06 NOV 2016 by ideonexus
The Media Mediates
There is definitely the sense that the media can mediate (!) the experience of viewers after the thing has happened. I might be sitting at home in North Carolina, watching the program and think one thing, and then the guy with a tie and “expertise” might come on right after it’s over and say with great gusto that one person or another has done something radical and race-changing that I never even considered. I often think of a great art museum in Boston when I think of these debates re: media... 1 
notes
notes08 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
PhDs Lack Skills for Surviving Outside Academia
Inefficiency arises from the fact that substantial resources have been invested in training these scientists and engineers. The trained have foregone other careers – and the salary that they would have earned – along the way. The public has invested resources in tuition and stipends. If these ‘investments’ are then forced to enter careers that require less training, resources have not been efficiently deployed. Surely there are less expensive ways to train high school science teachers than to...
1 04 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
How to Sell to Millennials
1. People buy things because of what they can do with them... Create crystal-clear communication that helps people connect how your product or service makes their lives better. An obsession with simplicity is essential.
2. People buy things because of what they can tell others about it... Help connect people to other people through your business. Sales isn't really about "selling" anymore, it's about building a community.
3. People buy things because of what having it says about them... Con...Folksonomies: marketing
Folksonomies: marketing
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 solutions to ...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.
17 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
The Strategy of Releasing All Data
The response many organizations adopted then
(and continue to pursue AF) is to provide overwhelming
amounts of data to the public. This
provided a two-fold defense. First, it allowed immediate
deniability to any charge of withholding data.
Second, the sheer volume of data available meant
that almost any argument could be made or refuted
with selective referencing and correlation to other
publicly available information. This is a rapid, cheap
response that puts the onus back on the accuser to
... 1 notes
notesInteresting idea: be completely transparent, releasing so much data that any hypothesis can be cherry-picked from it, then hire spin-doctors to do just that.
12 APR 2013 by ideonexus
A Biased Explanation of Foxes and Hedgehogs
How Foxes Think
Multidisciplinary: Incorporate ideas from different disciplines and regardless of their origin on the political spectrum.
Adaptable: Find a new approach—or pursue multiple approaches at the same time—if they aren’t sure the original one is working.
Self-critical: Sometimes willing (if rarely happy) to acknowledge mistakes in their predictions and accept the blame for them.
Tolerant of complexity: See the universe as complicated, perhaps to the point of many fundamental pro... 1 notes
notesNate Silver provides a very negative portrayal of those who think like hedgehogs, settling down in one field of expertise, compared to those who think like foxes, darting from field to field.
08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Problem with Paradigms
The success of the paradigm... is at the start largely a promise of success ... Normal science consists in the actualization of that promise... Mopping up operations are what engage most scientists throughout their careers. They constitute what I am here calling normal science... That enterprise seems an attempt to force nature into the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies. No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those... 1 notes
notesIs that scientists tend to try and keep nature in the box, ignoring phenomena that fall outside the paradigm.
04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Computers Can't Do Everything
The … truck driver is processing a constant stream of [visual, aural, and tactile] information from his environment. … To program this behavior we could begin with a video camera and other sensors to capture the sensory input. But executing a left turn against oncoming traffic involves so many factors that it is hard to imagine discovering the set of rules that can replicate a driver’s behavior. …
Articulating [human] knowledge and embedding it in software for all but highly structured situa...Folksonomies: employment automation
Folksonomies: employment automation
They cannot drive trucks yet, but how long until they can?
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Carl Sagan's Summary of the Selfish Gene
In a very real sense human beings are machines constructed by the nucleic
acids to arrange for the efficient replication of more nucleic acids. In a sense our
strongest urges, noblest enterprises, most compelling necessities, and apparent free
wills are all an expression of the information coded in the genetic material: We
are, in a way, temporary ambulatory repositories for our nucleic acids. This does
not deny our humanity; it does not prevent us from pursuing the good, the true,
and the be... 1 notes
notesWe are machines constructed by nucleic acids to construct more nucleic acids... sounds a lot like Dawkins.
03 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Look for New Problems to Solve
[My father] advised me to sit every few months in my reading chair for an entire evening, close my eyes and try to think of new problems to solve. I took his advice very seriously and have been glad ever since that he did. An interesting regular mental exercise for any scientist.
