“It was a trivial problem … … that occurs every year,” Bethlehem police Lt-Col Khaled al-Tamimi told Reuters. “No one was arrested because … … all those involved were men of God,”
Entries from December 2011
Trivial?
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December 28, 2011 at 3:51pm
by Psybertron
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The KM / IM Debate
1
December 28, 2011 at 3:24pm
by Psybertron
I don’t really see any worthwhile debate – the buzz of turf-wars may keep the subjects in the headlines, but there is no definitional problem not already adequately sorted by the data > information > knowledge > wisdom stack. (Thanks to David Gurteen’s tweets prompting this post.) Anyone with strong allegiance to any one part [...]
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Mobile McLuhan
3
December 28, 2011 at 10:31am
by Psybertron
Piece by Peter Benson in Philosophy Now (posted on Facebook by ex-MoQer David Morey) – Marshall McLuhan on the Mobile Phone. Unsurprising to find McLuhan on the money when it comes to the social effects of our communications age but, for me, a couple of interesting points on value and memetics. Print is the technology [...]
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Scientific Inbreeding
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December 28, 2011 at 9:08am
by Psybertron
Scientism is a problem, but this is scary – scientists being encouraged to date other scientists.
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The Wrong Boson
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December 22, 2011 at 11:35am
by Psybertron
Interesting, after all the press buzz last week about possible hints and indications that might suggest the speculative Higgs Boson (all designed to sell Cox’s book in time for Christmas no doubt), that this week the paper published indicates a new “Chi_b(3P)” boson, whatever that is. What is really interesting, given yesterday’s post about the [...]
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Bad Scientism, a Messy Business
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December 21, 2011 at 1:55pm
by Psybertron
I read this Ben Goldacre piece a couple of weeks ago. The problem one always has to ask is … is this kind of bad science accidental or in some sense deliberate – a skilled incompetence either by the practitioners or their managers / editors / reviewers, or both in a kind of tacit collusion. [...]
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Attacking @georgegalloway ?
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December 21, 2011 at 9:52am
by Psybertron
George, can you provide example(s) of where “eulogies” for Chris Hitchens also attacked you ?
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Objective Management
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December 20, 2011 at 9:42am
by Psybertron
Interesting after the piece earlier via David Gurteen on subjectively assessed management metrics to hear this W Edwards Deming quote again (also via David) Eliminate numerical quotas, including Management by Objectives.
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Boeing vs Airbus
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December 20, 2011 at 9:29am
by Psybertron
Interesting having posted twice about the Air France A330 disaster (including just yesterday) to see this Slashdot story (via Johan on Facebook) about a Quantas A330 problem around the same time, 3 years ago. The comment thread is interesting, kinda reinforces my comment of yesterday: A. … the number of [computer bug] accidents will likely [...]
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Scary AF447 A330 Crash Report
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December 19, 2011 at 6:05pm
by Psybertron
I blogged this link the day the story came out, to Facebook and/or Linkedin, but of course that doesn’t preserve it in my database, so I’m repeating it here. What is really scary is not the persistent pilot error: The inexperienced co-pilot may well have been disorientated or even in some kind of “personal mental [...]
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Privilege
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December 16, 2011 at 12:21pm
by Psybertron
Been re-reading a number of “anthropic” pieces – prompted subconsciously I suspect by the death of Christopher Hitchens raising the god vs rationality debate in my mind again. And looking back at the Paxman / Hitchens interview from a year ago; Paxman suggesting that Hitchens own anti-theistic atheism is so dogmatic, it too is (was, sadly) a [...]
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The Value of a Death
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December 14, 2011 at 5:33pm
by Psybertron
@GeorgeGalloway Contrasting two posts today. This morning George Galloway tweeted his cynical disbelief that the execution of a Saudi woman yesterday for “sorcery” had gone unreported in mainstream (BBC) news. (He was right, it was easy to find reports elsewhere, even CNN, but it didn’t show up in BBC news searches.) Again whatever the morality of [...]
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Contacting the Sweet Spot
2
December 14, 2011 at 4:59pm
by Psybertron
Never been a fan of management metrics – it’s all too easy for lazy managers to measure what is easy to count, and not deal with what really matters. Even Einstein said “not all that counts can be counted”. However this Forbes piece by James Slavet nails five valuable “metrics” worth assessing subjectively – starting [...]
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Specialization
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December 13, 2011 at 1:18pm
by Psybertron
Succinctly summarised by Kenneth Williams back in 1987. (On Aspel btw, not Parky)
No Students Were Harmed
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December 8, 2011 at 12:03pm
by Psybertron
In the making of this film. MML The Movie created as a promo for Modern & Mediaeval Languages at Cambridge Uni. Good to see the old lanes and backs, but also to realize I recognized most of the quotes. Thanks to Andy Martin’s blog Ink. Most recent quote – Steve Pinker: Time flies like an [...]
Lynn Margulis
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December 6, 2011 at 3:40pm
by Psybertron
Died a couple of weeks ago, though I didn’t notice until I saw the pieces in the current edition of The Edge. I like Dawkins comment: I greatly admire Lynn Margulis’ …. Â theory that the eukaryotic cell is a symbiotic union of primitive prokaryotic cells. This is one of the great achievements of twentieth-century evolutionary [...]
Forget the Facts
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December 6, 2011 at 2:46pm
by Psybertron
More good advice from Peter Drucker (via HBR and David Gurteen again). Facts can always be made to fit, so better to understand subjective differences of opinion.
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Phantom Limbs
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December 6, 2011 at 9:06am
by Psybertron
Lots of examples in Sacks, and in Ramchandran and in Damasio if I recall. (Ram is mentioned in the story in fact.)
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Scientific Denial
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December 5, 2011 at 3:53pm
by Psybertron
Amazing that so many scientists are reported as denying Darwinian evolution. Steve Jones in The Telegraph. The growing tide of fact‑denial is a statement of failure, not by students but by their teachers, up to and including those at university level. We do our best, I think, but faced with schools or faith groups that [...]
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Hunter Gatherer Diet
5
December 5, 2011 at 11:42am
by Psybertron
Impressive case. “Minding Your Mitochondria” – Large quantities, but minimal grain or pulse-based carbohydrate. Thanks to Dave Gurteen for reposting Robert Paterson’s blog.
