02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Knowledge Work
The growing importance of knowledge as an economic resource reflects the fact that, as economies and production technologies develop, they become ever more complex and specialized, leading to increasing coordination costs. In the language of information economics, the organizational or informational task of coordinating the diverse steps in the productive chain grows, as the number of transactions within and among productive units increases (Joncher, 1983). Logically, the increasingly complex...Folksonomies: knowledge work symbolic work
Folksonomies: knowledge work symbolic work
1 
notes
notesKnowledge is becoming increasingly specific. Professionals of all types are managing larger quantities of sybolic reasoning. Informational laborers or symbolic analysts are a growing portion of the workforce.
10 FEB 2018 by ideonexus
Applications for Simulated Worlds
Consider that applications of simulated worlds and simulated games to science and social science research are on the increase. Businesses build virtual worlds for commercial purposes. Scientists utilize video games to crowd-source solutions to protein folding, to invesfigate complexity theory and artificial life, to visualize the physics of black holes, and to research economic, social, and psychological behaviors. Call of Duty, Second Life, World of Warcraft—and the software that makes the... 1 notes
notes17 AUG 2016 by ideonexus
Stanford d.school Design Thinking Process
Step 1: Empathy = Really get to know your user
Use human-centered design process, which puts the user squarely at the center of the process. When designing, you start with identifying who you want to design for (your user) and really get to know them.
3 ways to get to know our user:
Observation (what we observe them doing, in the environment we want to design for as well as in other similar and different environments, so we really get to know how they live and work, what they value, etc., ...Folksonomies: education technology
Folksonomies: education technology
1 notes
notes29 OCT 2014 by ideonexus
Wandering into the Scientific Woods
Sometimes in an upper-level class I’ll assign a problem I don’t expect students to solve. It either involves some subtle trick, or requires theoretical techniques they haven’t yet learned. I assign them because I want students to struggle a bit with problems for which the solutions aren’t clear. “Wander into the woods,” I’ll tell them. “Find out what it feels like to be lost and start struggling to find your way out.” It’s a good skill to develop, because often in theoreti... 1 notes
notes24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Science Generators
Conway’s Game of Life is perhaps best viewed not as a single shorthand abstraction but rather as a generator of such abstractions. We get a whole bunch of useful abstractions—or at least a recipe for how to generate them—all for the price of one. And this points us to one especially useful shorthand abstraction: the strategy of Looking for Generators. We confront many problems. We can try to solve them one by one. But alternatively, we can try to create a generator that produces solutio...Folksonomies: science hypotheses
Folksonomies: science hypotheses
1 notes
notesNick Bostrom on the possibility of looking for scientific concept generators, similar to the way Conway's Game of Life is a pattern generator, rather than looking for random scientific problems to solve.
03 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Computer is the Solutions to Over-Specialization
Getting ready for the assumed inexorable Armageddon, each
applied science and all of the great scientific specialization
capabilities only toward weaponry, thus developing the ability to
destroy themselves totally with no comprehensively organized
oppositional thinking capability and initiative powerful enough to
co-ordinate and prevent it. Thus by 1946, we were on the swift way
to extinction despite the inauguration of the United Nations, to
which none of the exclusive sovereign prerogatives... 1 notes
notesWith computers taking over the responsibility of specializing in computational and processing tasks, human minds are freed to resume our plasticity or "comprehensivlty" as Buckminster puts it.
21 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
von Neumann Correctly Hypothesizes How Memory Works
The question of the physical embodiment of this memory remains. For this, various authorrs have suggested a variety of solutions. It has beeen proposed to assume that the thresholds—orr, more broadly stated, the stimulation criteria—^f or various nerve cells change with time as functions of the previous history of that cell. Thus frequent use of a nerve cell might lower its threshold, i.e. ease the requirements of its stimulation, and the like. If this were true, the memory would reside i... 1 notes
notesNeurons that get used more often become easier to use. He's just speculating, but his description is spot on.
12 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Art and Science Require Both Creativity and Rationality
How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true sc...
1 Art without rationality is lame, science without creativity is less innovative. Stereotypes of artists and scientists are unrealistic.
03 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
Our Responsibility as Scientists
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. There are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions and pass them on. It is our responsibility to leave the men of the future a free hand. In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time. This we will do if we say we have the answers now, so young a... 1 notes
notesWe must leave the door open to speculation, and never declare that we have it all figured out, because that would doom future generations.
