensued in the city. The Gay Pride Parade zipped on by, and I participated in a few of the festivities. Halfway around the world, the Airbus 380 project was widely declared a disaster, and the rollouts of the new 380s won't happen until 2008.
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| July: | The San Francisco MUNI choked and vomited nearly every day, forcing us to find other ways to get to work, including walking. I probably broke my record of cardio exercise this month. Israel and Lebanon bombed the living hell out of each other.
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| August: | I made plenty of progress in my career, and I was quite certain that something was brewing, and that something big was about to happen. The U.K. foiled an airline terror plot, and suddenly all carry-on liquids were scrutinized.
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| September: | A Silicon Valley giant acquired our company, and the deal hit the sweet spot again, making this the best year of my life thus far. At the same time, the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off, and its 12-day mission was a success.
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| October: | We spent most of the month learning and integrating into our new company, and I quickly realized that I was now working for one of the most employee-focused companies in the world. This extra dimension bludgeoned my social life, but I recovered. Echoing our acquisition, Google bought YouTube.
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| November: | New friends, new initiatives at work, and growing interest in new sciences all made November a month just full of personal development. I had to delay my plans to return to dating once again. The SF symphony season was in full-swing, quenching my snobby taste for only the best classical music. The Democrats once again won control of the House and the Senate.
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| December: | Work became particularly hectic, and deadlines loomed. I revealed the field in which I am conducting research, and I've been quite happy at the initial reactions so far. The holidays came and went, and I somehow enjoyed them without gaining a single pound. This was the month where I returned to fitness, giving me one last chance to get into great shape as I rapidly approach frailty. The former President Gerald R. Ford died.
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The year two thousand and six of the Common Era. The day it began, I foresaw a very bright and colorful year ahead of me, and as you can see, this little prophecy turned out to be correct. It's a quixotic skill of mine, being able to peer into the coming year, and of course most would just dismiss this extra sense as nonsense. But this forecasting seems to "visit" many of us at the end of every year, and at least for me, the visions almost always turn out to be accurate, for better or worse.
I am experiencing foreshadowing again for the year that lay before me, and what I have been seeing for days now is a curiously red landscape and a very healthy heart finding at last its lifetime desire. The vagueness intrigues me.
Most certainly, 2007 CE will be an even better year than the one before it.
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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Like always, you, my occasional readers, have amazed me yet again with your well attuned insight into this age of dizzying technological growth. I am very impressed by the feedback I received from my singularity entry, and expect deeper views into this obscure subject in the weeks and months to come.
Now that the long holiday approaches, I want to send everyone on their way with my best wishes for a safe and plentiful weekend! I've observed that many in the San Francisco Bay Area are just staying put, with a smaller number of us jetting around the country trying to find themselves and what Christmas really means. It means little to me, since I'm not religious, but the imprint of all the jolly festivities I carry with me forever, so I still love showing up at a few parties, playing dorky Weinachtslieder on the piano, and adding a different cultural twist every year. Check out my schedule for the holiday.
I will be baking some of my favorite delights, not the least of which are decadent pastries called Hungarian Nuthorns! Find the recipe below, and will get all tingly if at least one of you bloggers attempts this recipe too. They are difficult and very time-consuming to produce, so if you do, let me know your success story. If they turn your kitchen into a complete smoldering disaster, let me know anyways!
Daniel's Holiday Itenerary
Friday eve: Tony's Christmas Dinner Party at Côté Sud in San Francisco
Saturday eve: Ben & Bob's House Party in San Francisco
Sunday afternoon: Christmas Eve Dinner at Karen's in Alameda
Sunday night: Gregorian Chant Concert in Oakland!
