Displaying post 1 to 50 of 135
Correlative Analytics
-- or as O'Reilly might term the
Social Graph -- sort of mirrors the debate on 'brute force'
algorithmic proofs (that are "
true for no reason,"
cf.) in which "computers can extract patterns in this ocean of data that no human could ever possibly detect. These patterns are correlations. They may or may not be
causative, but we can learn new things. Therefore they accomplish what science does, although not in the traditional manner... In this part of science, we may get answers that work, but which we don't understand. Is this partial understanding? Or
a different kind of
understanding?" Of course, say some in the scientific community:
hogwash; it's just a fabrication of scientifically/statistically illiterate pundits, like whilst new techniques in
data analysis are being developed to help keep ahead of the deluge...
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 5:58 PM on July 21, 2008
(40 comments)
Women's rights: What's in it for men?
- "Women in rich countries largely enjoy gender equality while those in poor countries suffer substantial discrimination. This column proposes an explanation for the relationship between economic development and female empowerment that emphasises changes in the incentives males face rather than shifts in moral sentiment. Technological change that raises demand for human capital may give men a stake in women's rights."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 7:48 AM on June 29, 2008
(29 comments)
Project Genesis
- "It's destined to be the world's largest cruise ship—when launched next year, Royal Caribbean's US$1.24 billion
Project Genesis will be 1,180 feet long, and carry 5400 passengers (6,400 at a pinch). It's the most expensive ship in history, and it's longer, wider and taller than the largest ocean liner ever built, (
Cunard's QE II), 43 per cent larger in size than the world's largest cruise ship, (
Freedom of the Seas [previously]) and remarkably, bigger than any military ship ever built, aircraft carriers included. In a world where choice of amenities count, Project Genesis has yet another trump card—in the the center of the ship is a lush, tropical park which opens to the sky." cf.
The Lilypad
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 1:03 PM on June 24, 2008
(81 comments)
Thirty-six years after the
National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse recommended that "simple possession" of pot be decriminalised, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has
introduced a bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), to remove federal criminal penalties for possession of up to 100 grams (about three-and-a-half ounces) of marijuana and the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce (28.3 grams). Drug reform advocates
lit up hailed the legislation as "an important step toward bringing federal law into line with scientific fact, practical reality and public opinion." Is America, at long last, having a collective moment of sanity?
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 7:40 PM on April 20, 2008
(76 comments)
Speaking of speeches, David Eggers
delivers one at TED on grassroots community tutoring for kids who need help with their English homework: "There's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one on one, getting all this attention. They finish their homework, they go home -- they're finished. They don't stall. They don't do their homework in front of the TV. They're allowed to go home 5:30, enjoy their family, enjoy other hobbies, get outside, play and that makes a happy family. A bunch of happy families in a neighborhood is a happy community. A bunch of happy communities tied together is a happy city and a happy world, right? So, the key to it all is homework." Love him or hate him (
mefi consensus) it's a great example of
nervous energy microphilanthropy,
social entrepreneurship and, if I may make the connection,
machines of
loving grace. [
previously]
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 7:22 AM on March 23, 2008
(26 comments)
Dean Kamen's Artificial "Luke" Arm
- Segway inventor reinvents the prosthetic arm: "I've been able to do stuff with this that I haven't, seriously haven't, done in 26 years... uh, pick up a banana, peel a banana and eat it without it squishening... I can't wait to get one of these in a real environment, a home environment, and actually my wife can't either. She's going, oh yeah, I got lots of stuff for you to do."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 8:51 PM on February 19, 2008
(59 comments)
Proposition 1
-
Sound Transit & RTID:
Dan Savage is
for it ("I want 50 miles of light rail so bad, I don’t give a shit if they pave 180 miles with baby mice,"
sorta), while
the Sierra Club is
against ("It wants to support the Sound Transit/light rail portion of the ballot issue, but not the Regional Transportation Improvement District part, which seeks more money to expand and repair roads and highways").
On November 6, voters in Washington's King, Pierce and Snohomish counties
will decide.
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 5:15 PM on October 23, 2007
(37 comments)
A Kurdish-controlled Iraq?
The goal of human society, ibn Khaldun thought, was the development of culture and the sciences.
For a variety of reasons, namely "geopolitical reality," it'd never work, but a poli-sci friend of mine did call it "philosophically interesting and compelling even."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 6:01 PM on September 24, 2007
(30 comments)
Hillary Clinton as Lisa Simpson!?
