21 NOV 2017 by ideonexus
African Americans are the Descendants of Alien Abductees
Dery identified the parallels in "Black to the Future" as 'African Americans are, in a very real sense, the descendanmt of alien abductees," Dery writes. He compares the atrocities of racism experienced by blacks in the United States to "a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields intolerance frustrate their movement; official histories undo what has been done; and technology is too often brought to bear on black bodies (branding, forced sterilization, the Tuskegee ... 1 
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notes08 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Taxonomy of Email Chains
Family Pyramides
This family is named for the pyramid scheme structure common to all members of the family. Each specimen in this family will include a list of addresses of its last 4 to 10 hosts, and instructs the current host to alter this list by adding his or her address to this list and removing the oldest address from it. Hosts are also directed to send a small sum of money to each name on the list.
Family Petitiones
Members of this family are characterized by the additional behaviou... 1 notes
notesFood for thought in considering a taxonomy of memes.
30 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Taxonomy is About Connecting and Explaining Life
Taxonomy (the science of classification) is often undervalued as a glorified form of filing—with each species in its folder, like a stamp in its prescribed place in an album; but taxonomy is a fundamental and dynamic science, dedicated to exploring the causes of relationships and similarities among organisms. Classifications are theories about the basis of natural order, not dull catalogues compiled only to avoid chaos. 1 notes
notesNot just categorizing it.
17 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Shattered Glass as a Metaphor for Taxonomy
Let us suppose that we have laid on the table... [a] piece of glass... and let us homologize this glass to a whole order of plants or birds. Let us hit this glass a blow in such a manner as but to crack it up. The sectors circumscribed by cracks following the first blow may here be understood to represent families. Continuing, we may crack the glass into genera, species and subspecies to the point of finally having the upper right hand corner a piece about 4 inches square representing a sub-s...
1 The smaller pieces you smash it into, the more specific the classification. TODO: I don't understand the "4 inches" part at the end concerning sub-species.
03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
How File Structure Affects Our Perception of the World
The file is a set of philosophical ideas made into eternal flesh. The ideas expressed by the file include the notion that human expression comes in severable chunks that can be organized as leaves on an abstract tree—and that the chunks have versions and need to be matched to compatible applications. 1 notes
notesFiles are compact chunks that can be categorized, have versions, and can be matched to applications. But don't we do this with taxonomy in biology? Species are defined, but they are flowing degrees of characteristics that we semi-artificially categorize.
31 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Aristotle's Attempt to Categorize Motion
11 Now everything that changes place is moved either by itself or by something else. In as many of these as are moved by themselves, it is obvious that the moved and mover are together, since the first mover is present in them, so that nothing is in-between. But as many as are moved by other things must come about in four ways, for there are four kinds of change of place by means of something else: pulling, pushing, carrying, and whirling. For all motions with respect to place lead back to th... 1 notes
notesHis efforts to build a taxonomy of motion demonstrates the difficulty of properly classifying things as a foundation to building hypotheses.
18 APR 2011 by ideonexus
The Growth of Taxonomy in the Scientific Revolution
Taxonomy was the biology of the scientific revolution. The opening up of the New World and the Far East provided European scientists with thousands of new species to examine and classify. Establishing botanical gardens, menageries and 'cabinets' of minerals, preserved animal specimens and dried plants were favourite hobbies amongst wealthy collectors. And since the natural sciences were not yet fully recognised by university faculties, these studies remained in the hands of amateurs. Of 48 na...Folksonomies: science history
Folksonomies: science history
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notesMany women became botonists and entomologist during this time.
