Interesting:
I was recently asked why I used the term “emergent” in a statement on development in the central nervous system. I thought it the right word in fit, form and function but preceded to look it up in several references works to hone in on it best use. What I found was something [...]
Archive for May, 2008
Game Show Problem, a common problem
Posted in analysis of behavior, data mining, economics, science, speculation, tagged chance, gambling, game show problem, odds, probability, uncertainty on May 29, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The Ask Marilyn column in Parade magazine featured this question and answer in 1990 and 1991. It received over 10,000 responses and over 1000 from PhDs. Can you solve it and do you think Marilyn is right? (yes, this is an old topic but I just encountered it for the first time )
Suppose [...]
Fixed Action Patterns and Cellular Automata
Posted in Computers, analysis of behavior, automata, cellular automata, data mining, decision theory, economics, tagged automata, fixed action patterns, higher order automata on May 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
It appears likely that cellular automata, even elementary CAs, can model Fixed Action Patterns. This is a potential area of study for me. However, my gut suggests this won’t be all that interesting in of itself. Now by cobbling together a handful of Fixed Action Patterns in the form of a CA model we might get [...]
No Absolute Knowledge?
Posted in analysis of behavior, philosophy, politics, science, time, tagged ascent of man, bbc, jacob bronowski, knowledge, video on May 28, 2008 | 2 Comments »
and more where that came from here.
and even more to investigate. (not Bronowski)
Sidetracked By Tools
Posted in analysis of behavior, science, tagged get er done, getting it done, procrastination, research, sidetracked, spinning the drain on May 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A reflection on what happens so much in technology, science and, even, art.
In technology we get “sidetracked by [our] tools–like a sculptor who spends all day sharpening her chisels but never sets one to marble, or a novelist who spends all day fiddling with the fonts in his word processing program.” – from a piece [...]
Arrow of Time
Posted in analysis of behavior, philosophy, science, time, tagged arrow of time, cosmology, paradox of time, time, time flies on May 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Funny timing. Yesterday I wrote about our use of time cliches. This morning I finally opened my latest issue of Scientific American. Yup, there’s a lead article about the asymmetry of time (runs only forward). It asks this question:
“The basic laws of physics work equally well forward or backward in time, yet we perceive time to move [...]
TPM will not end game piracy
Posted in analysis of behavior, economics, media, video games, tagged atari, atari founder, drm, tpm, trusted computing, video games on May 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
ADDED 12:30PM: TPM – Trusted Platform Module – it’s a hardware based cryptology
ADDED 11:45AM: I wanted to share a decent, but somewhat technical, research paper on downloading behavior.
“The SCT view of media behavior suggests that the expected positive and negative outcomes of downloading are important initial causes of behavior. The expected outcomes that users experience [...]
Time Flies When You Are…
Posted in analysis of behavior, tagged cliche, events, rate of change, relativity, time, time flies on May 26, 2008 | 2 Comments »
This morning laying in bed I was thinking about time, as I often do.
In common language, we talk about time as something unto itself. Time marches on, time flies, where has all the time gone… We all know what we mean when we say and hear those cliches, however, “time” does not really fit. Time [...]
