02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Entropy in our Everyday Lives: Active Stability
Because things naturally move to disorder over time, we can position ourselves to create stability. There are two types of stability: active and passive. Consider a ship, which, if designed well, should be able to sail through a storm without intervention. This is passive stability. A fighter jet, in contrast, requires active stability. The plane can’t fly for more than a few seconds without having to adjust its wings. This adjustment happens so fast that it’s controlled by software. Ther... 1 
notes
notes12 DEC 2017 by ideonexus
The Capitalist-Consumerist Ethic
We are all good consumers. We buy countless products that we don’t really need, and that until yesterday we didn’t know existed. Manufacturers deliberately design short-term goods and invent new and unnecessary models of perfectly satisfactory products that we must purchase in order to stay ‘in’. Shopping has become a favourite pastime, and consumer goods have become essential mediators in relationships between family members, spouses and friends. Religious holidays such as Christmas ... 1 notes
notes17 AUG 2016 by ideonexus
Ways of Being "Good at Math"
It’s a common misconception that someone who’s good at math is someone who can compute quickly and accurately. But mathematics is a broad discipline, and there are many ways to be smart in math. Some students are good at seeing relationships among numbers, quantities, or objects. Others may be creative problem solvers, able to come up with nonroutine ways to approach an unfamiliar problem. Still others may be good at visually representing relationships or problems or translating from one ...Folksonomies: education mathematics
Folksonomies: education mathematics
1 notes
notes20 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Social Fragmentation is Freedom
Urbanism—the city dweller's way of life—has preoccupied sociology since the turn of the
century. Max Weber pointed out the obvious fact that people in cities cannot know all their
neighbors as intimately as it was possible for them to do in small communities. Georg
Simmel carried this idea one step further when he declared, rather quaintly, that if the urban
individual reacted emotionally to each and every person with whom he came into contact, or
cluttered his mind with information about...
1 People lament the watering-down of interpersonal relationships in social networks, but total relationships--with all their faults and positives--restrict our freedoms and overwhelm us.
05 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Common Core Math Standards
Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem ... 1 notes
notesGeneral goals for ways children should think about math in various aspects.
29 SEP 2013 by ideonexus
The World is a Function
Kakeru Seki: A fact is somehow related to another fact. Unless you understand these relationships, you won't be a real reporter.
Noriko Hikima: True journalism!
Kakeru Seki: Well, you majored in the humanities.
Noriko Hikima: Yes! That's true--I've studied literature since I was in high school.
Kakeru Seki: You havea lot of catching up to do, then. Let's begin with functions.
Noriko Hikima: Fu...functions? Math? What?
Kakeru Seki: When one thing changes, it influences another thing. A ... 1 notes
notesAs a programmer I know that algorithms can relate to the real world, and since these algorithms are constructed in computers that ultimately run on bits and boolean logic, then the real world may be imagined to deconstruct to pure mathematics.
05 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
Social Networks Limit Interaction to "Autistic" Levels
It is hardly surprising that many participants find social interactions
on Friendster formulaic. The social structure is defined by a narrow set of rules that do little to map the complexities and nuances of relationships in other contexts. Formula-driven social worlds require everyone to engage with each other through a severely diminished mediator—what I have else- where called autistic social software, as a metaphor to signal the structured formula that autistic individuals learn to nego... 1 notes
notesBecause of the limited kinds of interactions possible within a Social Network.
28 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
Longevity Leads to "Balkanized" Relationships
this culture’s structure of feeling could also be called balkanized. Gender therapy and speciation were both parts of the longevity project, and the combination of the three created a new structure of feeling that is often characterized as fractured, compartmentalized, bulkheaded, firewalled. Usually longevity itself is identified as the primary force driving this; until now, no one has had to integrate a personality in its second century (or more), and often it is experienced as an existen...Folksonomies: transhumanism relationships
Folksonomies: transhumanism relationships
So many experiences and knowing so many people leads to feelings of alienation.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Relationship Between Geology and Geography
All that comes above the surface [of the globe] lies within the province of Geography; all that comes below that surface lies inside the realm of Geology. The surface of the earth is that which, so to speak, divides them and at the same time 'binds them together in indissoluble union.' We may, perhaps, put the case metaphorically. The relationships of the two are rather like that of man and wife. Geography, like a prudent woman, has followed the sage advice of Shakespeare and taken unto her '... 1 notes
notesThey are intertwined, but there are strict boundaries.
06 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Genetics and Atomic Theory
Genetics is to biology what atomic theory is to physics. Its principle is clear: that inheritance is based on particles and not on fluids. Instead of the essence of each parent mixing, with each child the blend of those who made him, information is passed on as a series of units. The bodies of successive generations transport them through time, so that a long-lost character may emerge in a distant descendant. The genes themselves may be older than the species that bear them. Folksonomies: analogy
Folksonomies: analogy
1 notes
notesAre analogous in their relationships to biology and physics.
