Oxford and Vatican libraries to digitize 1.5 million pages of ancient texts — from theverge.com by Dante D’Orazio

Excerpt:

Two of the oldest libraries in Europe — the Vatican Library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford — are about to make parts of their collections available on the internet in a big way. The two libraries have announced that they are going to scan 1.5 million pages of ancient texts and make them available freely online. The massive undertaking isn’t the first such initiative to open up the collections from famous libraries to the whole world — both Cambridge University and the National Library of Israel recently released a trove of material from Isaac Newton and others online — but this new partnership is much greater in scope.

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Opinion from DSC:
Technologies — by themselves — are neither good nor bad.  It’s what we do with them that makes them good or bad. The concerns I have are when people try to play God.   His ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. So when the We Robot Conference puts up a banner that would normally look like the hand of God touching a human hand — but in their case, they put a robot’s hand reaching out to touch a man’s hand — something just doesn’t set well with me re: that image.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think robotics can be very helpful — especially in manufacturing, fire safety, other.  But in some of the robotics space/spheres of work, when we think we can “do better” than the LORD — to make a better mind than what He gave us  — I get a bit nervous.

 

 

The academy in hard times

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Michael Anissimov and Michael Vassar talk about The Singularity.

From DSC:
Again, some of this is fascinating to me, while other portions of this is very unnerving and controversial to me.

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Surviving the future is an unsettling glimpse into the human psyche right now, as our culture staggers between a fervent belief in futuristic utopian technologies on the one hand, and dreams of apocalyptic planetary payback on the other. Thought provoking and visually stunning, Surviving the Future looks at the stark and extreme choices facing our species as we prepare ourselves for the most challenging and consequential period in our history.”

— from http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2010/survivingthefuture/

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As seen as CBC-TV on Thursday Oct-21-2010

Surviving the Future -- as seen on CBS on 10/21/10

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Surviving the future

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— originally from http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2010/11/surviving-future.html

From DSC:
Although I don’t agree with many things in this piece, it’s important to reflect upon some of the sometimes exciting and sometimes disturbing things in this piece. Looking at some of the enormous challenges and potential directions ahead of us this century, it’s all the more important that our hearts are hearts of flesh, not hearts of stone!

Professional Development in Digital Humanities

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