Human Library Project
A simple idea : take all recorded human information, and put it in one place. Have you ever wondered how much there would be? What you might learn? If you could learn it all in one (natural) lifetime? How fast our global knowledge base is growing?
Explore the world of information and knowledge with me. Apr 10
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All Nobel Prizes
The Nobel Peace Prize No Nobel Prize was awarded this year. The prize money for 1972 was allocated to the Main Fund. The Nobel Peace Prize No Nobel Prize was awarded this year.
"I will skip through time and space / So you can find a sense of place" -- Jamie Janczak’s project: "Dr. Seuss at Oxford" Shangyang, "higher school," China, established sometime during the Yu period: 2257-2208 BC Imperial Central School, established sometime in Zhou Dynasty: 1046-249 BC (" The early Chinese state depended upon literate, educated officials for operation of the empire, and an imperial examination was established in the Sui Dynasty (581–618) for evaluating and selecting officials from the general populace. ")
THE ORIGIN OF UNIVERSITIES
What happened to the great library of Alexandria?
A Staff Report from the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board December 6, 2005 Dear Straight Dope:
by Maria Popova Proof that in the year 802701, the world will still exist. The past has a long history of imagining the future , and humanity has an equally long history of mapping time . Several months ago, I shared a link to a timeline of future events as predicted by famous novels. Italian information visualization designer Giorgia Lupi saw it on Twitter and was inspired to create an ambitious visual version for La Lettura , the Sunday literary supplement of Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera , with her design team at Accurat .
A Visual Timeline of the Future
As We May Think: A 1945 Essay on Information Overload, "Curation," and Open-Access Science
by Maria Popova “There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record.” Tim O’Reilly recently admonished that unless we embrace open access over copyright , we’ll never get science policy right. The sentiment, which I believe applies to more than science , reminded me of an eloquent 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush , then-director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, titled “As We May Think.”
Eurocrat addresses copyright issues | Beyond The Beyond
*Huh, I’ve never seen an intellectual property system that helped artists live by their art. I guess one could at least imagine such a thing. *There’s nothing said in this speech about the numerous troll-shaped stakeholders who are making sure that this culture-war grinds on endlessly. Maybe that was diplomatic and tactful. Neelie Kroes Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda
Be an Information DJ - Matthew Lieberman
by Matthew Lieberman | 1:02 PM November 27, 2012 When President Obama considers how to mobilize opinion and persuade Americans to support his agenda, we can be sure he'll want to tap the power of changing minds by understanding what makes ideas go viral. In building support for tough, difficult issues such as deficit reduction and tax policy, the Obama team will want to know more about how buzz works in the brain.
by Maria Popova “Presuming that there is such a thing as ‘progress’ when it comes to music is typical of the high self-regard of those who live in the present. It is a myth. Creativity doesn’t ‘improve.’”
David Byrne on How Music and Creativity Work
lour film of 1901, judged world's earliest ever, found at media museum | Film
A still from Edward Turner's colour film of circa 1902 showing his children, Alfred Raymond, Agnes May and Wilfred Sidney, with their goldfish and sunflowers. Photograph: National Media Museum/PA There is not much of a plot – goldfish in bowl – but the scene and others from the same rolls of film were revealed on Wednesday as the earliest colour moving images ever made in a discovery that does nothing less than "rewrite film history". The National Media Museum in Bradford said it had found what it contends are truly historic films from 1901/02, pre-dating what had been thought to be the first successful colour process – Kinemacolor – by eight years.
Ezra Pound's List of the 6 Types of Writers and 2 Rules for Forming an Opinion
by Maria Popova A taxonomy of scribe sensibilities, with some advice on how to make up your mind. “Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work,” Ezra Pound advised in his list of don’ts for beginning poets , originally written in 1913. More than two decades later, in 1934, Pound formulated his best advice on the parallel arts of reading and writing in ABC of Reading ( public library ), a fine addition to these 9 essential books on how to read more and write better . Among his insights is the following list of the six types of writers, particularly interesting when compared and contrasted with George Orwell’s list of the four universal motives for writing .Computing and Visualizing the 19th-Century Literary Genome
Overview In literary studies, we have no shortage of anecdotal wisdom regarding the role of influence on creativity. Consider just a few of the most prominent voices: ‘Talents imitate, geniuses steal’ – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900?).Last year Americans spent 200 billion hours of their time watching TV. To put this into perspective, the entire database on Wikipedia is estimated to have taken just 100 million hours to complete. This means that this country spends a Wikipedia’s worth of time every weekend, just watching ads! It’s a massive amount of untapped potential, which Clay Shirky explains in his book Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age , is a trend starting to take a turn for the better. Thanks to the Internet, individuals all around the world have more productive ways to spend free time. Instead of sitting on the couch mindlessly watching sitcoms, individuals can engage with others in online communities, collaborate on open sourced projects, and contribute to knowledge platforms like Wikipedia and Quora.
Clay Shirky: Unlocking Mankind’s Untapped Potential
Abstract How much information is there in the world? This paper makes various estimates and compares the answers with the estimates of disk and tape sales, and size of all human memory.
How much information is there in the world?
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Data, data everywhere
According to the latest accounting of how much information capacity there is in the world, the tide of information we have unleashed is rising far faster than anyone expected. The flood of information is now a long-term tsunami. Computing capacity is increasing at 58% annually, telecommunications at 28%, and storage at 23% per year. The former rate is approximately the rate of Moore's Law, a doubling every 18 months. Communications are doubling every 34 months and storage every 40 months.