World-Play as Self-Apprenticeship

...worldplay can be studied as a kind of self-apprenticeship in creative practice, rather than prodigious application in discipline or craft. The childhood inventor of imaginary lands often elaborates his or her world in multiple ways at once. He or she may write stories and compose music, draw maps and build models, design games, and possibly construct a secret language—all within the context of play. It is likely, therefore, that childhood woridplay confers benefits that differ substantia...

 The Great Man Theory Promotes Misunderstanding of History

The Great Man theory is the notion that behind every great innovation is a single individual -- usually a man. It attempts to write a simple story about every innovation. But Ford didn't invent the automobile, Edison didn't invent the light bulb, and the Wright brothers didn't invent the airplane. The simple story strips away all the other people with whom that person worked, both before and afterwards, and their critical contributions to the innovation process. It also perpetuates the notion...

 Be Prolific

For example, Simonton cites the work of inventor Thomas Edison who accumulated a mind-boggling 2,300 patents over his lifetime. He found that in the same year Edison applied for patents for the light bulb and the telephone (certainly both hits) he also filed for patents for 100 or so other inventions including the pneumatic pen (a partial miss), a talking doll (a definite miss) and a ghost detection machine (enough said). In all likelihood, Edison never knowingly worked on something he thou...

 Patenting Video Games as an Analytic Exercise

My initial reaction to discovering the Tapper patent was that it seemed like a hilarious parody. There are many silly patents, but this patent isn't silly in only the usual way, that it proposes an invention where I'm skeptical patent protection is really in order. It reads parodically because it seems to be describing the wrong thing entirely: It takes the formal structure of a patent, which is most at home when describing machines and other devices, and uses it to write a strange kind of g...

 China to Rate Online Behaviour in Social Credit System

Chinese internet firms are definitely interested, as Ant Financial, a subsidiary of ecommercegiant Alibaba, recently showed. To its popular app Alipay it added a new service which rated a person's credit worthiness on a scale of 350 to 950 points. This score is not only determined by one's lending behavior, but also by hobbies and friends. If friends have a poor lending reputation, this reflects badly on the person, just as prolonged playing of video games. Buying diapers indicates responsibi...

 Spelling is an Invention, and May be Modified

Spelling was invented by man and, like other human inventions, is capable of development and improve- ment by man in the direction of simplicity, economy, and efficiency. Its true function is to represent as accurately as possible by means of simbols (letters) the sounds of the spoken (i. e. the living) language, and thus incidentally to record its history. Its prov- ince is not, as is often mistakenly supposed, to indicate the derivations of words from sources that ar in- accessible...

 Pure Understanding of Nature is the Primary Aim of Science

Pupin believed with passionate intensity that the primary aim of science is the pure understanding of nature, and that useful applications must be considered of secondary importance. The prestige and influence which he derived from his inventions he used in an unceasing campaign to improve the standing of fundamental science in America. In this way the paradoxical situation arose, that it was Pupin the practical inventor who did more than any other man of his time to convince the American pub...

 Honour the Machine and Its Inventor

As I look round this room, at the bed, at the counterpane, at the books and chairs and the little bottles, and think that machines made them, I am glad. I am very glad of the bedstead, of the white enameled iron with brass rail. As it stands, I rejoice over its essential simplicity. I would not wish it different. Its lines are straight and parallel, or at right angles, giving a sense of static motionlessness. Only that which is necessary is there, whittled down to the minimum. There is nothin...

 Simultaneous Invention

Thomas Edison invented the light bulb in 1879. What if he had never been born, Would we still have light bulbs? And would they still have been invented in 1879? It turns out that this is not just a philosophical question and the answer is yes, the light bulb would have been invented at roughly the same time. We know this because at least 23 other people built prototype light bulbs before Edison1, including two groups who filed patents and fought legal battles with him over the rights (Sawyer ...

 Ideas Power the American Economy

Ideas are what power our economy. It’s what sets us apart. It’s what America has been all about. We have been a nation of dreamers and risk-takers; people who see what nobody else sees sooner than anybody else sees it. We do innovation better than anybody else — and that makes our economy stronger. When we invest in the best ideas before anybody else does, our businesses and our workers can make the best products and deliver the best services before anybody else. And because of th...