Being "always on" is being always off, to something.
Honest Signals
Topic: Science
7:33 am EDT, Oct 1, 2008
Sandy Pentland:
How can you know when someone is bluffing? Paying attention? Genuinely interested? The answer, writes Sandy Pentland in Honest Signals, is that subtle patterns in how we interact with other people reveal our attitudes toward them. These unconscious social signals are not just a back channel or a complement to our conscious language; they form a separate communication network. Biologically based "honest signaling," evolved from ancient primate signaling mechanisms, offers an unmatched window into our intentions, goals, and values. If we understand this ancient channel of communication, Pentland claims, we can accurately predict the outcomes of situations ranging from job interviews to first dates.
Pentland, an MIT professor, has used a specially designed digital sensor worn like an ID badge—a "sociometer"—to monitor and analyze the back-and-forth patterns of signaling among groups of people. He and his researchers found that this second channel of communication, revolving not around words but around social relations, profoundly influences major decisions in our lives—even though we are largely unaware of it. Pentland presents the scientific background necessary for understanding this form of communication, applies it to examples of group behavior in real organizations, and shows how by "reading" our social networks we can become more successful at pitching an idea, getting a job, or closing a deal. Using this "network intelligence" theory of social signaling, Pentland describes how we can harness the intelligence of our social network to become better managers, workers, and communicators.
Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?
Topic: Science
7:33 am EDT, Oct 1, 2008
Richard S. Lindzen:
For a variety of inter-related cultural, organizational, and political reasons, progress in climate science and the actual solution of scientific problems in this field have moved at a much slower rate than would normally be possible. Not all these factors are unique to climate science, but the heavy influence of politics has served to amplify the role of the other factors. Such factors as the change in the scientific paradigm from a dialectic opposition between theory and observation to an emphasis on simulation and observational programs, the inordinate growth of administration in universities and the consequent increase in importance of grant overhead, and the hierarchical nature of formal scientific organizations are cosidered. This paper will deal with the origin of the cultural changes and with specific examples of the operation and interaction of these factors. In particular, we will show how political bodies act to control scientific institutions, how scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions, and how opposition to these positions is disposed of.
BCNetWORKSHOP, trends and perspectives in complex networks
Topic: Science
7:33 am EDT, Oct 1, 2008
Ten years have elapsed since the publication of the celebrated paper by Watts and Strogatz on small-world networks. During this decade, the development of foundational aspects and methodologies set the grounds of complex network science, an interdisciplinary research area connecting Statistical Physics, Biology, Information Technology, Sociology, Economy, and others. Time has come to ask what have been the major contributions of this emerging field to prospect its future in perspective. We believe network science is now mature enough to start developing problem-solving ability and engineering and predictive power.
The spirit of this workshop is to stimulate researchers in complex networks and related areas to find new perspectives, trends, and applications that guarantee this headway. To this end, internationally recognized specialists will be invited to explain their current investigations and to discuss the expected progress of their research within the context of the field. The workshop will present as well selected contributions compliant with its purpose. An open colloquium session will also be organized where keynote speakers, participants, and committee members will have the opportunity to debate all together on the present situation of complex networks science and its outlook.
This exhibition features more than 20 health posters from the 1920s to the 1990s. Covering infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, gonorrhea, and syphilis, the posters come from North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
These posters provide insight into the interplay between the public's understanding of disease and society's values. They reflect the fears and concerns of the time and also the medical knowledge that was available. Considered an art form, many are beautiful and entertaining, but during their heyday, they sought to educate people on matters of life and death.
Public health took a visual turn about 100 years ago. In an era of devastating epidemic and endemic infectious disease, health professionals began to organize coordinated campaigns that sought to mobilize public and government action through eye-catching posters, pamphlets, and motion pictures. Impressed by the images of mass media that increasingly saturated the world around them, health campaigners were inspired to present new figures of contagion, and recycle old ones, using modernist aesthetics, graphic manipulations, humor, dramatic lighting, painterly abstraction, distortions of perspective, and other visual strategies. They devised a new iconography of contagion that emphasized visual legibility and the pleasure of the view.
The Invention of Air is a book of world-changing ideas wrapped around a compelling narrative, a story of genius and violence and friendship in the midst of sweeping historical change that provokes us to recast our understanding of the Founding Fathers.
It is the story of Joseph Priestley—scientist and theologian, protégé of Benjamin Franklin, friend of Thomas Jefferson—an eighteenth-century radical thinker who played pivotal roles in the invention of ecosystem science, the discovery of oxygen, the founding of the Unitarian Church, and the intellectual development of the United States. And it is a story that only Steven Johnson, acclaimed juggler of disciplines and provocative ideas, can do justice to.
In the 178 0s, Priestley had established himself in his native England as a brilliant scientist, a prominent minister, and an outspoken advocate of the American Revolution, who had sustained long correspondences with Franklin, Jefferson, and John Adams. Ultimately, his radicalism made his life politically uncomfortable, and he fled to the nascent United States. Here, he was able to build conceptual bridges linking the scientific, political, and religious impulses that governed his life. And through his close relationships with the Founding Fathers—Jefferson credited Priestley as the man who prevented him from abandoning Christianity—he exerted profound if little-known influence on the shape and course of our history.
As in his last bestselling work, The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson here uses a dramatic historical story to explore themes that have long engaged him: innovation and the way new ideas emerge and spread, and the environments that foster these breakthroughs. And as he did in Everything Bad Is Good for You, Johnson upsets some fundamental assumptions about the world we live in—namely, what it means when we invoke the Founding Fathers—and replaces them with a clear-eyed, eloquent assessment of where we stand today.
This rare glimpse into North Korean society is the first book of its kind: a riveting collection of state-sponsored propaganda posters that present the unique graphic sensibilities of this little-known country.
Seldom seen by the outside world, North Korea's propaganda art colors the cities and countryside with vibrant images of brave soldiers, happy and well-fed peasants, and a heroic and compassionate leader. More than 250 of these posters are collected here for the first time, showing the wide range of North Korean propaganda art. Hand-painted, one-of-a-kind pieces of art, these posters display the latest political slogans that are repeated in newspaper editorials, government declarations, and compulsory study sessions throughout the country. A unique collection which would appeal to artists and graphic designers as well as those interested in this closed society, this book may not represent the reality of North Korea, but rather a vision of the country as promoted by its regime and depicted by its state sponsored artists.
"It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity: it's a marketing hype campaign."
Ellison:
"The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"
