Friday, November 30, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
'Your in America' sets grammar fascists against fascists
'Your in America' sets grammar fascists against fascists | Arwa Mahdawi http://gu.com/p/3c648
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Self-tracking : the people turning their bodies into medical labs
Self-tracking: the people turning their bodies into medical labs | Life and style | The Observer
"The goal isn't to figure out something about human beings generally but to discover something about yourself," Gary Wolf once wrote. "Their validity may be narrow, but it is beautifully relevant."
Also, it starts narrow, but who knows how wide it can get? While individuals may not have the analytic skills or medical knowledge necessary to make reliable discoveries, if thousands of app users are creating data, scientists may be able to detect patterns that suggest more well-founded relationships between an input and an output.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Don't press send: why restraint is a fine old virtue for a tweeting world
Don't press send: why restraint is a fine old virtue for a tweeting world
In the wake of the Petraeus and Newsnight scandals, it's time for society to reconsider its addiction to instant publicity
Restraint, a fine old virtue for a tweeting world | Henry Porter | Comment is free | The Observer
This week might be looked back upon as another milestone in the role of social media in the modern world. In this case, the same mechanism that exposed truths that old media laws had unfairly kept secret (twitter at its best), this time propelled falsehoods with the same power (wrongly naming a Tory peer as the officially unnamed figure in a child abuse scandal). The problem wasn't even that the sources weren't credible, since guardian journalist George Monbiot appears to have been one.
Without going into a detailed argument here about whether twitter is in net a good thing, I think the following points need to be considered in any such debate.
Firstly twitter's power is because it taps into a basic human drive -to talk about each other. It is new in terms of speed and reach, but not in terms of kind. This also means if it didn't exist, some thing similar soon would. For me the point then is not whether it in itself is something which can be good or bad, this difference still rests on us and how we use it. What is needed is a learning, or even an education, on how to handle it, both by those who transmit, to understand the consequences (may feel like making a comment down the pub to friends, but isn't), and those who receive, to recognize the same weaknesses and biases that underlie all human communication (ie seem like news, but also a like hearing something in the pub).
Overall I'm optimistic however, since even though it runs on one of the worst mechanisms known to man, human social behavior, it also incorporates one of the best, a self correcting feedback mechanism. The first is a weakness compared to old style media (in theory, though it is itself less immune to bias and fad than is often presumed) but the second is a great advantage, hopefully errors and lies can be savaged and drowned out in a "marketplace of ideas", which is I believe ultimately, like democracy, the best of a bad lot, and better than relying on supposedly benign and reliable authorities which are often hard to influence or bring to account. If you trust humanity overall (and all is in vain if you don't), then the good should out sing the bad, in the cacophony of the tweeted chorus...I hope!
Nate silver, it's the numbers stupid
Nate Silver: it's the numbers, stupid | World news | The Observer
In this context [US election], Silver's skills seem not just relevant but vital. The liberal media don't care, perhaps, when it's their side winning; they may next time around. Because this is military-grade spin, targeted like a drone strike at the level of the individual. The political class has responded by waving the equivalent of a crucifix at it.
Mark Henderson, the British author of The Geek Manifesto, observed on his blog that Silver's recent prominence just goes to highlight the anti-scientific bias at the heart of so much of our media, how, for example, "in the past two years, Melanie Phillips has been on Question Time more than all scientists put together".
Silver's background and methodology mark him out from the rest of what in the US is sometimes called the "gang of 500", the familiar faces with familiar views who are wheeled out on Question Time-like political programmes.
It's a small, self-referencing cohort that the echo-chamber of Twitter has only amplified and distorted, leading to what Silver believes is the worst kind of "group think". He gives as an example the presidential debates "where the conventional wisdom solidifies very quickly. I was 15 minutes late for the first one, and by the time I got home, it had already been decided".
Friday, November 16, 2012
Be a satisficer, not a maximizer...
Satisficers > Maximizers | Raging Thunderbolt
Unlike maximizers, satisficers do not always attempt to find and get the best. Satisficing is about attempting to find and get what is good enough.
As the Wikipedia entry on satisficing recounts, Herbert Simon argued in 1956 (!!!) that, given our cognitive limitations, rationally we should be satisficers rather than maximizers:
Given human cognitive limitations, Bestness = Happiness turns out to be false too. More from Wikipedia:
Unlike maximizers, satisficers do not always attempt to find and get the best. Satisficing is about attempting to find and get what is good enough.
As the Wikipedia entry on satisficing recounts, Herbert Simon argued in 1956 (!!!) that, given our cognitive limitations, rationally we should be satisficers rather than maximizers:
He pointed out that human beings lack the cognitive resources to [maximize]: we usually do not know the relevant probabilities of outcomes, we can rarely evaluate all outcomes with sufficient precision, and our memories are weak and unreliable. A more realistic approach to rationality [that is, satisficing] takes into account these limitations.In other words, even if you attempt to find and get the best, in an uncertain world you often won’t succeed. To say that the world of tech is rather uncertain is a serious understatement. Even if you researched endlessly and settled on the iPad 3 as the best tablet your money can buy, six months later that choice probably wouldn’t look so optimal after all.
