ad-hoc sessions is the idea (which needs a better name) that we host single topic sessions every month or two online that the community can gather around and discuss.
It also may be worthwhile to do some regular WordPress set up sessions on a monthly basis the way we often do at camps.
Status-Seeking Monkeys
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of little fortune, must be in want of more social capital."
So wrote Jane Austen, or she would have, I think, if she were chronicling our current age (instead we have Taylor Lorenz, and thank goodness for that).
Let's begin with two principles:
People are status-seeking monkeys*
People seek out the most efficient path to maximizing social capital
* Status-Seeking Monkeys will also be the name of my indie band, if I ever learn to play the guitar and start a band
I begin with these two observations of human nature because few would dispute them, yet I seldom see social networks, some of the largest and fastest-growing companies in the history of the world, analyzed on the dimension of status or social capital.
stunning analysis of social networks as products: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service . many insights i’d never heard before. (beware though, almost 20k words!)
Jérôme Segal (Journal BIO Web of Conferences Volume 4, Page 00017, 2015; ORIGINS – Studies in Biological and Cultural Evolution)Developed during the first half of the 20th century, in three different fields, theoretical physics, statistics applied to agronomy and telecommunication engineering, the notion of information has become a scientific concept in the context of the Second War World. It is in this highly interdisciplinary environment that “information theory” emerged, combining the mathematical theory of communication and cybernetics. This theory has grown exponentially in many disciplines, including biology. The discovery of the genetic “code” has benefited from the development of a common language based on information theory and has fostered a almost imperialist development of molecular genetics, which culminated in the Human Genome Project. This project however could not fill all the raised expectations and epigenetics have shown the limits of this approach. Still, the theory of information continues to be applied in the current research, whether the application of the self-correcting coding theory to explain the conservation of genomes on a geological scale or aspects the theory of evolution.
[pdf]
The statistical definition of information is compared with Boltzmann's formula for entropy. The immediate result is that information I corresponds to a negative term in the total entropy S of a system.
S=S0−I
. A generalized second principle states that S must always increase. If an experiment yields an increase ΔI of the information concerning a physical system, it must be paid for by a larger increase ΔS0 in the entropy of the system and its surrounding laboratory. The efficiency ε of the experiment is defined as ε = ΔI/ΔS0≤1. Moreover, there is a lower limit k ln2 (k, Boltzmann's constant) for the ΔS0 required in an observation. Some specific examples are discussed: length or distance measurements, time measurements, observations under a microscope. In all cases it is found that higher accuracy always means lower efficiency. The information ΔI increases as the logarithm of the accuracy, while ΔS0 goes up faster than the accuracy itself. Exceptional circumstances arise when extremely small distances (of the order of nuclear dimensions) have to be measured, in which case the efficiency drops to exceedingly low values. This stupendous increase in the cost of observation is a new factor that should probably be included in the quantum theory.https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1721463
Neil Smalheiser (Journal Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. Volume 43. Issue 2. Page 217 - 226.)Walter Pitts was pivotal in establishing the revolutionary notion of the brain as a computer, which was seminal in the development of computer design, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and theoretical neuroscience. He was also a participant in a large number of key advances in 20th-century science. ❧
Because of the “all-or-none” character of nervous activity, neural events and the relations among them can be treated by means of propositional logic. It is found that the behavior of every net can be described in these terms, with the addition of more complicated logical means for nets containing circles; and that for any logical expression satisfying certain conditions, one can find a net behaving in the fashion it describes. It is shown that many particular choices among possible neurophysiological assumptions are equivalent, in the sense that for every net behaving under one assumption, there exists another net which behaves under the other and gives the same results, although perhaps not in the same time. Various applications of the calculus are discussed.
A more serious thing, in the reviewer’s opinion, is the complete absence of contributions dealing with information theory and the central nervous system, which may be the field par excellence for the use of such a theory. Although no explicit reference to information theory is made in the well-known paper of W. McCulloch and W. Pitts (1943), the connection is quite obvious. This is made explicit in the systematic elaboration of the McCulloch-Pitts’ approach by J. von Neumann (1952). In his interesting book J. T. Culbertson (1950) discussed possible neural mechanisms for recognition of visual patterns, and particularly investigated the problems of how greatly a pattern may be deformed without ceasing to be recognizable. The connection between this problem and the problem of distortion in the theory of information is obvious. The work of Anatol Rapoport and his associates on random nets, and especially on their applications to rumor spread (see the series of papers which appeared in this Journal during the past four years), is also closely connected with problems of information theory.
Electronic copy available at: http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~coquand/AUTOMATA/mcp.pdf
I suspect based on the Wikipedia article for Quastler that this may also be the same book as the slightly differently titled Essays on the Use of Information Theory in Biology. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1953). There’s also a 1955 review of the text with this name available as well.
Google uses the first title with 273 pages and the Symposium text specifically cites Information Theory in Biology as the correct title several times.
The tough part seems to be that there are very few copies available online and the ones that are are certainly used, in poor condition, and priced at $100+. Ugh…
The New Frontier Awaits! Speak at WordCamp Santa Clarita!
Everyone has a unique story to share, and we really want to hear yours. We want a rustic blend of talks that will be engaging for all skill levels within the WordPress Community. We’re seeking passionate speakers with a flair for the dramatic onstage, technical brilliance, community leaders or business acumen, and everything in-between. We’re open to any and all your ideas for presentation topics, whether you’re a first-timer or well known throughout the WordCamp space.
Quip is a new way of collaborating that fuels a culture of action. Empower your employees to get things done faster with less email, and fewer meetings.
Open Apereo 2019 is an international, inclusive event offered by the Apereo Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and sustaining innovative open-source software solutions for education. Learn how higher education is using open-source software to help deliver the academic mission, control costs, and retain the capacity to innovate.
Shoshana Zuboff's interdisciplinary breadth and depth enable her to come to grips with the social, political, business, and technological meaning of the changes taking place in our time. We are at a critical juncture in the confrontation between the vast power of giant high-tech companies and government, the hidden economic logic of surveillance capitalism, and the propaganda of machine supremacy that threaten to shape and control human life. Will the brazen new methods of social engineering and behavior modification threaten individual autonomy and democratic rights and introduce extreme new forms of social inequality? Or will the promise of the digital age be one of individual empowerment and democratization?
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is neither a hand-wringing narrative of danger and decline nor a digital fairy tale. Rather, it offers a deeply reasoned and evocative examination of the contests over the next chapter of capitalism that will decide the meaning of information civilization in the twenty-first century. The stark issue at hand is whether we will be the masters of information and machines or its slaves.
On first blush, I’ll note that the cover looks a lot like that of Pikkety’s Captialism in the 21st Century. Certainly an interesting framing by the publisher.
Wenbin Fang (Listen Notes)The most comprehensive podcast database online. Discover best podcasts. Search podcast show notes and audio transcripts by people, places, or topics.
I’m curious what folks like Kim Hansen, Ben Werdmüller, or Erin Jo Richey think of it. Are there better small tools out there?
hat tip: This Week in Google
Missing from many of these lists are things like micro.blog and a plethora of IndieWeb-related projects.
With that said, it’s at least a start on overcoming some of the hurdles that exist for finding alternatives.
hat tip: Ryan Barrett
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