December 2009
1 post
November 2009
23 posts
nonparametric:
[snip]
Consider: Action precedes perception.
Or: There is something outside the room, but in order to find out what it is, you need to go outside the room.
Or: Rice planting will now be taught in the paddy fields.
[via via via]
noosphere:
If it were ideal, the plan would include how to get around the folks that need turning around.
THIS IS FUCKING ESSENTIAL
Which heads can I tattoo this on
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them...”
– A. Warhol (comment from “Anonymous” on James Landay’s “I give up on CHI/UIST” post).
“You want a proof. I guess that means that you want to be more convinced that the...”
– Imprudence, in Hofstadter’s GEB (via tristn).
Renewable energy now, for great consumption!
navigolucky:
[snip thread]
Will get around to reading this! What is intrinsically wrong with more energy consumption?
Well, nothing is intrinsically wrong with a little more energy consumption, but the problem that Byrne et al. raise is that our current ‘energy-ecology-society relation’ [the “modern” — or “modernist” — relation] is not about ‘a little...
Renewable energy now, for great consumption!
This one’s for navigolucky (and Jacobson and Delucchi). From Byrne et al., “Relocating energy in the social commons: ideas for a sustainable energy” (Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 29(2): 81-94, 2009; PDF here). This paper does a much better (although admittedly lengthier) job of articulating the complaints I was trying to voice about the ‘engineering...
Elinor Ostrom has won the “Nobel Prize in Economics”. I call this a great win. Here’s a nice piece about her work from Jamie Bartlett on opendemocracy:
Traditionally, there have been two major approaches to getting ourselves out of this rather unfortunate spot and they dominate political debate to this day. The first is the oldest of all: a government with coercive powers...
…the other lives at the heart of the technological essence we so long fondly thought was ours, birthed from our heads, sprung from the creative hands and hearts of the western autonomous subject. How can the other inhabit it, always already swarming inside it, taking control of it, defining it in ways mysterious to us, in tongues unfamiliar?
(K. Philip, in Post-colonial conditions: another...
“Of course, there is no beginning—everything began a very long time before us,...”
– J. Derrida, “‘Others Are Secret Because They Are Other’” (collected in Paper Machine).
“In all rigor you don’t know what you think you know you want to...”
– J. Derrida, “My Sunday ‘Humanities’” (collected in Paper Machine).
re Halting Problem
tristn:
particularapparatus:
Also, who cares? “What are the civilian applications?”
It matters because it tells us that there are functions that cannot be computed by any physically realizable model of computation, and as for a “practical” use of the halting problem, if you can reduce a problem to the halting problem, then you can show that that problem is also uncomputable.
Yes, I know :)...
Halting Problem
tristn:
Or rather a variation of it called “the acceptance problem”. Suppose we have a program P and we want to know that P accepts or correctly computes some input i. Let H(P,i) be a program that tells us whether a program P accepts input i. Thus:
H(P,i) returns true when when P accepts i.
H(P,i) returns false when when P does not accept i.
Let be [P] be an encoding of program P (that is,...
navigolucky:
[snip thread; click link above for it]
AUGH, I made substantial progress on this reply and then I user error’d and closed the tab I was typing in.
The press release is somewhat unclear, and my first reply was also unclear. My understanding of J&D’s plan is that they reduce demand for electrical power production (i.e., watts at power plant), but assume...
Where is Phil Agre? What would it mean to look for...
Philip Agre, author of Computation and Human Experience and the many-inspiring essay “Toward a critical technical practice”, and associate professor in the Information Studies department at UCLA, has been reported missing (UCLA-PD bulletin here).
I have not met Agre, but I would like to. “Toward a critical technical practice” was inspiring for me and quite a few people...
Does the Vaccine Matter? - The Atlantic, part ii →
noosphere:
It’s funny because the last half of the last sentence in my response originally read something like: but until the conversation expands to include its subjects (scientists), nothing will change. =)
Yup. *high five* See Phil Agre’s “Toward a critical technical practice”, especially section 7.
Does the Vaccine Matter? - The Atlantic, part ii →
noosphere:
particularapparatus:
noosphere:
people who think the practice of science is based steeped in rationality are fooling themselves. as i keep saying, science has taken on the mantle of religion; dogma / doctrine, these are things held holy by too many.
OHAI STS ^_^! (Sorry Ed [grep “Latourian” on page] :-/)
My gripe is less about the controversy re: vaccines and more on these...
Kohn, "Why self-discipline is overrated", or, a...
I won’t pretend that Jonah Lehrer’s article “Don’t!”, subtitled “The secret of self-control,” in the May issue of the New Yorker, didn’t irritate me. Here’s another perspective.
It’s not just that attending to individuals rather than environments hampers our ability to understand. Doing so also has practical significance. Specifically,...
