Talks/seminars/conferences around Cambridge in November 2013

What a pleasure to learn something new or get stimulations in such a traditional atmosphere.

The best of this month: "Neuroscience Clash Course (1) The organisation of the brain."

Sidgwick Site, Lecture Block

The second best: " This house would retroactively strip Obama of the Nobel peace prize."

The Chamber of the Cambridge Union Society

...and "SVC2UK 2013:  Transformation of Healthcare" and "Communicating risk and scientific uncertainty" were the second best too.

The full list of talks/seminars:

• #019 Inaugural Dinner Meeting of the Cambridge Judge Business School Wittgenstein Society ++++
• #020 Border crossings: in the light of history ++
• #021 Land of silence and darkness: a film by Werner Herzog ++++
• #022 How can mice using iPads help cure Alzheimer’s disease? +++
• #023 SVC2UK 2013:  JBS Masterclasses +++
• #024 SVC2UK 2013:  Transformation of Healthcare +++++
• #025 The Economics of Electricity Storage for Renewable Electricity Generation: A German Case +++
• #026 The cultured chimpanzee: nonsense or breakthrough? ++++
• #027 Venture Capital and Knowledge Transfer +++
• #028 Behavioural Insights in Finance / Graphical Displays on Investment Risk Appetite. ++
• #029 Communicating risk and scientific uncertainty +++++
• #030 Digital Connectivity in Cities: The Role of Policy +
• #031 Are you your brain? ++++
• #032 This house would retroactively strip Obama of the Nobel peace prize, at CUS +++++
• #033 Information storage in DNA ++++
• #034 Decoding human genomes on a population scale: solexa/illumina sequencing +++
• #035 Transformation of India's Security Exchange +++
• #036 Nanotechnology in medicine, run by OBR ++++
• #037 Economics was useless during the financial crisis. What can be done? ++++
• #038 Mathys & Squire's IP workshop, run by CUTEC ++
• #039 Neuroscience Clash Coruse (1) The organisation of the brain. +++++
• #040 Academic English Writing Seminar ++++

University of Cambridge Training, or how I encounter the Neuroscience Clash Course

There are a lot of training courses available for students in the University of Cambridge. The website will help you search suitable ones for you. This is how I joined the Neuroscience Clash Course, which is a 2 hours x 3 days introductory course to neuroscience by the great lecturers at the University of Cambridge. It was fur worth than a boring accounting course.

A few key words for stepping into 2014

I came up with some keywords for further steps in next year:

• Neuroscience: my mind is more than my brain, and cannot be detached from my bloody body.
• Network theory: small-worldness is a effective way to see the world to control a desirable change. 
• Artificial Intelligence: people's ideas will be soon combined with information flows over computers.
• Limits of language: the limits do not necessarily mean the boundary of my world.
• Contradictory, the power of a word: how a word can spell a blessing or curse on the life of a person.

What I have found myself NOT in favour of any more:

• Any project mostly based on way outside demand, unfortunately it is usually called "the client".
• Too theoretical economic/management theories, with tons of equations to prove the bloody apparent facts if you work in the real world, or with superficial understanding of the complexity of every individual workers.
• "Social enterprises" which just covertly makes entrepreneurs to be less rich or to be exploited by super-rich guys who built foundation.

In a nutshell, I am interested in how people are, effectively or ineffectively, interlinked and organised with each other.

Photos of Edinburg, Scotland

Visited Edinburg for second time; first time for my wife. Short but very neat stay there.

A Harry-Potter-like night, near from the Castle.

A lady gazing at a man-sized bag: marketing campaigns by Rakuten.co.uk, an e-commerce site from Japan. 

A fantastic sunny view from the Palace to the large "rock".

We can overview the sea from the Royal mile, if the weather is sunny enough.

The taste matrix of Scottish Whiskey: my once favorite Bowmore is positioned near "smokey" tag.

Whiskey tasting competition; I got it right only one while my wife got a half right.

8 weeks have passed since Cambridge MBA started

Eight weeks already have passed since the course started. Amazingly, almost 3 weeks plus alpha (presentations and exams) to go, how quick this term passes!!

What have I got and missed so far? Let me think it over slowly this weekend, with a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland.

The fireworks at Cambridge were like supernovas.

Took in front of the Cambridge University Library.

The one of the descendent trees from Sir Isaac Newton’s apple.

With a friend coming all the way from the far-east.

Sir Isaac Newton’s Apple.

Waiting for Ludwig Wittgenstein

The coincident, but actually quite intentional, Wittgenstein week:

Ludwig Wittgenstein: Ein biographisches Album von Michael Nedo

• On 26th Oct, joined a festival-of-ideas talk on "Do the limits of my language mean the boarder of my world?" Actually it was not about Wittgenstein, the talk was stimulating in a sense how the language shapes our/their world geographically. And, the actual geographical locality defines the language.
• On 27th Oct, visited Wittgenstein's grave, together with the Japanese edition of "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" in my hand. Just before the dusk, my wife founded it. 
• On 29th Oct, went through the original, printed in 1922, edition of "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" at the Cambridge University Library. To be honest, it was for the first time to read in English. I discovered more provocative notions inside the book. I will put here later on.
• On 1st Nov, enjoyed discussion at the Inaugural Dinner Meeting of the Cambridge Judge Business School Wittgenstein Society, and even got a special present book (above; although mostly it is German)