Monday: An All-day Slightly Eastern European Christmas Dinner at John and Mitsuo's in Walnut Creek
And of course, the recipe for the timeless pastries from Hungary:
Hungarian NuthornsSourdough:1/2 pt. sour cream 1 c. butter 2 c. flour 1/4 tsp. salt Confectioners sugar Nut Füllung:1 c. finely ground walnuts 1 c. finely ground pecans 3/4 c. sugar 1/4 c. light cream or milk With pastry blender, combine flour, butter, sour cream and salt. Dough will be sticky. Wrap in wax paper and chill overnight. Using 1/3 dough at a time, roll out on lightly floured board to pie crust thickness. Cut into squares and place spoonful of filling in center and roll into curved horns. Moisten ends with water and "seal". Bake on waxed paper lined cookie sheet in preheated 350 degree oven until lightly browned at 15 minutes - WATCH CAREFULLY!! Cool. Roll in powdered sugar when cooled. |
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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As I have been hinting, I have committed my life to a field of research that far surpasses anything in scope or importance that I have encountered before. My dedication to this area of research is something I never would have predicted, but it is now obvious where my life is headed. To me it is intriguing, and to you I hope it is not something terrifying or intimidating, but rather I hope you find it just as fascinating as I have.
It began fourteen years ago as I started researching a topic at my university that dealt with artificial intelligence. I had already spent plenty of years in computer science, and as I engaged myself, it didn't take long for me to meet experts in the field and pose questions regarding how intelligent computers could become in the future. I branched out and researched neural networks, or in other terms a computing contraption built to "simulate" the human brain. The more time I spent on the subject, the less time I actually spent on my actual major. This led me to study the new field of nanotechnology, which was just gaining momentum back then.
Since these disciplines were totally unrelated to my engineering major, soon I became too busy to continue involving myself in these emerging fields. I chose instead to focus on the IT sector in general because I needed to start making money. Then just a few years ago, I freed up a bit of time to continue studying artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. I quickly realized that the small community of scientists impacting these fields were also cross-researching genetics and robotics. These enlightened group of scholars had all arrived at a similar conclusion throughout their lifetimes of research: that all areas of technology are advancing more and more rapidly each year, and the point in time rapidly approaches us where the capabilities of a single supercomputer will exceed the computational abilities of the human brain.
Shortly after this occurs, a microcomputer (or PC) will then exceed the capacity and intelligence of a human being, and when the first high tech institution makes this breakthrough, we will refer to that event as the technological singularity. From that point forward, our very existence as human beings, and the very definition of what it means to be human, will be forever transformed. From that point forward, the fields of nanotechnology, genetics, medicine, robotics, and computer science will advance so rapidly, that we will almost immediately achieve the ability to become transhuman. We will no longer be bound by the limits of our current biological self, and thus we will merge our consciousness with whatever technology we want, expanding our identity, our life span, and our total existence in ways that we can hardly predict right now.
Although it may sound like science fiction at first, most all scientists in these fields agree that the singularity rapidly approaches, and it will happen in our lifetime. The exact day which it will occur cannot possibly be determined, but I agree with a respected leader in singularity research, Ray Kurzweil:
The singularity will occur approximately in the year 2045. That is less than forty years away, and by leading a reasonably healthy lifestyle, most of us can live long enough to witness that day.
I understand perfectly if this is too much to absorb, and yet there is so much more to discuss. Many people simply cannot comprehend the scope of the singularity, and even most of those who do tend to abandon discussing it simply because it can be terrifying. It is true that there are at least two schools of thought about the days following the singularity. One group believes that the singularity will herald the triumph of humans as we transcend from our fragile, rickety bodies and become anything we want to be. But another group warns that after the singularity, computers and robotic masses will simply discard the human race, causing our extinction.
I belong to that first group of highly optimistic researchers, and I am more confident about the favorable outcome of the singularity than any conclusion I have made in my life. To guarantee the controlled and positive arrival of the singularity, I devote my life to its research.
I have alienated several friends and many others by researching this field, but I am rewarded by the amazing bonds that I have made with great people involved with this science. I'm sure that all singularity researchers welcome you to join our endeavor. I will be discussing this new science in greater detail in the months and years to come, and I humbly welcome any and all feedback on they way that you are reacting to these concepts.
Simply live long enough, and it is our hope that the singularity will give you the choice to be most anything you wish to be.
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | See the 2 comments | comment here)
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