October 2009
20 posts
Mamihlapinatapai →
bestofwikipedia:
Mamihlapinatapai is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the “most succinct word”, and is considered one of the hardest words to translate. It describes “a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start.” (via Martin)
English...
yeah, maybe asymptotically
tristn:
tristn: i’m watching math documentaries marykgo: you’re going to become socially retarded
OMG Have you seen N is a Number (about Erdos)? It’s awesome and *clearly* made by math nerds (because it tries to explain some of his work with cute animations)
Does the Vaccine Matter? - The Atlantic, part ii →
noosphere:
people who think the practice of science is based steeped in rationality are fooling themselves. as i keep saying, science has taken on the mantle of religion; dogma / doctrine, these are things held holy by too many.
OHAI STS ^_^! (Sorry Ed [grep “Latourian” on page] :-/)
nerdshares:
In conclusion, why do smart people say things that make me stabby?
Note to self: don’t be an asshole just because you have managed to deceive some people into thinking that you know some stuff about some things
navigolucky:
[lengthy, well-thought-out response]
particularapparatus:
[optimization formalism gripe gripe bitch bitch bad sociology arcane references]
navigolucky:
electricpower:
[Jacobson and Delucchi on electrical power]
Hi, I wanted to respond to this quickly, but I will be surprised if I get to it in the next few days, so I just wanted to post something as a sort of placeholder....
amomenttothink:
I honestly can not decide if California’s governator is awesome or completely insane because of things like this:
To the Members of the California State Assembly: I am returning Assembly Bill 1176 without my signature. For some time now I have lamented the fact that major issues are overlooked while many unnecessary bills come to me for consideration. Water reform, prison...
navigolucky:
electricpower:
Ambitious clean energy goals abound—the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, for example, proposes the switch to 42% renewable energy in the U.S by 2030—but are we selling ourselves short? Stanford civil and environmental engineering professor Mark Jacobson and UC Davis researcher Mark Delucchi think we are. The pair has created a plan to power the planet using only...
DID YOU INVENT PEANUT BUTTER? IF YES, CALL ME NOW TO CLAIM YOUR LOST CULT FOLLOWER!
Goerner, Lietaer, and Ulanowicz strike again:... →
Preprint fucking awesomeness alert! From the same crew that brought you the awesome information-theoretic approach in “Quantifying sustainability: resilience, efficiency, and the return of information theory” earlier this year in Ecological Complexity and “Options for managing a systemic bank crisis” in Sapiens comes the most concise, rigorous denouncement of neoliberal...
Okay, so apparently my new mode of engagement will simply involve posting useless nonsense, mainly only of interest to people that I know. Sweeeet.
Okay, well, I’ll try to keep posting awesome papers. I guess.
lilzet:
I knew you’d love this, but I think the *real* reason you’re angry is that I didn’t buy you coffee yesterday. Or that you’re an angry person. Or you’re trying to get my tumblarity up, which I deliberately avoid.
In any case, it means: Oh man, hypothetical dude. So much whining about time and procrastination and whatnot. Maybe you should step back and reflect on whether or not the reason...
noosphere:
edit: *sigh* maybe i need some medical marijuana. my blood pressure & irritability are through the roof these days…
Hah! I see you have a new method. Maybe when I’m in New York next I’ll call a guy I know and we can all sit down and chillllll. ^_^
lilzet pointlessly reblogged Merlin Mann, who had some cute little business-card scrawl which said:
We procrastinate when we’ve forgotten who we are.
…I’m sorry, does that FUCKING MEAN ANYTHING AT ALL?
Sometimes you gotta love how Merlin Mann says nonsensical crap and then all the digerati think ohhhh he’s so fucking WISE.
I mean yeah, inbox zero is good and my life...
“It may not be possible simply to remember what we have forgotten, but...”
– J. E. Faulconer.
“The question whether it is the world as it is or the world as observed by the...”
– Luhmann, “Why does society describe itself as postmodern?” (Cultural Critique, 1995)
September 2009
56 posts
“Man is no longer man enclosed, but man in debt.”
– Deleuze, “Postscript on the societies of control” (1990).
no you don't
amomenttothink:
“You know what I’m craving? A little perspective. That’s it. I’d like some fresh, clear, well seasoned perspective. Can you suggest a good wine to go with that?”
Yeah? You want some cake with that too?
“I don’t know. It’s all an accident. I thought I’d go work for a law firm.”
– University of California president Mark Yudof, when asked how he got into education.
“Governments should also decrease the role of economists – they’re no more...”
– Nassim Taleb.
Foucault, still relevant and awesome
What can an internal limitation of governmental rationality be? In the first place, it will be a de facto regulation, a de facto limitation. That is to say, it will not be a legal limitation, although at some point the law will have to transcribe it in the form of rules which must not be infringed. At any rate, to say that it is a de facto limitation means that if the government happens to push...
