- The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan
In 1961, the name of Marshall McLuhan was unknown to everyone but his English students at the University of Toronto--and a coterie of academic admirers who followed his abstruse articles in small-circulation quarterlies. But then came two remarkable books-- "The Gutenberg Galaxy" (1962) and "Understanding Media" (1964)--and the graying professor from Canada's western hinterlands soon found himself characterized by the San Francisco Chronicle as "the hottest academic property around." He has since won a world-wide following for his brilliant--and frequently baffling--theories about the impact of the media on man; and his name has entered the French language as mucluhanisme, a synonym for the world of pop culture.
in Public bookmarks - The Washington Monthly: Peak Oil Series
Excellent starting point foe all things peak oil
in Public bookmarks - These imponderables are here to encourage my students to think creatively and identify deep questions
Collecting "imponderables" or interesting unanswered questions is one of my hobbies and I list a bunch of questions here. I decided to put them on this web site to encourage students to think creatively and identify deep questions. But anyone is welcome to enjoy them. I know the answer to some of them, but many are open questions to have fun with. Maybe some can never be answered. The questions are also here to encourage interdisciplinary thinking. The most exciting scientific problems in the century following 2001 will require a multidisciplinary approach. A challenge: If you email me a really elegant answer or discussion to any of these questions, I will display your contribution on this page.
in Public bookmarks - wikipedia: Codex Seraphinianus
The Codex Seraphinianus is a book written and illustrated by the Italian architect and industrial designer Luigi Serafini during thirty months, from 1976 to 1978.[1] The book is approximately 360 pages long (depending on edition), and appears to be a visual encyclopedia of an unknown world, written in one of its languages, an incomprehensible (at least for us) alphabetic writing.
2009 april architecture articles asemic asimovs auto codex fiction from science seraphinianus statements unsourced with writing
in Public bookmarks by 3 users - wikipedia: Voynich manuscript
The Voynich manuscript is a mysterious illustrated book with incomprehensible contents. It is thought to have been written between approximately 1450 and 1520 by an unknown author in an unidentified script and language. Over its recorded existence, the Voynich manuscript has been the object of intense study by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including some top American and British codebreakers of World War II fame (all of whom failed to decrypt a single word). This string of failures has turned the Voynich manuscript into a famous subject of historical cryptology, but it has also given weight to the theory that the book is simply an elaborate hoax — a meaningless sequence of arbitrary symbols.
2007 2008 alchemic articles february from languages manuscript october priori search special statements unsourced voynich with
in Public bookmarks by 2 users - Wired 14.12: Me Translate Pretty One Day
Spanish to English? French to Russian? Computers haven't been up to the task. But a New York firm with an ingenious algorithm and a really big dictionary is finally cracking the code. With Carbonell on board, the new company set about building its Spanish system. Soon, however, Abir's peripatetic invention habits created conflicts. Klein, Carbonell, and the developers feared the company was losing focus. "Eli is a mad genius," Carbonell says. "Both of those words apply. Some of his ideas are totally bogus. And some of his ideas are brilliant. Eli himself can't always tell the two apart." Abir, determined to build a larger AI "brain" that would tackle not just MT but other problems, took little interest in the day-to-day engineering. Eventually he left the
in Public bookmarks - WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: What Happens When Things Get Free?
Chris Anderson - Mr. Long Tail, editor of Wired Magazine - makes a great decision here at Pop!tech: assuming that everyone in the audience has either read The Long Tail or knows the argument, he gives a different talk: “What Happens When Things Get Free?” (It covers much of the same ground as the book, but draws a different narrative through many of the same examples.) He starts with a photo of Dr. Carver Mead. Mead started thinking about what happens as semiconductors get cheap to the point where they’re free. The answer is, “you should waste them.” This insight led to VLSI - Very Large Scale Integration - chips that included thousands of transitors, not just single ones.
