BIL Conference

BIL: Santa Cruz

Bill Erickson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:20:59 +0000

BIL: Santa Cruz is tentatively planned for October. Check back soon for the conference website.

Welcome to the new BIL Site!

Bill Erickson — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:06:14 +0000

Over the past two years, BIL has grown rapidly. Many people have asked for BIL to be closer to them, and some have gone ahead and done it.

We’d like to shift the BIL site from focusing on just one BIL to supporting and encouraging all BILs, and make the ideas shared at those BILs more accessible.

I hope you like it, and please share with us any suggestions you have.

A Garage-Level Biomedical Research Effort is Taking on Death

Bill Erickson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:12:01 +0000

The Institute for Biomedical Gerontology in Tempe, Arizona is a volunteer operated rag-tag effort to cure human aging. In line with the methods of our parent organization, the Methuselah Foundation, we try to sustainably repair the damage that aging does to our bodies. We will introduce proof-of-concept stage research results from our portfolio, in areas such as macular degeneration, atherosclerosis, diabetes and immune system aging. In all these areas, university professors in their bureaucratic wisdom had been failing for decades to develop direct damage-repair approaches. When our volunteers got to work on the same problems, their out-of-the-box thinking lead to success on a shoestring budget, using ancient technology, in no time at all. However, our journey has only just begun. Our next challenges are to rally and professionalize our portfolio, and become a streamlined translational research facility. We need carry on developing our unconventional approach to the point where we can attract interest from deep-pocketed partners to make these therapies available to the aging patients of earth.

The Perils of Robotics

Bill Erickson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:50:40 +0000

This is an exploration of the field of robotics through the lens of its failures. How and why do robots fail, and how can we address their short-term and long-term obstacles?

Open Source Architecture: From TED Prize to reality

Bill Erickson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:07:11 +0000

It has been two years since Cameron Sinclair won the TED Prize and the birth of an idea and website called the Open Architecture Network – the world’s first open source (access) site for architectural solutions to humanitarian crises. This is a critical look at whether it is working. Also a brief look ahead and at the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom which launched the week before at Davos.

Your Religion is False

Bill Erickson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:01:35 +0000

When my (now) editor telephoned me, suggesting this topic for a book, my first reaction was that it seemed a bit ambitious. Why not, I asked her, start with a less-sweeping topic, like “Zoroastrianism is Probably Not The One True Faith”, or “A Few Minor Points the Rabbis Got Wrong”, or “At the Center of the Catholic Church Lies a Murderous Conspiracy That Only Tom Hanks Can Uncover and Defeat”?

Someone named Dan Brown, she informed me, had already written on my Zoroastrianism idea, and Simon and Schuster (Jews both) would never allow such an overtly anti-Rabbinic book to be published. In addition, she continued, the publishing world was currently enthralled by what she called “The New Atheism”, a concerted push by Communists (though she never explicitly identified them as such) and creators of series of vampire-themed young-adult detective novels (”Nancy Drew Blood” is the one I explicitly remember her mentioning) to purge the bestseller lists of religious mainstays like The Bible, Chicken Soup for the Zoroastrian’s Soul, and Tony Robbins’s Awaken the Giant Within, to make room for a new generation of heathen authors. A book like Your Religion Is False could be “publishing gold”, she concluded, and could help her eradicate some of her payday-loan debt.

Continued at http://yrif.org/book/

The Story of TOMS Shoes

Bill Erickson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:02:03 +0000

My name is Blake, and I am the Chief Shoe Giver here at TOMS. This is my story, our story, and the daily journey each of you are now participating in.

So far we have given over 130,000 pairs of shoes to children in need around the world.

TOMS Shoes

What’s Funny about the Interwebs

Bill Erickson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:57:00 +0000

Ben Huh, the Chief Cheezburger in charge of I Can Has Cheezburger, will talk about discovering new things on the Web and how people find a way to pass their time.

How to Do Cool Things Around the World

Bill Erickson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:44:15 +0000

This is a practical talk that tells you how to do enjoyable things that will take you around the world, while making the world a better place. How to finance your projects and events and make a living without a formal employer is also included. Specific actions to take include:

How to write a book without ever looking at a blank page.
How to get governments and companies to pay for your trips and introduce you to their smartest people.
How to learn other languages quickly.
How to get articles published and use them as the basis for getting a book published.
How to organize conferences, and then build a community around using newsletters.
How to raise sponsorships
How to write a business plan and use it to raise money (six out of six of my last business plans were funded).
How to get interviewed over 1,000 times, including 700 times on television.
How to get the US government to mandate a vital technology.
How to make a company together with your loved one.
How to make $100 million on paper.
How to lose $100 million on paper and millions, and still retain the will to live, love, and then do yet another cool thing.

Demo: Brainwave Controlled iPhone App

Bill Erickson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:35:32 +0000

BESMOKE is a multi-touch aware, sound-sensitive, iPhone accelerometer controlled, brainwave (EEG) reading Navier Stokes fluid simulation demonstration created by Eric Gradman of Monkeys & Robots and Mindshare Labs.

I installed it at the BIL conference this last weekend, and took some time to record the strangest demo I possibly could. Are you confused? Check out the documentation at exothermia.net/monkeys_and_robots/2009/01/26/besmoke-fluid-simulation/