http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAIv15fWfHg

Apparently, the total human population on Earth will hit 7 billion towards the end of next year. But even more thought-provoking than that is the fact that the population growth is actually slowing down for the first time in modern history. It’s even conceivable that we will hit the maximum number of people on the planet in our lifetime.

In a related note, I’ve seen technology exploding exponentially in my own lifetime and I wonder if it will continue to do so or if it, too, will slow down to an asymptotic rate. Either way has profound implications. It’s an interesting time to be alive.

I took the advice of a couple friends and checked out the Metropolitan Museum of Art while I was in New York. It’s huge, so I only saw a small part of it but I did see the Kublai Khan exhibit and several of the Renaissance and Impressionist period oil paintings.

I also have a particular interest in sculptures so I made sure to spend some time in the sculpture gallery. One of the most striking pieces was Rodin’s Burghers of Calais. Rodin was commissioned to depict the Burghers of Calais who were willing to sacrifice their lives in exchange for the safety of the city. But instead of depicting them as simply heroic and noble, he chose to depict the moment in time when they discovered that they were not going to be executed. The result is both striking and somehow very human.

I got a free flight that I had to use before the end of the year so on a whim, I decided to go visit some friends in New York. I’m heading out today and I’ll be there for one day. What should I do?

I managed to finish the 12th and final chapter of Tesla 2010, which is a short story about a theoretical 50,000 word novel that I would have written if I had had the time.

The funny thing about the whole thing is that even though it was only about 10% the word count, there were still a lot of similarities to writing a 50,000 word novel in a month. There were still the creative challenges, the writer’s block, the moments of inspiration, etc. The one big difference (aside from it being a lot easier to write 90% less) was that it was harder to write more serious stuff because the nature of project was a joke to begin with. It was sort of like the Michael Bay directed cliff notes version of a novel. But hey, it was fun.