in Public bookmarks - YouTube: Marble adding machine in wood
Matthias Wandel's astounding wooding calculatory enigma. A woodworker turns his talents to binary mathematics via a cunning series of cats-eyes, clinkers and rounders. Plus many other marbled wonders: Woodgears.ca <<mathematics>>
My marble adding machine in action. More at http://woodgears.ca/marbleadd
marbles
in Public bookmarks - "The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race" by Jared Diamond
How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming? Until recently, archaeologists had to resort to indirect tests, whose results (surprisingly) failed to support the progressivist view. Here's one example of an indirect test: Are twentieth century hunter-gatherers really worse off than farmers? Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so- called primitive people, like the Kalahari Bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only twelve to nineteen hours for one group
in Public bookmarks - BBC: Health | Drugs may boost your brain power
Dramatic effect Dr Danielle Turner, of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Cambridge University, tested the drug out on 60 healthy volunteers. If, in the future, there are cognition tablets for exams and I wasn't happy for my children to take them, would I be disadvantaging them against those children that actually take them? Respondent to Academy of Medical Sciences study It did not just keep them awake. She found that the effects on their brains were much more dramatic. "We tested them two hours after they had taken a single dose of Modafinil and found quite strong improvements in performance, particularly when things got difficult," she said. "That was interesting - as problems got harder, their performance seemed to improve. With Modafinil the
bbc british foreign international news online service world
in Public bookmarks - Boing Boing: Artnatomy facial expression learning tool
The Flash interface enables you to visually explore how the movements of specific muscles contort our faces into emotional expressions <<medicine>> <<anatomy>>
in Public bookmarks - Co-evolution of neocortex size, group size and language in humans
Keywords Neocortical size, group size, humans, language, Macchiavellian Intelligence Abstract Group size is a function of relative neocortical volume in nonhuman primates. Extrapolation from this regression equation yields a predicted group size for modern humans very similar to that of certain hunter-gatherer and traditional horticulturalist societies. Groups of similar size are also found in other large-scale forms of contemporary and historical society. Among primates, the cohesion of groups is maintained by social grooming; the time devoted to social grooming is linearly related to group size among the Old World monkeys and apes. To maintain the stability of the large groups characteristic of humans by grooming alone would place intolerable demands on t
in Public bookmarks - Commercial Telegraphic Code Books
Code books were used in the era of telegraphs (from 1845 until well into the second half of the 20th century) to shorten telegrams, which were paid for by the word. These books, arranged like dictionaries, would list many useful phrases or even sentences, each with its corresponding code word. One sent the code words, and the recipient of the telegram would have to look up their meanings in his copy of the code book. This could save quite a bit of money on intercontinental telegrams, since the price per word on undersea cable connections was very high. (The word cable means both the actual telegraph cable layed on the ocean bed, and to a cablegram sent over via the ``submarine telegraph,'' and then, as a verb, to send a cablegram, as in ``the arrest warrant
in Public bookmarks - Damn Interesting: Project Babylon: Gerald Bull's Downfall
"Bull nearly single-handedly resurrected the science of supergun artillery" <military>
in Public bookmarks - David MacKay FRS Sustainable Energy - without the hot air: Contents
"For anyone with influence on energy policy, whether in government, business or a campaign group, this book should be compulsory reading." Tony Juniper Former Executive Director, Friends of the Earth "At last a book that comprehensively reveals the true facts about sustainable energy in a form that is both highly readable and entertaining." Robert Sansom EDF Energy "The Freakonomics of conservation, climate and energy." Cory Doctorow, boingboing.net "...a tour de force..." The Economist "... a cold blast of reality ... a must-read analysis..." Science magazine "...this year's must-read book..." The Guardian
in Public bookmarks - Dream Anatomy: Gallery
The interior of our bodies is hidden to us. What happens beneath the skin is mysterious, fearful, amazing. In antiquity, the body's internal structure was the subject of speculation, fantasy, and some study, but there were few efforts to represent it in pictures. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century-and the cascade of print technologies that followed-helped to inspire a new spectacular science of anatomy, and new spectacular visions of the body. Anatomical imagery proliferated, detailed and informative but also whimsical, surreal, beautiful, and grotesque — a dream anatomy that reveals as much about the outer world as it does the inner self.<<medicine>>
in Public bookmarks by 3 users - Edward Tufte: Posters and Graph Paper Napoleon's March
<<statistic>> <<mathematic>> Probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn, this map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812. Beginning at the Polish-Russian border, the thick band shows the size of the army at each position. The path of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in the bitterly cold winter is depicted by the dark lower band, which is tied to temperature and time scales. Exquisitely printed in two colors on fine archival paper, 22” by 15
Edward Tufte home page for books, posters, sculpture, fine art and one-day course: Presenting Data and Information
analytical beautiful design edward evidence graphi graphics information landscape minard powerpoint sculpture statistics tufte
in Public bookmarks - Gallery
Curvature Flow Starfish Melting Matisse Golden Lamination on the Hexagonal Torus Anosov slice More percolation(Julia Fish) Sierpinski carpet limit set Apollonian movie Cantor set and foliations Napoleon map Mandelbrot zoom movie
in Public bookmarks - How to Know When Ice is Safe - WikiHow
# Recognize that determining the safety of ice is dependent on a combination of factors, not on one factor alone. Ice safety is determined by assessing the following factors together: * Appearance of the ice - its color, texture and features * Thickness of the ice - there are recommended thicknesses for different uses, which are set out below * External temperature over a period of time and on the day * Snow coverage * Depth of water under ice * Size of water body * Chemical composition of water - whether water is fresh or salty * Local climate fluctuations * Extent of ice
Ice - deceptively beautiful Walking, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, ice fishing (with or without a car), cross-country skiing and playing sports are dangerous pastimes when you don't know how to tell if ice is thick enough to withstand weight. There are ways
abs avoid car escape from has hike ice know obstacle rescue safe safely sinking slippery someone surface when who without
in Public bookmarks - Information about machine translation, controlled language, translation standards.
You will find information about machine translation and translation software. In addition, you will find information about books about machine translation, controlled languages and translation standards.
contract controlled language muegge software standards translation uwe
in Public bookmarks
Copyright © 2003-2010 Netvouz. All rights reserved. |
RSS Feed
|
Blog |
Contact |
Terms of use |
Cookies |
Privacy policy
RSS Feed
|
Blog |
Contact |
Terms of use |
Cookies |
Privacy policy