Enter the labyrinth: http://trionfi.com/m/

Everything that has happened since the time of Augustus Caesar takes up only 6.25% of the time that the Lion man of the Hohlenstein Stadel has been around for.

A lion headed figure, first called the lion man (German: Löwenmensch, literally “lion person”), then the lion lady (German: Löwenfrau), is an ivory sculpture that is the oldest known zoomorphic (animal-shaped) sculpture in the world and one of the oldest known sculptures in general. The sculpture has also been interpreted as anthropomorphic, giving human characteristics to an animal, although it may have represented an unfactual presence deity. The figurine was determined to be about 32,000 years old by carbon dating material from the same layer in which the sculpture was found. It is associated with the archaeological Aurignacian culture. (wikipedia)

To set up his discussion, Sterling begins with a brief hypothetical confrontation between the “Old” Richard Feynman and his present-day counterpart, the “Atemporal” Richard Feynman. Drawing on a memorable speech by the real Mr. Feynman, Sterling outlines how “Old” Feynman viewed the process of generating knowledge as having three simple stages:

• Write down the problem
• Think really hard
• Write down the solution

“Of course it’s a joke,” Sterling observes. “But it’s not merely a joke — [Feynman is] trying to just make it as simple as possible.” This simplicity is confounded by the Atemporal Feynman, for whom knowledge production is at best a much more circuitous and unstable process, and at worst, a kind of upside-down hyperbolic oxymoron:

• Write problem in a search engine, see if somebody else has solved it already.
• Write problem in my blog. study the commentary cross-linked to other guys.
• Write problem in Twitter in 140 characters. see if i can get it that small. see if it gets retweeted.
• Open source the problem. supply some instructables that can get you as far as i was able to get. see if the community takes it any farther.
• Start a Ning social network about my problem. name the network after my problem. see if anybody accumulates around my problem.
• Make a video of my problem. YouTube my video. see if it spreads virally. see if any media convergence accumulates around my problem.
• Create a design fiction that pretends that my problem has already been solved. create some gadget that has some relevance to my problem and see if anybody builds it.
• Exacerbate or intensify my problem with a work of interventionist tactical media.
• Find some pretty illustrations from the Flickr looking into the past photo pool.

Sterling: “Old Feynman would naturally object, you know: ‘you have not solved the problem. You have not advanced scientific knowledge, there is no progress in this, you didn’t get to step three, solving the problem. Whereas the atemporal Feynman would respond, you know, it’s worse than that. I haven’t even done step 1 of defining the problem and writing it down. But I have done a lot of work about its meaning and its value and its social framing, combined with some database mining and some collaborative filtering, which is far beyond you and your pencil.”

More info: Futurity Now!

[Update: A full transcript of this talk is available here.]

Jose Luis gave such a great talk about the subject last year that i’ve spent some time translating bits of it in english for you. The video is available online in spanish…JL started by going back one century and a half ago. At the beginning of the end of the most powerful man of the time: Napoleon. The beginning of the end was the Russian campaign… (WMMNA)

As the second phase of The City of the Future challenge, IBM and The History Channel, in partnership with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), challenged engineering students in NYC, Chicago and LA to propose innovative engineering solutions that will sustain our great cities in the 22nd century.

The students had 5 weeks to develop their solutions before presenting their proposals to the panels of esteemed jurors at IBM offices in each city. Each team exhibited extraordinary vision and innovation but only one team in each city was named winner. The jurors voted and the IBM Engineers of the Future are… (history.com)