16 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Covering Your Tracks Online is Suspicious
The drawback to covering your tracks like this on
a daily basis is that it sometimes makes you look
like, well, like you’re covering your tracks. People
who engage all of their privacy functions sometimes
stand out in a transparent society. It may make
people suspicious, thinking that you’re up to something.
If you’re only encrypting your communications
with certain people, it sometimes makes it look
even worse, like you’re collaborating—and it also
pinpoints who you’re in cahoots...If you do not show up in searches, then it appears as though you have something to hide.
20 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Evolution of the Eye
A possible sequence of such changes begins with simple eyespots made
of light-sensitive pigment, as seen in flatworms. The skin then folds in,
forming a cup that protects the eyespot and allows it to better localize
the light source. Limpets have eyes like this. In the chambered nautilus,
we see a further narrowing of the cup’s opening to produce an improved
image, and in ragworms the cup is capped by a protective transparent
cover to protect the opening. In abalones, part of the fluid in t...A simple series of adaptive steps explain the evolution of eyes over time.
12 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
Twitter, Celebrity, Asymmetric and Symmetric Social Conne...
Asymmetric attention is the key to another important concept, celebrity. Being famous means that a lot of people pay attention to you--after all, by definition it is famous people who appear on the cover of magazines, which are purchased because lots of people want to know what's happening with their favorite celebrities. But the celebrity doesn't, for the the most part, pay any attention to the fans (at least, not individually). Asymmetric attention ties in Twitter allows people like Oprah W...Folksonomies: web science social networking
Folksonomies: web science social networking
Twitter provides for asymmetric connections, where individuals follow others, making the people who don't follow back are celebrities; however, the system has been hacked with @replies, which make asymmetric connections symmetrical.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
AI's and Algorithms Take Away Our Sense of Responsibility
the very idea of artificial intelligence gives us the cover to avoid accountability by pretending that machines can take on more and more human responsibility. This holds for things that we donWhen we allow an algorithm to make suggestions to us, and we accept them, we are giving up our own aesthetical choices.