IdeaFestival

Water world orbits Gliese 581?

One of the worlds around Gliese 581 could be a water world, according to Centauri Dreams. If so the water could be turbulent, something like the cold of old ideas being reconsidered.

Wayne

When you listen to "The Moldau," do you really think about a stream?

Can you really tell what a musical tone poem is about just by listening? Take the quiz and participate in a Cognitive Daily experiment.

Wayne

Video: Bjarke Ingels - "Pleasing as a Radical Agenda"

Bjarke Ingels has developed a reputation for grand thinking at BIG, his architecture and design firm in Denmark.

In the latest IdeaFestival Conversation, he talks about "pleasing as a radical agenda", a lesson in human capital and exporting Copenhagen harbor water to China for the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

For film shot live during Bjarke's presentation in September, check out Keith Robbins' great video work. Thanks Keith!

Wayne

Von Braun, Mars

One of two identical rovers, Spirit captured this image earlier in April on the 1,871st Martian sol of its mission.

If you like planetary images as much as I do, bookmark the JPL Photojournal new images page, which frequently posts images from robotic missions. 

Wayne

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Your brain on Stereotypes: kind of quiet, really

The "book cover" can tell us something useful. It's the judging that takes a neural toll.

Scientists are finding that stereotypes are not simply stored and retrieved by the brain, but 'are associated with general regions in the brain involved in memory and goal-planning,' [assistant professor of psychology at New York University] Professor Amodio said, suggesting that 'people recruit stereotypes to kind of help them plan a world that’s consistent with the goal they might have.'

... Research [from Susan Fiske, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton,] suggests that those in low status register differently in the brain. 'The part of the brain that normally activates when you are thinking about people is surprisingly silent when you’re looking at homeless people,' she said. 'It’s kind of a neural dehumanization. Maybe we can’t bear the horrible situation they are in, or we don’t want to get involved, or we’re afraid we might get contaminated.'

But, she said, the neural response is restored when people are asked to focus on what soup the homeless person might like to eat, something that makes one think about the person as someone with wants or goals.

Wayne

Susan Boyle

Bruce Sterling: Can we still imagine effectively?

What is the new century's "grander narrative," and why has it thus far escaped designers and, to a greater degree, writers of science fiction?

Ending with the observation that "What we are really experiencing now is a massive cybernetic hemorrhage in ways of knowing the world," Bruce Sterling offers his thoughts on the failure of science fiction to account for a future that we're experiencing now. One reason:

The infrastructure of publishing constrains the thinking of writers. Obviously, all forms of art and design have some inherent constraints-but it seems to me that writers are especially misled by the apparent freedoms of language. Published language, in print, on paper, is not language per se: It’s an industrial artifact.

Writers cling hard to the word, to semantics, to meaning and sensibility. Design, by contrast, is less verbal. Design is busily inventing new ways to blow itself apart. Design is taking more risks with itself than literature. That is why contemporary design feels almost up to date, while literature feels archaic and besieged.

You'll have to read the other reasons for yourself.

Wayne

Wikipedia: Medium is the message

Bruce Sterling

There's an app for THAT?

Wired: Coming to the aid of archeologists and linguists, a computational tool used to map dynamic systems may have cracked one of the mysteries behind 4,000 year old symbols some believed were merely pictures from a long lost Indus Valley civilization.

The software may uncovered a previously unknown spoken language.

Wayne

Can social science save us?

When confronted with seemingly simple choices, people will often behave in surprising ways. Amusing. But when confronted with the scientific consensus linking human activity to global climate change, foggy, fated thinking could turn out to be a very costly diversion.

Decision making is serious business. New York Times, "Why Isn't the Brain Green?" talks about an interdisciplinary group of anthropologists, economists and psychologists that have come together to study complex decision making:

It isn’t immediately obvious why such studies are necessary or even valuable. Indeed, in the United States scientific community, where nearly all dollars for climate investigation are directed toward physical or biological projects, the notion that vital environmental solutions will be attained through social-science research — instead of improved climate models or innovative technologies — is an aggressively insurgent view. You might ask the decision scientists, as I eventually did, if they aren’t overcomplicating matters. Doesn’t a low-carbon world really just mean phasing out coal and other fossil fuels in favor of clean-energy technologies, domestic regulations and international treaties? None of them disagreed. Some smiled patiently. But all of them wondered if I had underestimated the countless group and individual decisions that must precede any widespread support for such technologies or policies. 'Let’s start with the fact that climate change is anthropogenic,' [Columbia business school's Elke] Weber told me one morning in her Columbia office. 'More or less, people have agreed on that. That means it’s caused by human behavior. That’s not to say that engineering solutions aren’t important. But if it’s caused by human behavior, then the solution probably also lies in changing human behavior.'

Wayne

Thou Cockered, Dizzy-eyed Scut! Or something like that

Today is Talk Like Shakespeare Day! All rejoice and banter the bard!  One of my favorite things to do with students is to teach them some fabulous Shakespearean insults. Some of my favorites:

"Thou Goatish, Fly-bitten lout!"

"Thou dissembling, hell-hated lewdster!"

"Thou villainous earth-vexing maggot-pie!"

Of course if you're aren't feeling particularly vicious and you'd rather say something nice, you could always woo someone with Shakespeare's famous lines of love:

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

"I love you more than worlds can wield the matter, Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty."

"Doubt that the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move his aides, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love."

And that, my dears is just a taste of why the man is THE Shakespeare.

Tina

Synesthete surveys, Network economics, Synchrony and stellar Civilizations

From feed reader to blog post, here is some linkage culled from NetNewsWire today.

• Paul Gilster: are we passing through a critical moment, a crossroads for the discovery of other civilizations?
• MacArthur's Spotlight on Digital Media: what about creating writers in the age of ubiquitous media?  
• A joint effort of a choreographer and Ohio State, a new data visualization project could be a great resource for dance.
• How will a flower grow in the microgravity of the moon? A business partnership wants to find out.
• These photos were not photoshopped.
• To grow artificial intelligence, feed it spam. I've been doing it for years.
• Quote from "Edge economist" Umair Haque: "Set up a torrent tracker, get fined, go to jail. Join a bank, destroy the economy, profit. Let's draw out the distinction." He does to make a point about 21st Century economics. Do networks always win?
• According to SEED, the first ever synesthete survey is being done.
• Financial Times: businesses should really experiment more. They could learn a lot from scientific method.
• Freakonomics suggests that macroeconomists might want to take cover.
• Scientific American: Like schooling fish, we have a deep need to coordinate. Synchrony may be built into the human brain.
• In their physical incarnations, can museums rival the most innovative web strategies?
• Can social science save the planet? Can we trick ourselves into saving ourselves?
• Has the culprit in colony collapse disorder been found?
• Finally, brains tweet.