Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
The Up-Goer Five – a thing you can find on a computer | Technology | The Guardian
The Up-Goer Five – a thing you can find on a computer | Technology | The Guardian
Or to put it another way, an online challenge to explain tricky concepts using only the thousand most commonly used words
Or to put it another way, an online challenge to explain tricky concepts using only the thousand most commonly used words
Is our food shrinking? | Life and style | The Guardian
Is our food shrinking? | Life and style | The Guardian
Brands that don't want their customers to see shrinking products as a price hike live by Weber's law, says Mitchell. This is the idea that if you present people with a stimulus of a varying intensity – and the change is small enough – they won't notice it. To notice the change, the variation has to have exceeded what is known as the "just noticeable difference" (JND).
"This," the City University academic says, "is fairly consistent – around about 10%. So, for example, if you reduce the number of crisps by 10% people tend not to notice – you get away with i
(from the page on Weber's law : http://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/montag/vandplite/pages/chap_3/ch3p1.html)
E. H. Weber, in 1834, had the following insight:
The number in this example are made up; your values may vary in practice.
If you lift up and hold a weight of 2.0 kg, you will notice that it takes some effort. If you add to this weight another 0.05 kg and lift, you may not notice any difference between the apparent or subjective weight between the 2.0 kg and the 2.1 kg weights. If you keep adding weight, you may find that you will only notice the difference when the additional weight is equal to 0.2 kg. The increment threshold for detecting the difference from a 2.0 kg weight is 0.2 kg. The just noticeable difference (jnd) is 0.2 kg.
Now start with a 5.0 kg weight. If you add weight to this, you will find that the just noticeable difference is 0.5 kg. It takes 0.5 kg added to the 5.0 kg weight for you to notice an apparent difference.
The ratio of I/I for both instances (0.2/2.0 = 0.5/5.0 = 0.1) is the same. This is Weber's Law.
Weber's Law states that the ratio of the increment threshold to the background intensity is a constant. So when you are in a noisy environment you must shout to be heard while a whisper works in a quiet room. And when you measure increment thresholds on various intensity backgrounds, the thresholds increase in proportion to the background.
Brands that don't want their customers to see shrinking products as a price hike live by Weber's law, says Mitchell. This is the idea that if you present people with a stimulus of a varying intensity – and the change is small enough – they won't notice it. To notice the change, the variation has to have exceeded what is known as the "just noticeable difference" (JND).
"This," the City University academic says, "is fairly consistent – around about 10%. So, for example, if you reduce the number of crisps by 10% people tend not to notice – you get away with i
(from the page on Weber's law : http://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/montag/vandplite/pages/chap_3/ch3p1.html)
E. H. Weber, in 1834, had the following insight:
The number in this example are made up; your values may vary in practice.
If you lift up and hold a weight of 2.0 kg, you will notice that it takes some effort. If you add to this weight another 0.05 kg and lift, you may not notice any difference between the apparent or subjective weight between the 2.0 kg and the 2.1 kg weights. If you keep adding weight, you may find that you will only notice the difference when the additional weight is equal to 0.2 kg. The increment threshold for detecting the difference from a 2.0 kg weight is 0.2 kg. The just noticeable difference (jnd) is 0.2 kg.
Now start with a 5.0 kg weight. If you add weight to this, you will find that the just noticeable difference is 0.5 kg. It takes 0.5 kg added to the 5.0 kg weight for you to notice an apparent difference.
The ratio of I/I for both instances (0.2/2.0 = 0.5/5.0 = 0.1) is the same. This is Weber's Law.
Weber's Law states that the ratio of the increment threshold to the background intensity is a constant. So when you are in a noisy environment you must shout to be heard while a whisper works in a quiet room. And when you measure increment thresholds on various intensity backgrounds, the thresholds increase in proportion to the background.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Google and the future of search
Google and the future of search: Amit Singhal and the Knowledge Graph | Technology | The Observer
The Knowledge Graph is a database of the 500 million most searched for people, places and things in the Google world. For each one of these things, it has established a deep associative context that makes it more than a string of words or a piece of data. Thus, when you type "10 Downing Street" into Google with Knowledge Graph, it responds to that phrase not as any old address but much in the way you or I might respond – with a string of real-world associations, prioritised in order of most frequently asked questions.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Should 'true story' films such as Zero Dark Thirty and Argo be rated L for lie? | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian
Should 'true story' films such as Zero Dark Thirty and Argo be rated L for lie? | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian
- Journalists are told they are making "the first rough draft of history", with the implication that a proper historian will soon be along to take over. Both are now overwhelmed by a tidal wave of film-makers, claiming the same licence to the word truth, but without any of its disciplines. The French director, Jean-Luc Godard, declared that cinema was "truth 24 frames a second". Bigelow, like Stone and Sheridan, feels justified in using possible inaccuracy to advance a cause. If they got it wrong, it was art. I wish I had that get-out. Keats has a lot to answer for in nonsensically identifying truth with beauty.
- It insults reason to maintain that some filmed images are harmless fantasy while others can drive viewers to action. We ban incitement to violence and race hatred in other forms of performance as likely to influence behaviour. We likewise ban tobacco advertising. We know visual images influence how people see the world. As Woody Allen grimly reflected: "If I have made one more person feel miserable, I'll feel I've done my job."
