What do primordial bacteria, medieval alchemists, and the World Wide Web have to do with each other? This fascinating exploration of how information systems emerge takes readers on a provocative journey through the history of the information age.
Today's "information explosion" may seem like an acutely modern phenomenon, but we are not the first generation nor even the first species to wrestle with the problem of information overload. Long before the advent of computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives, Greek libraries to Dark Age monasteries.
Today, we stand at a precipice, as our old systems struggle to cope with what designer Richard Saul Wurman called a "tsunami of data." With some historical perspective, however, we can begin to understand our predicament not just as the result of technological change, but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand.
Spanning disciplines from evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology to the history of books, libraries, and computer science, writer and information architect Alex Wright weaves an intriguing narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the World Wide Web. Finally, he pulls these threads together to reach a surprising conclusion, suggesting that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past.
The patent system needs our help. The United States Patent Office is actively seeking ways to bring greater expertise to bear on the review of patent applications and ensure that only worthwhile inventions receive the patent monopoly. Currently, underpaid and overwhelmed examiners struggle under the backlog of applications. Under pressure to expedite review, patents for unmerited inventions are approved.
The Community Patent Review project seeks to create a peer review system for patents that exploits network technology to enable innovation experts to inform the patent examination procedure. In every field of scientific endeavor, peer review is a critical quality control mechanism to improve innovation.
The Community Patent Review project aims to design and pilot an online system for peer review of patents. By using social software, such as social reputation, collaborative filtering and information visualization tools, we can apply the “wisdom of the crowd” – or, more accurately the wisdom of the experts – to complex social and scientific problems.
For more information, please read the background paper: "Peer to Patent".
Muhammad is now second only to Jack as the most popular name for baby boys in Britain and is likely to rise to No 1 by next year, a study by The Times has found.
Zotero is an easy-to-use yet powerful research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources and lets you share the results of your research.
A Firefox extension, Zotero includes the best parts of reference managers ... and the best parts of modern software and web applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to interact, tag, and search in advanced ways.
Zotero integrates tightly with online resources; it can sense when users are viewing a book, article, or other object on the web, and — on many major research and library sites — find and automatically save the full reference information for the item in the correct fields.
Since it lives in the web browser, it can effortlessly transmit information to, and receive information from, other web services and applications; since it runs on one’s personal computer, it can also communicate with software running there (such as Microsoft Word).
One of America's great myths is that the US has always been isolationist, only rarely flexing its muscles beyond its borders.
Not so: in the first half of a two-volume study of American foreign policy, Robert Kagan argues that even in the colonial era Americans restlessly pushed westward.
At every turn, Kagan shows how a policy of aggressive expansion was inextricably linked with liberal democracy. Political leaders of the early republic developed expansionist policies in part because they worried that if they didn't respond to their clamoring constituents—farmers who wanted access to western land, for example—the people might rebel or secede.
Also provocative is Kagan's reading of the Civil War as America's "first experiment in ideological conquest" and nation building in conquered territory. He then follows American expansion through the 19th century, as the U.S. increased its dominance in the western hemisphere and sought, in President Garfield's phrase, to become "the arbiter" of the Pacific.
Kagan may overstate the extent to which contemporary Americans imagine U.S. history to be thoroughly isolationist; it's a straw man that this powerfully persuasive, sophisticated book hardly needs.
Despite its emphasis on "liberal" acquisitiveness and ideological righteousness as the molders of American diplomacy, the deeper theme running through this book has to do with the ways that power does not merely permit but actually defines foreign policy objectives. Kagan acknowledges that, as the United States acquired more power, it simultaneously acquired an "expanding sense of both interests and entitlement." What's more, "as perceived interests expanded, so did perceived threats and the perceived need for even more power to address them." As the nation grew more powerful, its dreams became desires; desires became necessities; necessities became imperatives; and imperatives led to empire -- in the fullest sense of the word. Power, in short, constitutes its own self-feeding perpetual-motion machine that relentlessly drives America's -- or any state's -- international behavior. And when a nation arrives at the point in its history when it believes itself to possess unmatchable power and harbors no doubts about the scope of its interests or the rightness of its cause -- when it represents an "armed doctrine," cocksure and implacable -- what dangers does it court for itself, as well as for others?
Sixty-one teenagers from across the Washington region descended upon Tysons Corner on a recent Saturday. And we were there to capture it all.
We wanted to learn how today's teens make their purchasing decisions, how they calculate value and how they figure out what's cool. These teenage volunteers, all between seventh and 11th grade, brought their own money, friends and sense of style. Some came with their parents; some with their parents' credit card. But all of them brought strong opinions about what they like — and what they don't.
More than a dozen staff members documented the shopping expedition through stories, photographs, audio and video. We gained insight into teen consumer psychology and the latest trends, but we also learned a lot about the teenagers themselves.
Psychologist Robert Epstein argues in a provocative book, "The Case Against Adolescence," that teens are far more competent than we assume, and most of their problems stem from restrictions placed on them.
This course provides a comprehensive and concise review of the neurosciences, with special emphasis on recent and important developments in the field. Topics include basic neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, neuroendocrinology, neurochemistry, and neurogenetics. The course is intended for clinical psychologists as well as graduate physicians and residents in neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.
Video, slides, and transcripts are freely available.
There are a few other seminars you might want to check out, as well:
In this e-seminar, Professor Oren Fuerst of Columbia Business School will provide an overview of the main methods of valuation and then demonstrate some of the adjustments that are typically necessary for early-stage technology companies or projects. The e-seminar includes video, audio with slides, case-study examples of valuation, and an interactive final exercise.
Professor Mikhail Smirnov's Mathematics of Finance is a two-part course on the basics of probability and finance. This course requires a solid understanding of calculus.
In the following lessons, we will explore the notions of derivatives, futures, and options, as well as theories of volatility, arbitrage, and hedging. We will describe and apply the Black-Scholes formula for pricing options and the theory of Brownian motion as it applies to calculating price and risk.
The nanoscale, just above the scale of an atom, is the place where the properties of most common things are determined. It is here that the disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering meet and conspire. In this e-seminar, Professor Horst Stormer magnifies the wondrous nano-world and reveals its enormous potential to shape our future.