Not sure if I put my finger on it, but that's my impression reading some excerpts from letters Hillary Clinton wrote to a high school friend whilst in college. I've been entertaining Barack Obama as Lincoln --
an impression he's
actively cultivated (so,
another Simpsons tie-in :) -- and I welcome
uncanned glimpses into candidates' formative years to get a better idea of their 'character' (as if they're running on character and 'bio') so it was great to read her reminisce on her childhood: "I'd play out in the patch of sunlight that broke the density of the elms in front of our house and pretend there were
heavenly movie cameras watching my every move."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 12:49 PM on July 29, 2007
(42 comments)
Clean water is a right:
"The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) published its annual
report on human development. It denounces the world's complacent disregard for such unglamorous subjects as standpipes, latrines and the 1.8m children who die each year from diarrhoea because the authorities cannot keep their drinking water separate from their faeces.
The study is both coldly analytical and angry..."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 11:11 AM on November 24, 2006
(18 comments)
Murder Update:
"Syria's Lebanese allies are trying to undermine the Hariri investigation from within, and are expected to escalate their efforts very soon, maybe even
this week."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 11:19 AM on November 21, 2006
(8 comments)
Plunging into the shadows:
"In
thinly traded, lightly regulated and untransparent markets,
the bold can make an awful lot of money—and
they can lose it on an even more extravagant scale... In today's caffeine-fuelled dealing rooms, a barely regulated private-equity group could very well borrow money from syndicates of private lenders, including hedge funds, to spend on taking public companies private. At each stage,
risks can be converted into securities, sliced up, repackaged, sold on and sliced up again. The endless opportunities to
write contracts on underlying debt instruments explains why
the outstanding value of credit-derivatives contracts has rocketed to $26 trillion—$9 trillion more than six months ago, and seven times as much as in 2003."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 6:39 PM on September 24, 2006
(27 comments)
Against
Pandas: "Pandas are endangered because they are utterly incompetent... Pandas are badly designed, undersexed, overpaid and overprotected. They went up an evolutionary cul-de-sac and it is too late to reverse."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 10:50 AM on July 2, 2006
(57 comments)
Before the Big Bang
-
way,
way out of my depth, but I thought this comment was intriguing: "The paper as published, along with a longer follow up paper, looks to my untrained eye a nearly complete quantum gravitation theory, which is an exciting prospect in itself. However, as with all physical theories, we will await for experimental support before popping the cork." Here's some more on
loop quantum gravity,
spin networks,
the big bang and
ekpyrosis.
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 7:25 AM on April 16, 2006
(18 comments)
The Logic of Diversity
"A new book,
The Wisdom of Crowds [
..:] by
The New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki, has recently popularized the idea that groups can, in some ways, be smarter than their members, which is superficially similar to
Page's results. While Surowiecki gives many examples of what one might call collective cognition, where groups out-perform isolated individuals, he really has only one explanation for this phenomenon, based on one of his examples: jelly beans [
...] averaging together many independent, unbiased guesses gives a result that is probably closer to the truth than any one guess. While true — it's the
central limit theorem of statistics — it's far from being the only way in which
diversity can be beneficial in problem solving."
(Three-Toed Sloth)
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 6:03 PM on June 20, 2005
(6 comments)
Outcasts in Their Own Villages
"More than one million young women with the condition are scattered throughout the so-called fistula belt that stretches across the southern hem of the Sahara from Eritrea to Mali. Because of their severe incontinence and smell, many have been ostracized by their families and villages and live by themselves or with fellow fistula sufferers. They are the lepers of the desert." [
also see]
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 9:12 PM on June 16, 2005
(15 comments)
Foreign Exchange TV
with
Fareed Zakaria - I'd heard about it, but thought it was
only showing on OPB; checked again and lo and behold all the episodes are online! Watched a couple episodes so far; they're pretty good, esp if you're into foreign policy and stuff :D
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 7:37 PM on May 26, 2005
(4 comments)
Earthly Empires:
How evangelical churches are borrowing from the business playbook - "The triumph of evangelical Christianity is profoundly reshaping many aspects of American politics and society... This year, the 16.4 million-member Southern Baptist Convention plans to 'plant' 1,800 new churches using by-the-book niche-marketing tactics. 'We have cowboy churches for people working on ranches, country music churches, even several motorcycle churches aimed at bikers', says Martin King, a spokesman for the Southern Baptists' North American Mission Board... Many of today's evangelicals hope to expand their clout even further. They're also gaining by taking their views into Corporate America. Exhibit A:
the recent clash at software giant Microsoft."
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless
at 9:46 AM on May 15, 2005
(35 comments)
