May 2007
2 posts
The art of forgetting
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger on why computers (and us) need to forget: “In this article I suggest that we should revive our society’s capacity to forget. The first part describes how we have unlearned to forget, due to a combination of technological innovations and the ensuing changing economics of information technology. In the second part I critique three conventional responses to our digital...
Unbusiness and unconferencing
” Unconferences turn the plodding, predictable business gathering inside out. They’re a hybrid of a teach-in and a jam session, with a little show-and-tell mixed in, and they are attracting hundreds in cities like Austin, Tex., Bangalore, San Francisco, Sydney, and Tokyo. Unlike traditional, $1,000-a-head and up conferences, they’re totally unstructured—the agenda isn’t...
April 2007
9 posts
Literacy
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
Alvin Toffler
More on walking
“From time to time we are taken head-first from this room called ‘Art for All’ out and away, sometimes driven, sometimes drawn to breathe again amongst the people. We stroll with specialised embarrassment and our purpose is only to take the sunshine. the people are all living near to beauty, passing by. walking is the eternity of our living movement, it can never tell us of an...
Painting
You add paint so that you have something to remove later on.
Conceptual Change
Harold I. Brown: Sellars, Concepts and Conceptual Change. Paul Thagard: Conceptual Change. Joan Davis: Conceptual Change. Ingo Brigandt: Conceptual Role Semantics, the Theory Theory, and Conceptual Change.
The Art of Walking
The art of walking is to walk at the right speed, with the right tempo and with the right kind of problem to solve.
Edward Tufte, July 3, 2006
“There is a research design problem or a control group problem here: are we seeing cracked foam or inspections of cracked foam? Perhaps every launch of the 114 has had some foam debris shedding, and we’re only seeing small pieces and cracks now because the intensity of inspections has increased since the Columbia. Or maybe not.”
PowerPoint
Criticisms of PowerPoint continue to surface. Edward Tufte’s contribution is particularly sharp. PowerPoint: cognitive confusion or simply the wrong collection of models for communicating precise thoughts?
Grandaddy
The grandaddy of unlearning was, without a doubt, Descartes. But Paul Klee did quite a good job of it.
Buzz Words
Buzz words sneak up on you. Only later do you realise you were fooled into using them because they sounded cool. The problem is that they channel your thinking by providing the illusion that something has been identified, categorised and understood. This is basic rhetoric.