Given human cognitive limitations, Bestness = Happiness turns out to be false too. More from Wikipedia:
Maximizers tend to use a more exhaustive approach to their decision-making process: they seek and evaluate more options than satisficers do to achieve greater satisfaction. However, whereas satisficers tend to be relatively pleased with their decisions, maximizers tend to be less happy with their decision outcomes. This is thought to be due to limited cognitive resources people have when their options are vast, forcing maximizers to not make an optimal choice. Because maximization is unrealistic and usually impossible in everyday life, maximizers often feel regretful in their post-choice evaluation.
Marx would have been proud of bankers - FT.com
Marx would have been proud of bankers - FT.com
If Karl Marx had been alive in 2007, he would have been working for a bank. Banks had reached a state of communist perfection. The workers took home everything; the capital holders were left with nothing. Shareholders of banks were raped by the staff, who paid themselves extravagant sums out of illusory profits. Labour had found a far more effective device than trade unions for destroying capitalists, by duping the shareholders that higher pay was essential to retain Talent. They were assisted by the accountants, who allowed them to declare profits before they received any cash. Marx would have been laughing all the way from the bank.
If Karl Marx had been alive in 2007, he would have been working for a bank. Banks had reached a state of communist perfection. The workers took home everything; the capital holders were left with nothing. Shareholders of banks were raped by the staff, who paid themselves extravagant sums out of illusory profits. Labour had found a far more effective device than trade unions for destroying capitalists, by duping the shareholders that higher pay was essential to retain Talent. They were assisted by the accountants, who allowed them to declare profits before they received any cash. Marx would have been laughing all the way from the bank.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
IEA report reminds us peak oil idea has gone up in flames | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.uk
IEA report reminds us peak oil idea has gone up in flames | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Given the bubbling cauldron of violence that the middle East so frequently and regrettably is, the prospect of the US outstripping Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer in the next decade is deeply striking. The redrawing of the geopolitical map may cool some tensions and perhaps spark others.
But the truly global implications of the International Energy Agency's flagship report for 2012 lie elsewhere, in the quietly devastating statement that no more than one-third of already proven reserves of fossil fuels can be burned by 2050 if the world is to prevent global warming exceeding the danger point of 2C.
Given the bubbling cauldron of violence that the middle East so frequently and regrettably is, the prospect of the US outstripping Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer in the next decade is deeply striking. The redrawing of the geopolitical map may cool some tensions and perhaps spark others.
But the truly global implications of the International Energy Agency's flagship report for 2012 lie elsewhere, in the quietly devastating statement that no more than one-third of already proven reserves of fossil fuels can be burned by 2050 if the world is to prevent global warming exceeding the danger point of 2C.
Is pampered humanity getting steadily less intelligent? | Ian Sample | Science | guardian.co.uk
Is pampered humanity getting steadily less intelligent? | Ian Sample | Science | guardian.co.uk
While a bit of a frivolous topic really (intelligence may matter less than happiness! :-), what is interesting is some quantiative insight into genes counts for a trait, and rate of mutation :
"The scientist draws on recent studies to estimate a figure for the number of genes that play a role in human intellectual ability, and the number of new mutations that harm those genes each generation. He settles on a suite of 2,000 to 5,000 genes as the basis for human intelligence, and calculates that among those, each of us carries two or more mutations that arose in the past 3,000 years, or 120 generations."
As an aside thought - if the ideas of the west (born in Greece) are responsible for the overall improvement which eased selection pressures, and resulted in a general 'dumbing down' - then there might be an irony in the question as to whether it is better to be a pig satisfied, or Socrates dissatisfied. The itching Socrates may have helped give rise to a comfy world for us pigs :-)
While a bit of a frivolous topic really (intelligence may matter less than happiness! :-), what is interesting is some quantiative insight into genes counts for a trait, and rate of mutation :
"The scientist draws on recent studies to estimate a figure for the number of genes that play a role in human intellectual ability, and the number of new mutations that harm those genes each generation. He settles on a suite of 2,000 to 5,000 genes as the basis for human intelligence, and calculates that among those, each of us carries two or more mutations that arose in the past 3,000 years, or 120 generations."
As an aside thought - if the ideas of the west (born in Greece) are responsible for the overall improvement which eased selection pressures, and resulted in a general 'dumbing down' - then there might be an irony in the question as to whether it is better to be a pig satisfied, or Socrates dissatisfied. The itching Socrates may have helped give rise to a comfy world for us pigs :-)
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Samsung Galaxy S3 review: reaching for greatness | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Since just got one myself - worth re-posting a review for posterity! :-)
Pity is chip I worked on would have been included...but didn't meet the schedule...maybe a reason to get the S4?!
Samsung Galaxy S3 review: reaching for greatness | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Pity is chip I worked on would have been included...but didn't meet the schedule...maybe a reason to get the S4?!
Samsung Galaxy S3 review: reaching for greatness | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
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