Nice article linked by Johnnie Moore. A New Yorker article by James Surowiecki, via Rob May (Business Pundit) whose subscription newsletter I really must read more closely and often. You can see my comment on Johhnie’s post, but this is another cause vs explanation confusion, where attributing cause looks like reason, but is really just [...]
Entries from August 2006
Attribution – The Fatal Flaw
7
August 30, 2006 at 3:04am
by Psybertron
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The Hedonistic Imperative
0
August 28, 2006 at 5:21am
by Psybertron
Not really evaluated what HedWeb has to offer, but looks interesting. Link via a set of cross-hits.
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Engineering at the Dawn of Time ?
0
August 25, 2006 at 2:47am
by Psybertron
Terry Bristol, Director of ISEPP (University of Oregon) introduced the concept of reality as Engineering into the Friends of Wisdom environment, which caught my imagination, because I’m an engineer and came to this space through engineering. (Notice, Linus Pauling and Bob Ulanowizc connections BTW.) And, having been inflicted by Pirsigian Metaphysics of Quality before noticing [...]
Hire Vint Cerf & then redesign TCP/IP ?
2
August 21, 2006 at 4:46am
by Psybertron
One down one to go ? Actually a fascinating planning whiteboard from Google, which probably says more about the “playful” working style at Google than any specific plans. [via Robot Wisdom]
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Evidence-based Fascism
0
August 21, 2006 at 4:34am
by Psybertron
Ben Goldacre, over at the Grauniad-based “Bad Science Blog” does a good job exposing pseudo-scientific tosh. Anyone who cites Deleuze and Guattari as their main references and uses “fascist” as an adjective to describe ” evidence-based [science]” is on a hiding to nothing, though to be fair Dr David Holmes et al (Ottawa and Toronto) [...]
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No Takebacks
0
August 21, 2006 at 3:29am
by Psybertron
Nice one from Tim Kreider (16th August) who has been on hiatus since early July. Planethood; Nationhood; whatever next ? The historical taxonomic angle appeals to me.
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More on Muse
0
August 20, 2006 at 5:17pm
by Psybertron
Great to see growing recognition for Matt Bellamy’s band. [Official][Fans Microcuts][BBC Band Bio][Scotsman Interview] [Previous][Previous][Previous]
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Myxobacter & Emergence
13
August 14, 2006 at 12:59am
by Psybertron
The example of the “myxobacter” species of bacteria was used in a presentation I saw a couple of years ago at David Gurteen’s 3rd Knowledge Management Conference, at which David Snowden’s management of complexity was a main theme. [Blogged earlier]. I couldn’t be sure who’s presentation it was and I was unable to track down [...]
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Rand’s Evolutionary Psychology
1
August 13, 2006 at 11:56pm
by Psybertron
It’s about time I finished off my Randian piece from earlier. I’ve finished reading ”Atlas Shrugged” a few days ago. Actually I gave up about 300 pages from the end (of 1000), after Galt’s speech to his “troops” in their secret Utopian Atlantis, and could only bring myself to skim the rest including his speech to his [...]
God’s Country ?
4
August 13, 2006 at 8:31pm
by Psybertron
Times are a’changin’, but there is a generalised perception of Americans as somehow ignorant of of global ecological issues, and politically / geographically insular where their direct energy resource interests are not involved. Generally speaking I’m more interested in the perception than the presumption that it might in fact be true or worse still, some “evil [...]
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Details of Republished Lila
2
August 12, 2006 at 1:05am
by Psybertron
Here at Alma Books, with a new photo of Pirsig. [Link via Ant McWatt]
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Talking of Muse
1
August 9, 2006 at 2:24am
by Psybertron
The Positively Pirsig post below referred to an upcoming book by David A Granger of SUNY. David Harding posted a link on MoQ-Discuss to a David Granger paper on Dewey and Pirsig published on the scholarly journal site “Project Muse”. Turns out to be an excellent paper. Right to the point about Pirsig‘s indirect teaching [...]
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Muse in Atlanta
1
August 9, 2006 at 2:03am
by Psybertron
Saw Muse on Sunday night at the Tabernacle in Atlanta. (Was due to see them last weekend in Chicago too, but Tornado weather meant our 500 mile flight to O’Hare was delayed, cancelled, re-routed and re-scheduled via Dallas and Des Moines took 32 hours and an overnight stoppover, so I missed the gig.) Their Atlanta [...]
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Game Theory
0
August 8, 2006 at 3:20am
by Psybertron
Even the simplest games have strategy, but they are nevertheless psychological, about guessing the level of your opponents imperfect knowledge of the strategy. Via the BBC’s 100 Things page [via Rivets] Aha, and here is the Scoville Chilli Scale. Didn’t that story originally indicate the hottest natural Chilli’s were grown on a farm in the [...]
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Positively Pirsig
2
August 5, 2006 at 5:03pm
by Psybertron
Ant tipped us off that Robert Pirsig had been interviewed for the times to coincide with the re-release of Lila in the UK, and the upcoming publication of David Granger’s book “Dewey, Pirsig and the Art of Living“. Here is the Times Online article by John Freeman. Excellent optimistic interview ““I think this philosophy could [...]
Let’s Roll
2
August 3, 2006 at 2:30am
by Psybertron
A riveting read, the recordings and transcripts from the Norad Tapes (North-East US Air Defence) during the 9/11 attacks, annotated by Michael Bronner producer of the movie “United 93″. Truth is so much better than fiction or spin in this case. Should leave conspiracy-theorists with little doubt about cock-up-realities. Restores your faith in humanity, all [...]
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Out Damned Spam !
0
August 2, 2006 at 1:23am
by Psybertron
Upgraded to WordPress 2.0.5 yesterday and installed Akismet comment-spam-killer today. And it all seems to be working. Long overdue, I was running at 70 odd per day, and it was getting very tiresome to filter by hand before allowing comments through. One observation on the arrangement, I use WordPress s/w from WordPress.ORG hosted at Dreamhost.COM, [...]
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Tennis, Elbow, Foot #3
2
August 1, 2006 at 3:11am
by Psybertron
Following links in no particular order … I noted Pirsig location links in Chicago at the weekend (Navy Pier etc.) and also noticed the Adler connection – the Adler Planetarium specifically, and wondered at the Robert Maynard Hutchins / Mortimer (Jerome) Adler “great books” and classical philosophy connection behind Pirsig‘s nemesis at that Chicago University [...]
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Is EvoPsych Bullshit ?
0
August 1, 2006 at 2:54am
by Psybertron
Couldn’t resist a cross-link to Intellectual Whores. Plenty of irony and humour in the site, but I daren’t stick my neck out and suggest this piece is a spoof. Serious or spoof it highlights the excluded middle. Evolutionary psychology may explain how all real life (above and beyond theoretical physics and repeatable laboratory experiments) actually [...]
