Monday, 24 October 2016
monocot
@neuroghetto
The excellent Neurocritic presents an updated and comprehensive survey of some really interesting, current independent blogs on the matters of psychiatry, psychology and the mind.
Although it’s more likely for algorithms to be the topic of conversation, we humans still do retain a skill-set, a problem-solving paradigm that can be mimicked but not wholly imparted since it’s not fully reducible to data or what’s trending: heuristics mean hunting around for a solution, experimenting and being dogmatic and intuitive when perfect, ideal results aren’t forthcoming. This is a very different strategy from the way machines think and as much and so long as computers may care to parse nuanced decision-making (the need to be convincing to a human audience would seem to have a limit that’s within reach and there’s no more need for pretending) and possibly, practically the one abiding mystery that human behaviour could secret away. This is the stuff of neuroscience. Browse through the different feeds and I’ll vouch for certain that you’ll find something to pique your interests.
Sunday, 23 October 2016
finn maccool or disunited kingdom
I appreciated the controversy that the outcome of the Brexit referendum had regionally for the United Kingdom, with a significant majority of Scotland and Northern Ireland voting to remain. I understood how the Scots might try again to declare independence and that Northern Ireland has the only land border with a European Union member, but did not realise just how thorny it was.
Not only is it an unpalatable prospect to have frontiers returned between the exclave of the UK and the Irish Republic and create obstacles to movement and trade, the Republic has extended the right of citizenship to any resident of the island in hopes of reconciliation and ultimate union after so many years of violence and animosity. So called Peace Lines partition sections of Belfast and Londonderry, cities still divided by sectarianism long after the wall came down in Berlin. What would it mean to the notion of dominion if seven out of every ten adults chose to see past historical difference and protest against very recent developments that don’t play their self-interests and trade their allegiances? I am not sure how Britain would react to a de facto reunification.
tiny hand
Though perhaps the attributing the pictured typeface sampler to its signatory would be wholly antithetical to those who’d champion the importance of good penmanship and the atrophying effects of typing all the time (the person behind this font is said not to be overly fond of computers, except for their ability to spew out hate-fuelled attacks against his opposition), but recognising the รฆsthetics of one US presidential contender’s handwriting (a little bit like Disney, superficially) one type founder (threats of legal action to follow) created a font out of it. The typeface can be downloaded here and is of course called Tiny Hand.
7x7
brettspiel: a look into the biggest international board game convention, held in Essen
big, no—huge: Brooklynites create a Zoltar-like fortune-telling machine (from the Tom Hanks’ movie) in the form of a vitriolic presidential candidate
it means heir to the kingdom: faced with slumping bookings one hotel and resort chain is rebranding itself as “Scion”
my name’s not baby—it’s Janet, Ms Jackson because you’re nasty: Weird Al Yankovic moderates a bizarro, musical version of the final presidential debate
mercator reflection: a tour of the stained-glass Mapparium of Boston that gives visitors perhaps a new global perspective
wind in your sails: sometimes swans will just coast along
enunciation: interesting and rather baffling test for prospective radio-announcers, with what was considered the standard and accepted pronunciation and stress at the time
extra, extra
As one popular social mediator is making it harder for the publishers of yellow journalism—the click-bait, catchpenny variety which ironically the internet giant fostered and prompted in the first place—makes it harder to gain a purchase within their walled-garden, some outlets are turning to celebrities—some prominent and popular ones with a following and some, well not so much—to shill for them. One can assume that the revenue gained by increased traffic out-weights what they pay for celebrity endorsement, but one can never be sure about this sort of economic model. What do you think? Would you unfriend someone for failing to disclose their financial arrangements so far as sharing what’s newsworthy goes?
legacy software
Corroborated with the US Government Accounting Office’s (GAO) annual report, the Simpsons have been vilified in accusing the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS, the tax authority) of operating the “slowest, punch-cardiest” computer in the government—at least, in one sense.
Those who work for the government have enjoyed heretofore some measure of job-security in knowing that their position is justified because different, entrenched systems cannot communicate with one another and need human translators—or at least water-bearers, but often it’s not the equipment, the hardware that’s wholly off life-cycle. Those laurels can be awarded to the nuclear defence platforms running on the same mainframes since inception and cannot be taken offline for updates and payroll systems. They may not be the most sophisticated but that does not necessarily mean that a system that goes on working for decades, with proper maintenance, ought to be overhauled for the sake of efficiency or intelligibility—since they are impervious to attack (at least the lazy, automated kind) and there might be an element of self-preservation in the programming, like the Voyager space probes exploring the Cosmos as our competent ombudsmen.
