Monthly Archives: June 2009

Gladwell Anderson Argument Misses the Point

Though the argument between Gladwell and Anderson is fun to read and stimulating it completely misses the point of why Anderson is wrong about Free and why the newspaper industry is having trouble. “Information wants to be free” doesn’t mean … Continue reading

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Indifference as an assumption is self-defeating

TechCrunch opines on the open government efforts and the pros and cons of being more open.  I’m troubled by this statement: Except there is one big problem: indifference. Most people will not do anything with that data. If we approached … Continue reading

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Media and Journalists Impact on Events

In the last couple of months we’ve had several high profile events (reporter escape, #iranelection, swine flu)  on the planet that demonstrate the direct influence the media has on events.  As much as journalists and media personnel attempt to be … Continue reading

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Real Time Search Challenges

Methinks the best experience will end up combining real time search with regular web search.  Yes, it’s nice to have unfiltered immediate information in certain situations like breaking news or emergencies.  Outside of that synthesis is essential to keep the … Continue reading

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In Free Will, It’s the Free that’s Problematic

So it’s not that will doesn’t exist; it’s that the free part is problematic — a lot of people see free will and say, “Well, you’re showing there’s no free will; therefore, people have no intentions or will.” No. There … Continue reading

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Media Created News

A nice example of how the 24/7 “news” cycle forces the media to generate news to fill in the blog posts and airwaves. Media personnel far outnumber the David Letterman protestors. Pretty hilarious picture.  Not so hilarious when this stuff … Continue reading

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Planet Collision Reports BBC … in 1 billion years … Unverified by Wolfram|Alpha

BBC reports on simulations run by astronomers suggesting we could see some planets collide in a billion years or so. What’s fun is that you can actually ATTEMPT to run these computations in Wolfram|Alpha.  Here’s mercury in 1 billion years. … Continue reading

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The Power of Wolfram|Alpha – Instant Primary Research

Investigating causal factors instantly is not only possible it’s GREAT! Check this graph out… think there’s a relationship? GM revenue vs US Carbon Emissions cool. very cool.

Posted in algorithm, decision theory, economics, education, science, truth, wolfram | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Making Associations Based on What Is Familiar

Whether it’s “valid” or not humans (and probably most animals) make associations of new, unknown things with similar-seeming known things.  In fact, this is the basis of communication. In the case of discussing new websites/services/devices like Wolfram|Alpha, Bing, Kindle, iPhone, … Continue reading

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