Thursday May 31, 2007
Synaesthesia, tetrachromats, and auras.
Neurophilosophy has a post about synaesthesia, plus a link to a paper, which make clear that this phenomenon is genuine.
Tuesday May 29, 2007
The cyber attack on Estonia
A Guardian report analyses the apparent cyber-attack on Estonia this month.
Monday May 28, 2007
Two articles on modelling.
One misplaced polemic, and one interesting statistical analysis of 'long tails' which offers a statistical demonstration that search engine algortihms are biased.
Sunday May 27, 2007
On the simulation or representation of spaces
I spent Thursday evening drawing the South Bank Centre as part of a BTEC project on the representation of places, and thinking about the role of art in an urban environment and in my own life.
Friday May 25, 2007
told you so....
Grateful to Marc Garrett for drawing my attention (via the Netbehaviour mailing list) to Hasan Elahi, who after a brush with the FBI has put his entire life on his website. (The story was also carried on O'Reilly Radar last year.)
Monday May 21, 2007
Magical thinking in the Home Office.
Interesting repot on the BBC of Home Office proposals that "Council staff, charity workers and doctors could be required by law to tip off police about anyone they believe could commit a violent crime."
Sunday May 20, 2007
Simulation game business models: micropayments vs subscriptions
My sons have recently started playing War Rock, which has a what it claims is a new business model: basic level free, plus micropayments for enhancements.
Millennium Challenge 2002 - how not to do an exercise.
A recent book reminds me of a simulation that went badly wrong, forcing the users to change the rules half-way to 'prove' their point.
Saturday May 19, 2007
Visual Illusions
The 2007 Best Visual Illusion Contest produced some interesting finalists.
Group analysis, the collective unconscious, the Nazis, and modelling
A lecture by Gerhard Wilke last night opened up several ideas about mechanisms underlying our psychic life as groups or nations, in rational (ie model-able) terms.
Saturday May 12, 2007
On illusion.
Some examples recently of the way our minds or perceptions can be mistaken. All renderings of visual events are in fact 'simulations' - there is no objective perceptual truth, or if there is it is scarcely relevant to human life. Art often has a role in exposing or using perceptual assumptions.
Tuesday May 8, 2007
What the TJX problem might reveal about modelling/ search software.
Exceptional posting on Financial Cryptography about the TJX data theft reveals some of the underlying errors in our approach to software - which I suspect apply just as much to data search, analysis and modelling software.
Friday May 4, 2007
Information and prediction.
Just found an essay on CTheory by Samuel Nunn, who argues that 'information feeds' to counter-terrorism are raising false hopes. An eloquent re-statement of what I was trying to say here.
Wednesday May 2, 2007
Get a First Life
Rather nice one-page parody of Second Life on the WWW, by Darren Barefoot..