MetaFilter posts tagged with Knowledge

People Have Their Preferences

blasdelf — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:03:14 -0800

We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die — Umberto Eco "like[s] lists for the same reason other people like football or pedophilia"

State of berkelium (Bk) at 0° C and 1 atmosphere of pressure

netbros — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:30:47 -0800

Knowledge Score is a general knowledge quiz game. Categories include Art, Astronomy, Food and Drink, Geography, History, Literature, Movies, Politics, Music, Economics, Languages, Sports, Math and more. If you want to try out Knowledge Score without registering, use the "Play as guest" feature.

Are polymathy and general knowledge in decline?

Kattullus — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:20:04 -0800

Two articles from The Economist's Intelligent Life magazine about changes in knowledge production and acquisition, The Last Days of the Polymath by Edward Carr and Is Google Killing General Knowledge? by Brian Cathcart. The first deals with the implications of increasing specialization in all field of human activity and the second with whether people are not committing facts to memory because they are so easy to look up on the internet.

On College and Cubicles

Chinese Jet Pilot — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:46:09 -0800

The Case for Working With Your Hands.

In the boardrooms of Wall Street and the corridors of Pennsylvania Avenue, I don’t think you’ll see a yellow sign that says “Think Safety!” as you do on job sites and in many repair shops, no doubt because those who sit on the swivel chairs tend to live remote from the consequences of the decisions they make. Why not encourage gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country?

Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, big business and their own content.

bigmusic — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:27:19 -0800

Build a DIY non destructive book scanner for under $300. An open source OCR package. A gratis ebook creation tool. An open source ebook library management tool and reader. An open-source Linux distribution for eink-based devices. And many, many ebook readers.

How Do We Know What We Know?

netbros — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:18:30 -0800

For most of us, science arrives in our lives packaged neatly as fact. But how did it get that way? Science is an active process of observation and investigation. Evidence: How Do We Know What We Know? [HTML version, Flash version also available] examines that process, revealing the ways in which ideas and information become knowledge and understanding. In this case study in human origins, the folks from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology explore how scientific evidence is being used to shape our current understanding of ourselves: What makes us human—and how did we get this way?

Map of Science

homunculus — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:55:29 -0800

Knowledge, in Real Time. "A new picture of science — and possibly future innovation — comes into focus with the mapping of scientists’ online research behavior."

It's the Pew News IQ... Comin' right at you...

wendell — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:15:53 -0800

What's YOUR Pew News IQ? (not to be confused with the New Zoo Revue, even though it rhymes) We've discussed Pew's surveys about news knowledge before, but this time you can test yourself. Just 12 eeeee-zeee questions (not 100). Wendell got them all correct. Can you? Honestly, if you get more than 2 wrong, you should not be commenting on MetaFilter. But you should be reading MetaFilter and all its NewsFilter-ish links. Yes, I said it.

Yesterday, and Before

netbros — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:36:13 -0800

HistoryWorld is a general-knowledge website, designed for anyone above the age of about twelve with an interest in history. I found the site searching for dance history, but it includes 400 broad topics with more added all the time. It approaches history as a narrative, making full use of chronology. This is for the student as well as the researcher. 'What happened next?' is for all of us a fascinating question, and one of direct relevance. At the heart of history there is inevitably a sequence of events. We all know separate bits of history, of different places and times, but it is often extremely hard to relate them to what was happening in other subjects or in other parts of the world. This is one area where the internet has a distinct advantage over the printed word. Links are much more easily made online than in books. Through the medium of Timelines, linked to extensive background content, and interconnecting 'Tours through Time', HistoryWorld provides the user with the fabric of world history. If you know the broad subject you want to read about, you should probably go straight to the list of 400 Histories with 6000 selected events (amounting in all to more than a million words). The titles are arranged alphabetically. You can choose to read any History either in its Plain Text version (quicker to read, and you can print them out) or in Interactive form. In the Interactive version of the Histories you can link at a click to Tours (letting you travel fast through time on interconnecting trails) or to WhatWhenWhere (telling you what was going on elsewhere at the time you are reading about). The concept from the start was that HistoryWorld must be extremely interactive in its presentation and retrieval systems. It was also a central theme that the content must have a precisely focused index of the traditional kind, available to the user on every page, rather than relying on the erratic results of word searches.

When in Rome

hadjiboy — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:17:36 -0800

So, you're planning to take a trip around the world, are you? Well, in that case--you'll need to know a couple of things before you leave (in order not to offend the sensibilities of the local population). Let's see--suppose you're making your way through Azerbaijan for example, and your host happens to be a businessman who is about to embark on a journey to the city: what would you do to give him the appropriate send off? Would you:

a) Bid him farewell and shake his hand.
b) Dance in front of him and do a traditional jig that everyone else is doing in order to ward off evil spirits.
c) Throw a bowl of water in his wake.

