human made

This is a great article on a new directions for science research and publishing. From a guy who actually has been dealing with it for the last few years.

…pointing to the fact that we’re not taking enough advantage of technology is the success of the polymath projects in leveraging a distributed and open group of people to solve hard math problems by letting them easily collaborate on ideas for making progress. Certainly, this shows we can do better. People are solving hard math problems with global-scale collaboration and we’re still having arguments about whether it’s OK for organizations to be able to hide publicly-funded research behind paywalls.

Go read.

This is an old favorite, and every now again worth remembering explicitly.

The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I’m sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out ahead of us. We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us.

And no, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn’t involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of some day easing my fit into a mold. It doesn’t involve tempering my life to better fit someone’s expectations. It doesn’t involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up.

This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can:

FUCK.

THAT.

SHIT.

Thanks, XKCD. There is just no better way to say it.

I’m a bit late on this, but Bret Victor has a fantastic screed up about the recent “Future Vision” video that made the rounds not too long ago.

I call this technology Pictures Under Glass. Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade.

Is that so bad, to dump the tactile for the visual? Try this: close your eyes and tie your shoelaces. No problem at all, right? Now, how well do you think you could tie your shoes if your arm was asleep? Or even if your fingers were numb? When working with our hands, touch does the driving, and vision helps out from the back seat.

Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanent numbness. It’s a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our hands what they do best. And yet, it’s the star player in every Vision Of The Future.

(via Gruber)