George furiously blogged and tweeted the Convergence08 meeting in Mountain View this last weekend. Check out his reportage.

Some say that once exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing (MM) is achieved, our worries about global warming and climate change will be over. A relatively simple solution like tiny balloons fitted with adjustable mirrors could give us all the control we need to moderate warming and create preferred climate conditions.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Terry Grossman this past weekend at Convergence08. Grossman, along with Ray Kurzweil, co-authored the book Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever in 2005. 

Think of a futuristic war scenario where soldiers are firing smart weapons from the confines of their command centres.weapons that are capable of intercepting and destroying virtually all enemy attack weapons and yet, they are fired from unmanned vehicles thereby minimising all possibilities of human casualties.

In today's catastrophic risks and resilience seminar, perhaps the most disturbing presentation was by J. Storrs (Josh) Hall, who gave a talk on “The Weather Machine: Nano-enabled Climate Control for the Earth.”

Before my readers conclude that I’ve completely lost it over Obama I figured it’s time I say something a bit more critical about the situation in the U.S. and the incoming administration.

Do the current economic slowdown, the dwindling of fossil fuels, and the looming disasters of climate change mean we should aspire to a new steady state economic model, instead of the growth-based economics of the past? Or do emerging technologies like nanotechnology offer a third alternative, a growing and sustainable economy?

Though I share in the jubilation at Obama’s election, I find I’m also a bit guarded. Holding back, as if afraid to get “fooled again” by the promise of new leadership.

Playing fantasy politics — as opposed to fantasy football — is a mug’s game. However, for what it’s worth (not much), and speaking for those of us who aren’t Americans, here’s my top ten list of things I’d like see from the Obama administration in the first 100 days, and consider to be not-totally-impossible:

A mere one day after the election, a number of Republicans are encouraging Sarah Palin to prepare for the 2012 presidential run. Rush Limbaugh has gone so far as to call her “The next Ronald Reagan.”

Boy, Marshall sure stirred the pot at the Singularity Summit this weekend. Apparently you are allowed to opine that super-robots will either bring us a perfect world free from want, or possibly wipe us off the map. But if you suggest that we might need social policies to ensure our economic welfare when robots take most of the jobs then you are a socialist throwback unaware that free markets have always solved the structural unemployment problems of the past.

You've probably heard the dictum that most people expect too much change in the short term and too little change in the long term. That has been true generally, I think, and it may be why we hear complaints about 'No flying cars yet!' and so on. 

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, have friends or loved ones who do, or simply enjoy the various products and services to be found around these parts, take heed:
When the Big One hits, it won’t be pretty.