25 OCT 2017 by ideonexus
CREW Method of Curation
CREW stands for Continuous Review Evaluation and Weeding, and the manual uses “crew” as a transitive verb, so one can talk about a library’s “crewing” its collection. It means weeding but doesn’t sound so harsh. At the heart of the CREW method is a formula consisting of three factors—the number of years since the last copyright, the number of years since the book was last checked out, and a collection of six negative factors given the acronym MUSTIE, to help decide if a book has... 1 
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notes27 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Literate Societies Place Less Value on the Elderly
...older people in traditional societies have a huge significance that would never occur to us in our modern, literate societies, where our sources of information are books and the Internet. In contrast, in traditional societies without writing, older people are the repositories of information. It's their knowledge that spells the difference between survival and death for their whole society in a time of crisis caused by rare events for which only the oldest people alive have had experience. ... 1 notes
notesIn societies without readily-available information stored in written words, the elderly are more valuable for their knowledge and experience.
03 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Homo sapiens' Adaptability is Our Greatest Adaptation
All tools are externalizations of originally integral
functions. But in developing each tool man also extends the limits
of its usefulness, since he can make bigger cups hold liquids too
hot or chemically destructive for his hands. Tools do not introduce
new principles but they greatly extend the range of conditions
under which the discovered control principle may be effectively
employed by man. There is nothing new in world technology's
growth. It is only the vast increase of its effective r... 1 notes
notesWe extend ourselves through our tools.
19 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Lojban for Experimental Linquistics
Lojban is a predicate language, with no distinct nouns, verbs, or
adjectives. What are the linguistic (communicative) properties of such a system? The answer has been partially explored through symbolic logic. But do people, when thinking linguistically, mimic in any way the processes of formal logic? What effects would a formal-logic– based language have on those linguistic thinking processes? Is the resulting language susceptible to the same analysis as natural language, in terms of the v...Folksonomies: language artificial
Folksonomies: language artificial
1 notes
notesNatural languages lack the controls necessary for experimentation, but an artificial language works for testing Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.
21 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Childhood is Naturally Mindful
As children, we are remarkably aware. We absorb and process information at a speed that we’ll never again come close to achieving. New sights, new sounds, new smells, new people, new emotions, new experiences: we are learning about our world and its possibilities. Everything is new, everything is exciting, everything engenders curiosity. And because of theinherent newness of our surroundings, we are exquisitely alert; we are absorbed; we take it all in. And what’s more, we remember: becau...
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2 In our youth, we are curious and attentive to every detail surrounding us, not yet distinguishing by the usefulness of the information. As adults, we take everything for granted, ignoring the familiar and walking through life in a mindless state.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Don't Spank Your Children
Over the years, many studies have been devoted to assessing the usefulness of this method, often coming to confusing—even opposing—conclusions. One of the latest lightning rods is a five-year review of the research literature by a committee of child development specialists sponsored by the American Psychological Association. The committee came out against corporeal punishment, finding evidence that spanking caused more behavioral problems than other types of punishment, producing more agg... 1 notes
notesEnough studies confirm the detrimental effects of this practice that it shouldn't even controversial, but it is.
