Is the Internet for the empty space in our brains? by DAM News Staff

May 24, 2008

I have always been fascinated how a seed turns into a tree, all the knowledge compacted into a tiny life form. I have always wondered why we humans appear to only use a fraction of our brains capacity, and what Einstein meant by training his brain.

My Desktop/Browser Web 2.5

It is Saturday morning, I am still in my pajama’s it’s 11.06 am, drinking coffe and filling my brain with information, it is a very enjoyable experience, I will make sure I eat something good, go for a walk, get some air and sunshine (UK, unlikely) , clean up a bit … later, maybe.

In the 17th Century the average person consumed no more data in a lifetime than the pages of our daily newspaper. Today we are consuming so much information, sharing, annotating, mashing it up and serving back out to our friends, colleagues and business acquaintances, it’s a wonder we do not have an epidemic of information overload rage!

Knowledge workers/managers and publishers know this is not going to change, in fact our brains will be consuming more and more data exponetially as the social graph gets to critical mass and some surmise this will effect the collective consiousness of the planet and we will shift with it. (brint it on!!)

Big statement, but you only need to look at my web2.5 desktop to understand how managing terabytes of information on a daily basis, becomes part of the void in our brains capacity, processing information with semantic awareness, tools and machines that grasp the complexity of my ID. It will indeed effect massive global change.

Can I prove this… what am I doing on my browser/desktop, right now?

Well, while typing this I am listening to the The Gillmor Gang – Mike Arrington, Dan Farber, Robert W. Anderson, Dana Gardner, and Marc Canter – welcome Google Director of Engineering David Glazer to talk about Friend Connect and next week’s Google I/O developer conference. Recorded Friday, May 23, 2008. The thought leaders and enablers are pushing infomation to me right here, right now. I need only to look to the left of my browser to see what Marshall K, Pete Cashmore, Alex King, Alex Iskold, Robert Scoble et al are thinking, doing and consuming … on the head of giants, its got to make me a better informed citizen, in real-time! and if I need to find the curve on the twittering superhighway, well there is always something out there I would summize and failing that I could look at alltop and inhale the web at addictomatic. And should I for any reason loose my mind I could always fall back on my Google web history, now if I could only delete the porn 😉

Simulataneously I am listening in the background to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky via LastFM’s widget embedded in Yoono increasing my appreciation of fine music, jazz and hip hop make not for a consuming digital mind. As I write the blogoverse is communicating directly to my desktop pop ups via Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, linkedin, all courtesy of Thwirl, Alertthingy, Snitter etc. My RSS/XML/OPML keywords engines are filling my knowledge bank.

My sister has just posted her cold is getting better, my business partner is skyping me about a meeting next week, the mobile has just sent me an sms about an offer for some coupons at the supermarket, buy one get another free. And my inbox just pined with another few bits of data to process.

The music changes and Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, known generally as Felix Mendelssohn (February 3, 1809 – November 4, 1847) was a German composer and conductor of Jewish parentage of the early Romantic period. His work includes symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano and chamber music. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes in the late 19th century, his creative originality is now being recognized and re-evaluated, and he is now amongst the most popular composers of the Romantic era.

I am indeed training my brain and quietly thinking to myself that the 17th century man would indeed go completely mad if a time machine or a wormhole had sucked him into the grid of May 24th 2008 … time to get dressed and go for that walk.

Here is a look at my Web 2.5 browser (click image for full view)