Don't know, well, that's okay. Let's try another one, shall we? Let's say you're in Croatia this time and have been invited for dinner: Now, do you...

a) Finish all of the food on your plate to show how much you've appreciated the meal. b) Finish almost all of the meal and leave a little portion behind to show that you are finished. c) Finish almost all of the meal and leave a little portion behind to show that you'd like a second helping. Are we getting anywhere? Alright, alright: last question--I swear! Now, say you're in Indonesia and you need to buy gifts for your Chinese-Indonesian, Muslim-Indonesian, and Hindu-Indonesian friends: which one of these gifts would be advisable for whom?

a) A nice leather calf-skin wallet. b) An ancient Samurai Sword that you got for a bargain. c) A bread basket from Drake's that's just opened round the corner.

half-baked food for thought

Rumple — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 10:13:46 -0800

Sushi Science and Hamburger Science: I had always regarded science as universal and believed there are no differences in science at all between countries. But I was wrong. People with different cultures think in different ways, and therefore their science also may well be different. In this essay, I will describe differences I have observed between Western science and Eastern science. Let me start with a parable......

A Map of the Cat

Poolio — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 11:04:55 -0800

Richard P. Feynman { Information Junkie → PhD → Atomic Bomber → Professor/Lecturer on Physics + Mathematical Artist [DIY] + Nanotech Knowledgist → 33.3% Nobel laureate + QEDynamic Speaker + Tiny Machinist + Challenger of Conclusions + Best-Selling Writer –X– Busted [outside Tuva] → Star Trek TNG Shuttlecraft ↓ Pepsi Black/Blue ↑ U.S. Postage Stamp } ∞

Where to, guv?

szechuan — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:54:31 -0800

London prides itself on having the most highly trained cab drivers in the world. Black cab drivers (as opposed to their unlicensed minicab counterparts) must pass a gruelling test of local geography known as The Knowledge. Applicants take several years to master over 300 "runs" through London, and are often seen scouring the streets on mopeds with maps on clipboards as they prepare. Knowledge Boys (and Girls), as trainees are known, practise calling over the runs with "callover" partners (Forward, Orchard Street. Right Oxford Street. Comply Marble Arch...). Passing The Knowledge requires appearing before the Public Carriage Office multiple times before obtaining a license, and has been scientifically proven to grow the cabbies' brains, findings which could help those whose memories have been damaged by stroke or trauma. The Knowledge even forms the basis of a dystopian future religion in Will Self's The Book of Dave. Naturally, London's cabbies were incensed when the Immigration Minister recently referred to them as "low-skilled".

New age of ignorance

bobbyelliott — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 03:23:04 -0800

The new age of ignorance. A panel of well known (UK) scientists and artists are asked some basic questions about science. Except the questions weren't that basic (since when is the Second Law of Thermodynamics considered basic knowledge?) so the results weren't surprising... although some of the answers were amusing ("The sky is blue because the sea reflects on it."). The worrying thing is that the questions could have been much simpler ("How many planets are there in the Solar System?") and I suspect the results would have been much the same. Meanwhile, ignorance marches on.

Encyclopedia of Life

homunculus — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:15:24 -0800

The Encyclopedia of Life project will create a compendium of every aspect of the biosphere. It aims to compile data on all of Earth's 1.8 million known species on one Web site, and will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. E. O. Wilson is getting his wish. [Via BB.]

Your graduate research team in Guatemala - just checking in.

phaedon — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 11:24:00 -0800

Paleo-Future: A look into the future that never was. More recent predictions include the future according to AT&T, Apple's Knowledge Navigator and Bill Gates on the Future of Police Work.

People with lots of time have novel takes on Star Wars

nevercalm — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 07:18:03 -0800

Two new takes on the world of Star Wars: "The public choice economics of Star Wars: A Straussian reading"; and "A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope:Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III." Were the Jedi actually useless and powerhungry? Was R2-D2 the true hero of the rebellion? Most importantly, where do people find the time to come up with this stuff?

More free online courses!

loquacious — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 22:44:39 -0800

Do you love learning? I know you do. This might help keep you busy for a while.

But will I remember it tomorrow?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 16:48:05 -0800

I did not know this site yesterday.

Does it matter whether you think this is Best of the Web?

Gyan — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 22:49:20 -0800

Reviewing peer review.

Dropping Knowledge

divabat — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 20:49:31 -0800

On September 9th 2006, 112 of the world's writers, artists, activists, and social entrepeneurs (nominees here) will gather for a Table of Free Voices in Berlin, Germany, discussing questions about the important issues of today. Who provides those questions? You.

Piero Scaruffi is a normal person.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 11:38:59 -0800

Piero Scaruffi is a normal person. Like so many others, he ponders knowledge, language, and art from time to time. When he travels, he takes pictures. Just like everyone else. Sure, he has his thoughts about politics and world affairs, who doesn't? And when he's done with all of this he just wants to rock. Exactly like you. See?

Free Learning

foraneagle2 — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:11:59 -0800

MIT World (not the same as OpenCourseWare). And don't miss LSE, CMU, and Connexions. Still bored? Don't forget ResearchChannel, Vega, and Wikiversity. Do you care for psychology, biology, geology, or math? Or maybe you prefer journals, papers, textbooks, or podcasts? Knowledge is useful and wonderful.

persuasive guessing

amberglow — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:35:07 -0800

Your Guess Is as Good as Mine --by Kurt Vonnegut (it's an excerpt from his new book)

terrorism knowledge base

ab3 — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 14:14:37 -0800

we may not know where they are - but here's where they've been... An incredible amount of information - current and historical - well indexed and with about a billion options for searching through it. pretty impressive for what is at least unofficially a quasi-federal government site despite protestations to the contrary.