- When communists rewrote history and wiped leaders from old photographs we ridiculed them. Yet we do the same. Claiming the lie as art leaves the door open for Chinese and other censors to pick and choose their own comforting "truths". Nothing should be banned, but the British Board of Film Classification should make itself useful and revise its categories. If "true story" appears in a film's preamble and is clearly wrong, the film should carry certificate L, for lie. We would then know where we stood.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Facebook Graph Search: Zuckerberg reveals origin of Google privacy rift | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Facebook Graph Search: Zuckerberg reveals origin of Google privacy rift | Technology | guardian.co.uk
According to Zuckerberg, Google was less willing (or able?) to change its search algorithm so that once a wall post or photograph was deleted from Facebook it vanished from the rival company's search results. Microsoft was able to do this and has partnered with Facebook since 2010.
...
The worry for Google is that it will come to be seen as the reason why nothing can ever be fully removed from the internet. That is a problem for Google's brightest brains to address as Facebook and Twitter expand the social web into more areas of our lives
According to Zuckerberg, Google was less willing (or able?) to change its search algorithm so that once a wall post or photograph was deleted from Facebook it vanished from the rival company's search results. Microsoft was able to do this and has partnered with Facebook since 2010.
...
The worry for Google is that it will come to be seen as the reason why nothing can ever be fully removed from the internet. That is a problem for Google's brightest brains to address as Facebook and Twitter expand the social web into more areas of our lives
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Friday, January 11, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
The Human Brain - Carbohydrates
Was briefly googling what might be the optimum food to eat at lunch during work, and found nice summary in this link.
The Human Brain - Carbohydrates
Obviously one which release glucose slowly, so probably should go for something with low glycemic index, which would indicate rice (47) and spaghetti (40) better than my current bread (~70).
So for example instead of ~200g bread rolls (~500 calories), might be better with ~130g spaghetti or ~150g Rice
The Human Brain - Carbohydrates
Obviously one which release glucose slowly, so probably should go for something with low glycemic index, which would indicate rice (47) and spaghetti (40) better than my current bread (~70).
So for example instead of ~200g bread rolls (~500 calories), might be better with ~130g spaghetti or ~150g Rice
Mass donor organ fraud shakes Germany | World news | guardian.co.uk
Mass donor organ fraud shakes Germany | World news | guardian.co.uk
German medical authorities are calling for an extensive overhaul of the country's organ transplant programme after transplant centres across Germany were placed under criminal investigation over allegations that they had systematically manipulated donor waiting lists.
A doctor in Göttingen is reported to have had written into his contract that he would receive bonus payments for every liver he was able to transplant, a system of rewards already deeply criticised by Germany's medical authorities.
German medical authorities are calling for an extensive overhaul of the country's organ transplant programme after transplant centres across Germany were placed under criminal investigation over allegations that they had systematically manipulated donor waiting lists.
A doctor in Göttingen is reported to have had written into his contract that he would receive bonus payments for every liver he was able to transplant, a system of rewards already deeply criticised by Germany's medical authorities.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
"THE CLOTHESLINE PARADOX" | Edge.org
"THE CLOTHESLINE PARADOX"
[TIM O'REILLY:] I've been thinking a lot lately about a piece I read in Stuart Brand's, CoEvolution Quarterly back in 1975. It's called the "Clothesline Paradox." The author, Steve Baer, was talking about alternative energy. The thesis is simple: You put your clothes in the dryer, and the energy you use gets measured and counted. You hang your clothes on the clothesline, and it "disappears" from the economy. It struck me that there are a lot of things that we're dealing with on the Internet that are subject to the Clothesline Paradox. Value is created, but it's not measured and counted. It's captured somewhere else in the economy.
"THE CLOTHESLINE PARADOX" | Edge.org
[TIM O'REILLY:] I've been thinking a lot lately about a piece I read in Stuart Brand's, CoEvolution Quarterly back in 1975. It's called the "Clothesline Paradox." The author, Steve Baer, was talking about alternative energy. The thesis is simple: You put your clothes in the dryer, and the energy you use gets measured and counted. You hang your clothes on the clothesline, and it "disappears" from the economy. It struck me that there are a lot of things that we're dealing with on the Internet that are subject to the Clothesline Paradox. Value is created, but it's not measured and counted. It's captured somewhere else in the economy.
"THE CLOTHESLINE PARADOX" | Edge.org
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Why power has two meanings on the internet
A very small number of websites have colossal numbers of links, while millions of others have to make do with only a few
Why power has two meanings on the internet | Technology | The Observer
On empathy, from Obama to Osborne
Barack Obama and the 'empathy deficit' The US president claims the 'empathy deficit' is a more pressing problem than the federal deficit, but empathy may be merely a product of changing scientific fashions
Barack Obama and the 'empathy deficit' | Science | The Observer
Friday, January 4, 2013
What might a world without work look like? | Nina Power
What might a world without work look like? | Nina Power As ideas of employment become more obscure and desperate, 2013 is the perfect time to ask what it means to live without it
http://gu.com/p/3cp55
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