From the excessive hype department:

• Apple’s New iPhone, as only The Onion can deliver
• A ‘Second Life’ parody you can’t miss, by Draftfcb, via CNET News.com

Today I attended a talk on “spiritual computing” by Dr. Craig Warren Smith, who works at the Human Interaction Development Laboratory at the University of Washington. Since spiritual computing isn’t well defined, much of his talk was devoted to examples, followed by a definition, which frankly I didn’t have enough time to absorb.

What I did get out of Dr. Smith’s talk is that spiritual and religious traditions have a lot to say about what is meaningful to people, that they have developed a lot of technology over thousands of years to further their spiritual goals (he called mass the “killer app” of Catholicism), and the computing field should tap into that knowledge as it designs its products. Unfortunately, we didn’t get into many specifics, although Dr. Smith did mention mindfulness, where a person becomes completely aware of his or her thoughts and actions at the present moment, which comes from Buddhism.

Overall, a thought-provoking and worthwhile talk.

As usual, I haven’t blogged as much as I’d like, but I have been regularly uploading my photos, so my Flickr photostream is a better representation of my life than my blog. Here’s what I’ve done since my trip to Orlando:

Trip to Taiwan during Chinese New Year. It was great seeing a lot of my relatives, as well as playing tourist in Tainan and Kaohsiung.

Trip to Rochester, New York. It’s not your typical tourist destination, but I was born there and one of my friends was studying there, and I had frequent flyer miles to burn. It felt good to revisit my roots, even though it was snowing in April.

Meeting up with friends. This includes a dinner with high school friends, my 10th-year Caltech reunion, Jonathan and Polly’s wedding, ice skating, and CHI.

Lots of hiking. We’ve visited a lot of places I’d never been to before, such as Sweeney Ridge, San Bruno Mountain, Crystal Springs Park, and St. Joseph’s Hill.

Currently, we have a family friend visiting us from Taiwan. She said she wanted to go see the Gay Pride Parade last Sunday, which I’d never been to. My reaction: I really enjoyed it. I was struck by the sheer joy of the people in the parade — you could tell they were so happy to just be themselves, that they didn’t need to hide who they were. The crowds weren’t too bad, since they were spread out along Market Street, and we took BART in to avoid the driving madness. On the other hand, the parade is really long, about 3½ hours. I would go again, and I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t gone to go! But now that I’ve seen the whole parade once, I’d only stay for maybe the first 1½ hours the next time. (8/6/07 update: I’ve posted my parade photos.)

Song of the moment: “Something About You” by Level 42. An ’80s classic, and Level 42’s only U.S. hit.