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
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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.
27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Fluid Intelligence has Made the Most Gains
So which kinds of intellectual performance have been pushed upward by the better environments of recent decades? Surprisingly, the steepest gains have not been found in the concrete skills that are directly taught in school, such as general knowledge, arithmetic, and vocabulary. They have been found in the abstract, fluid kinds of intelligence, the ones tapped by similarity questions (“What do an hour and a year have in common?”), analogies (“BIRD is to EGG as TREE is to what?”), and ...Folksonomies: intelligence iq
Folksonomies: intelligence iq
1 notes
notes10 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
notes21 APR 2015 by ideonexus
Selection from the Wisdom of Hacker News
Inequality of information- find a place where you know something that many undervalue. Having this inequality of information can give you, your first piece of leverage.
Be an unrelenting machine- Brick walls are there to show you how bad you want something. Commit to your goals and do not waver from them a one bit regardless of what else is there. I took this approach to losing weight and fitness. I have not missed a single 5k run in over a year. It did not matter if I had not slept for two ... 1 notes
notes09 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Demographic-economic paradox
The demographic-economic paradox is the inverse correlation found between wealth and fertility within and between nations. The higher the degree of education and GDP per capita of a human population, subpopulation or social stratum, the fewer children are born in any industrialized country. In a 1974 UN population conference in Bucharest, Karan Singh, a former minister of population in India, illustrated this trend by stating "Development is the best contraceptive."[1]
The term "paradox" com... 1 notes
notesAs societies grow more developed, birthrates decrease, despite the increased resources.
25 DEC 2012 by ideonexus
Life Works Against the Tide of Entropy
The harsh, demystifying light of science has left the modern biologist with one last miracle, a miracle of organization. Somehow, back in the planet's youth, molecules organized themselves into a structure that could reproduce itself. Dust quickened, and into an inanimate world came animation. All the rest has followed, the flight of the pelican, the fragrance of a baby's skin, the songs of wolf and whale. These latter developments are relatively recent and we know in a general way how they c...
1 While everything else in the universe is trending toward disorder, life works against the trend.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
We Must Become Comfortable with Large Numbers
Borel makes the amusing supposition of a million monkeys allowed to play upon the keys of a million typewriters. What is the chance that this wanton activity should reproduce exactly all of the volumes which are contained in the library of the British Museum? It certainly is not a large chance, but it may be roughly calculated, and proves in fact to be considerably larger than the chance that a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen will separate into the two pure constituents. After we have learned ...
1 In order to understand why a million monkey on a million typewriters might produce a great work of art.
31 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Pro-Arguments for Simplified Chinese Characters
Proponents feel that simplified characters having fewer strokes makes it easier to learn.[7] Literacy rates have risen steadily in rural and urban areas since the simplification of the Chinese characters, while this trend was hardly seen during 30 years of Kuomintang (KMT) rule and 250 years of Manchurian rule before them, when the traditional writing system was dominant, though this rise in literacy may not necessarily be due to simplification alone.
Although Taiwan, which uses traditio...A list of bullet points from wikipedia on how simplified chinese characters improve literacy and alleviate social oppression.
04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Online Shopping Replaces Sales People
During the Great Recession, nearly 1 in 12 people working in sales in America lost their job, accelerating a trend that had begun long before. In 1995, for example, 2.08 people were employed in “sales and related” occupations for every $1 million of real GDP generated that year. By 2002 (the last year for which consistent data are available), that number had fallen to 1.79, a decline of nearly 14 percent.Folksonomies: employment automation
Folksonomies: employment automation
Everytime you purchase something online, that's something you didn't purchase from a retail clerk.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
A Modern Utopia Requires an Entire Planet
No less than a planet will serve the purpose of a modern Utopia. Time was when a mountain valley or an island seemed to promise sufficient isolation for a polity to maintain itself intact from outward force; the Republic of Plato stood armed ready for defensive war, and the New Atlantis and the Utopia of More in theory, like China and Japan through many centuries of effectual practice, held themselves isolated from intruders. Such late instances as Butler's satirical %u201CErewhon,%u201D and ... 1 notes
notesThe time is long past when a utopia could exist in a country or city, now a utopia can only exist if the entire world is involved.
