Tag Archive: Stanford University


COURSERA : THE GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE

Filed under: Good causes — Leave a comment
October 17, 2012

I’m quite excited to discover COURSERA, a social entrepreneurship company that partners with some top universities to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.

It was founded by computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Kollerfrom of Stanford University and as it was launched in April of 2012 it is still in its infancy. Most courses don’t begin until 2013.

Time will tell if they can continue to provide these courses solely through venture capital. Logic tells you that sooner or later students will have to pay something but for the moment it seems an opportunity not to pass up. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

JOHN CAGE FROM ZERO TO HERO

Filed under: Italy, Music, Politics — Leave a comment
April 5, 2012

In appropriately random fashion, yesterday at the Sala Borsa Library in Bologna, I came across a DVD I had never heard of it before entitled John Cage From Zero.  It contains four films by Frank Scheffer and Andrew Culver.

The first is 19 Questions, “a chance determined interview” in which we are quickly made aware how important numbers, chance and time were to Cage. He allows a precise  number of seconds to each topic , for example 42 seconds on chess, 24 seconds on death  and 48 seconds on mathematics.  Although it is billed as an interview, we see and hear only a relaxed Cage speaking directly to camera with a stop watch in his hand.

He would have failed miserably if he were a contestant on the BBC radio show Just A Minute as he hesitates a lot, deviates occasionally and sometimes repeats himself.

The pauses in particular are often prolonged – his 26 seconds on Postmodernism is as follows (the dots indicate the pauses):  “Postmodernism obviously comes after modernism ………………………… I wonder what the difference is ……………… perhaps it has something to do with refection”

His three seconds on Zen Buddhism is just five words – “The structure of the mind”.

Continue reading →
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

STEVE JOBS – “Death is life’s best invention”

Filed under: Music — 1 Comment
October 7, 2011

The anticipated but still deeply sad news of Steve Jobs’ death at the age of just 56 robs the world of one of the great innovators. To die at such a relatively early age either proves that God doesn’t exist or signifies that heaven now has wi-fi and is in urgent need of his technological know-how and design skills.

“We don’t need another hero” sang Tina Turner inaccurately in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The truth is that in these dark times we need all the heroes we can get. Steve Jobs was one of this rare breed. Like those other Apple scruffs (aka The Beatles) he had the courage to think differently and , like the Fab Four, he changed the way we see, feel and hear the world.

“Death is life’s best invention” he said in his Stanford commencement speech in 2005. He explained this by adding: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important”.

His message in this speech , and  the example of  how he lived his life, was to assert that your gut instincts and curiosity should be nurtured so that you don’t get stuck in the safety first mode – “keep looking , don’t settle” , he urged the Stanford graduates.

He believed that life is a process of connecting the dots backwards: “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart”. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment