Parsimony

Saturday, June 08, 2013

Who rules ?

Wisdom of the crowds is not through gamification. Gamification produces intelligence of crowds and doesn't assume highly informed crowds.

Governing decisions for large societies :

Can't be by individuals who presume to know everything.

Can't be by small groups of people with specialized information.

Best bet seems to be through complex interlocked systems. Are we informed enough to traverse this system and empowered enough to appeal for changes in the system.

How do we leave it all up to business-people , who by definition have a narrow focus on gains for the few ?

--
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious" - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Reactions to change

Plantos miros - grows tall , offers dependable shade , flowers rarely , copes with changes fairly well but doesn't morph itself to adapt.

Plantos morphos - changes with age and environment showing visibly new features , more seeds and new branches.

Plantos stuntos - don't show signs of maturity, flower regularly as long as things don't change around them, need support.

If they had free will, and were rational would there be just one type ?

Morphos seems very successful , is it really ?

Or is it just losing itself everytime it changes. Wouldn't you want to shelter the morphos in the shade of miros - if you were the gardener.

--
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious" - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Friday, June 07, 2013

via goodreads

In a graveyard in Mississippi
Lie the bones of a woman I loved
And those of a man I did not,
Though I am more like him than her.

Down a paved road off the federal highway
Slicing diagonally from Mobile,
The road turns sharply as if
It was meant to dead end.

But as if someone moved the gates
The road bends goes on precisely south
While the sun goes west away from the graves.

Marble benches wait through the undisturbed dust
For me to stop to pick sand spurs from my dress socks
And prick my fingers and remember I am alive.

While under clumps of low growing weeds,
Neat green grass and bare spots
These dead people rest in a Mississippi summer quiet,
As they do in winter beneath a midnight ice storm.

Dead, yes, they are dead,
But I am alive and they are why I am so.
They keep us, our families, ourselves alive.

I wonder if in a few years when I am dead,
Ashes tossed in the Mississippi,
Will I hold anyone connected or only be dust,

Forever blown about where the delta turns to sea?

Saturday, June 01, 2013

Inbox has gone google again

We get a lot of different types of email: messages from friends, social notifications, deals and offers, confirmations and receipts, and more. All of these emails can compete for our attention and make it harder to focus on the things we need to get done. Sometimes it feels like our inboxes are controlling us, rather than the other way around.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-new-inbox-that-puts-you-back-in.html?m=1

--
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious" - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)