April 2012
64 posts
1 tag
“How do geniuses come up with ideas? What is common to the thinking style that...”
– An entertaining look at creativity and genius.  Enjoy the strategies. How Geniuses Think | The Creativity Post
Apr 29th
1 note
1 tag
A Universe from Nothing? | Cosmic Variance |... →
Some of you may have been following a tiny brouhaha (“kerfuffle” is so overused, don’t you think?) that has sprung up around the question of why the universe exists. You can’t say we think small around here. First Lawrence Krauss came out with a new book, A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing (based in part on a popular YouTube lecture), which addresses this...
Apr 29th
2 tags
A Typographic Literary Map of San Francisco, in a... →
Too good not to flag. Literary cartography rocks.
Apr 29th
2 tags
“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a...”
– Words to write by. - William Strunk The best advice for would-be writers: make every word tell. And read Strunk and White’s The Elements Of Style. (via stoweboyd)
Apr 29th
18 notes
4 tags
Apr 29th
134 notes
4 tags
Behavior Change as Value Proposition →
The primary characteristic of our new, pervasively connected world is the ability to collect data passively (think Runkeeper or Mint.com) or with minimal effort required (Foursquare). And not just collect the data, but present it back—via feedback loops and visualizations—in a meaningful way to the user. These are smart products that have personalized intelligence about our behavior.
Apr 28th
1 tag
Black-Scholes: The maths formula linked to the... →
The impact of a formula and our (I.e. human) inability to operationally grasp the nature of risk is a volatile recipe.
Apr 28th
Interview: John Robb | TechCrunch →
Global guerrillas (the blog and the book, Brave New War) is about open source warfare and systems disruption. Open source warfare is a new form of guerrilla warfare that works exceedingly well in the modern, connected environment. It’s loose and highly effective. It worked in Iraq during the insurgency and in Tunisia/Egypt to topple dictators. Systems disruption is about taking sabotage to a new...
Apr 28th
3 tags
We Are The Porn Generation « Thought Catalog →
Even if you aren’t a teenage boy, I’ll bet that you were exposed to some pornography today. You can stop sweating; I’m not talking about erotic films (at least not necessarily). I mean the concept of pornography, at the simplest level. When broken down, what pornographic films do is take the most arousing parts of regular films (i.e. the sex scenes) and have those parts comprise the main content....
Apr 28th
2 tags
How Watson Works - semanticweb.com →
smarterplanet: Ivan Herman recently offered some insight into how Watson actually works. Herman reports, “I was at Chris Welty’s keynote yesterday at the WWW2012 Conference. His talk was on Jeopardy/Watson and, although this is not the first time I heard/saw something on Watson, some things really became clear only at his keynote. Namely: what is really the central paradigm that made the...
Apr 28th
15 notes
2 tags
“Facebook has close to a billion active users, but it makes a remarkably tiny...”
– What if Facebook isn’t so special after all?  (via courtenaybird)
Apr 28th
60 notes
1 tag
The Golden Ratio Otherwise Known as Feng Shui |... →
Despite its perception in the West, Feng Shui does not involve mythology. Perhaps because of the manner it is talked about and presented, Feng Shui often gets brushed aside as superstitious hoo-ha. However, at the core, Feng Shui is an approach to energy, not an expression of religion. Feng Shui, referred as “qi,” can be described as the energy that surrounds everything in the world. For the West,...
Apr 28th
Historic Photos From the NYC Municipal Archives -... →
The New York City Municipal Archives just released a database of over 870,000 photos from its collection of more than 2.2 million images of New York throughout the 20th century. Their subjects include daily life, construction, crime, city business, aerial photographs, and more. I spent hours lost in these amazing photos, and gathered this group together to give you just a glimpse of what’s...
Apr 28th
The Decline Of Android Foretells The Rise Of A...
Apple’s success is made possible by keeping things simple. This started with the iMac’s one-size fits all mentality. Steve Jobs and Co. correctly identified that the average consumer doesn’t care about specs but rather capabilities. The spec has been dead at Apple for more than a decade. Where Dell, HP and the others target the average computer shopper, Apple looks to sell to their parents. The...
Apr 28th
“The Data Journalism Awards shortlist has been announced today in Perugia at the...”
– The Data Journalism Awards full shortlist | News | guardian.co.uk
Apr 28th
“SOMETHING odd is happening at the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum (CAM), near...”
–  Government funding for the arts: Up in flames | The Economist
Apr 28th
3 tags
Apr 25th
72 notes
1 tag
Apr 25th
170 notes
1 tag
“Mathematics of Eternity Prove The Universe Must Have Had A Beginning ...”
– I am SO relieved to know this… Mathematics of Eternity Prove The Universe Must Have Had A Beginning - Technology Review
Apr 25th
2 tags
Apr 25th
906 notes