My mind. Enhanced.

Russia is (purpotely) on the brink of war and I've got heavy things on my mind so I decided that now is probably a good time to reboot this blog. I want to be able to track my thoughts moving forward.  I've got a family now, with a kid who is half-Russian. Sofia. She's my universe. One day, I can give her this blog so if she ever cared to trace back her dad's history she can do so here. The most burdensome weight on my mind right now is propaganda. We're not free from it anywhere we live. Right or left. Conservative or liberal. East or West. It's all propaganda. 

The Serbian airport had an enigmatic stillness to it, like that of a rural Eastern European village forgotten by time. Old world simplicity resonated here. It was quiet. Peaceful. But I still felt a little unsettled. I flicked pages from my passport and turned to my Russian Tourist Visa. The toil I had to go through to get this. Travelling back and forth Dallas and Houston was a bumpy trek for sure, and all for that for a shiny piece of paper entitling me entrance to one of the most mysterious countries of the world. I felt elated, yet nauseous. The final call to board from Belgrade to Moscow was announced. I shuffled to get my things together I flip open my passport handed my boarding pass to the attendant. "Enjoy your flight," she said. I hope so. I thought. Day 1 I arrive at Moscow Sheremetyevo airport with absolutely zero knowledge of the language and no clue how to arrive at my AirBnB. I breathed in a little and focused on the first steps. SIM card. My smartphone was ...

IV.  On poverty. Kindness is given to those who are in earnst need of it. Be wary, there are dangers of giving charity to the deceitful. To distinguish between the two, look upon their eyes and solemnity of will. Distress not over the needy, the universe has a time and place for all, theirs is a temporary position in preparation for spiritual enrichment or escape from this mortal world.  Wealth is sustained to those with proper modes of stewardship. Of those with abundance, envy not their place, look to your own, if you find your resources limited, provide value to the world without asking for recompense, the world will return your efforts ten fold. Of those with and without, the mechanics of an entire economic system relies on appropriate allocation of power to its components. If all components were given the same power the system simply will not work.  Money is an abstract notion of power that gravitates toward those who best know to wield it. Learn to wiel...

Earlier this year, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla Motor's Elon Musk, and several other high profile investors capitalized on a secretive artificial intelligence lab named " Vicarious ". As a private company, details of its business remained appropriately classified, but sources noted that they were in the artificial neural networks arena with research focused on software emulating the human neocortex. They were a machine learning company. What is Machine Learning ? A quick drop in on Wikipedia will tell you that it is defined as "a branch of artificial intelligence, [concerned] with the construction and study of systems that can learn from data". Artificial intelligence has, at large, remained in the realm of science fiction novels and movies, the general public often scoffing its premise as nonsense and a study without realistic scientific substance. This has been true in the past, but academics and private enterprises alike are now realizing the i...

As living organisms, humans, among millions of species on Earth, are directed by constant stages of changes. From the early fetal stages of  our mother's womb, to adolescence, to the end stages of senescence on our deathbed; we are by our very nature constrained to a renewal and end of things. These are cycles that never end. We transition from one thing of sorts to the next. Thus, the laws of nature apply not just to our biological nature, but to our psychological / spiritual state of being. The soul changes over time. This continual transition happens throughout our life, challenges faced, battles fought, epiphanies realized, all contribute to the development and ultimately perfection of the soul. We change according to different stages in life. Soul in tow. To what end does change move toward? Generally speaking, changes taking place on Earth. This could mean evolution through specieation or the rate of technological progress, I have my theories, backed by a h...

Another year. Another birthday. Things have definitely scaled up a notch in the past year

It's been a thrilling seven days thus far. I spent my last weekend in a startup competition at UBC. I networked, pitched, and worked my way through the startup process. I met an awesome group of people and possible co-founders for a new venture. Only time will tell. Hint:  Google's Project Tango is where the future of the smartphone market is going. Monday kicked off the TED 2014 - The Next Chapter convention at Canada Place. It's freaking wild. From the interactive sculpture, to the speakers list, to all my favorite tech-icons of Silicon Valley and Boston, MA (Ray Kurzweil, Hugh Herr, Andrew McAfee, Sergey Brin, and the list goes on and on) all huddled around the city of Vancouver, my mind has gone through a dizzying array of fanboyiness excitement. Kurzweil spoke today and many people listened. The idea is out there now. It's mainstream. My twitter feed went nuts; people are now very aware of the Technological Singularity and are blown away by its core p...