In the same place where Spaniards traded goods, the French before them, and centuries upon centuries of Native American tribes before them, we traded visions of a world gripped by the Gospel, visions of justice and equality for all, and visions of ending poverty and pollution.
After years of tinkering with prototypes for what is now becoming The Grid, and immersing myself in Constraint Programming, Machine Learning, Computer Vision & other such tools of the AI-trade, the vision seemed possible & I was ready for full-time product development.
Speakers and attendees alike traded extraordinary visions of the future: colonizing other planets, commuting to work in flying cars, employing self-programming computers and extending human life by centuries.
Utilities were derived by methods of time trade-off, TTO (lifetime traded against perfect vision) and standard gamble, SG (death risk accepted for perfect vision).
"We also believe that Fair Trade USA's vision presents new opportunities that allow us to impact even more farmers and workers".
But in the wake of the terrorist assault on the World Trade Center, that vision almost inevitably has taken on much darker tones.
Seth Bookey, an Upper East Sider who edits a trade publication called Vision Monday, tells of the time an English friend came to visit and was shocked by the number of people lined up for takeout late at night.
(She and I missed each other in Paris this season – she is usually there for Lancôme while I am in town for the Premiere Vision trade show and we have a tradition of camping out in her family apartment in the 8ieme.
For many enterprise software startups, survival mode kicks in and the market forces them to trade their product vision for more immediate, realistic revenue opportunities.
"Our high streets need vision, trade and investment, and landlords therefore welcomed a key recommendation from the Portas report in December that allows property owners to match the funding that retailers put in to Business Improvement Districts - successful vehicles that allow traders to come together to plan and fund improvements in their area".
