mental_floss Blog & Wacky Sci-Fi "Laws" Sci-Fi writers seem to enjoy coining Laws: adages bearing their own names that live on past their appearances in Sci-Fi stories. Here are five of my favorites, plus one bonus law (actually a Principle) from the world of cartoons. 1. Hanlon's Razor (aka Hanlon's Law) "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." 2. "Ninety percent of everything is crap." 3. Finagle's Law is a variant of Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will -- at the worst possible moment. "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum." See also: the second law of thermodynamics. 4. Arthur C. First law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. 5. Forming the basis for Isaac Asimov's fictional universe, these laws for robotic behavior have been the source of much Sci-Fi drama (I, Robot anyone?) There's also a Zeroth Law. 6. If that's not enough for you, check out Wikipedia's list of eponymous laws.
Desire path A typical desire line A desire path (also known as a desire line, social trail, goat track or bootleg trail) can be a path created as a consequence of foot or bicycle traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. The width of the path and its erosion are indicators of the amount of use the path receives. Desire paths emerge as shortcuts where constructed ways take a circuitous route, or have gaps, or are lacking entirely. In parks and nature areas[edit] A desire path (right) merges with a footpath (center) in Helsinki, Finland In Finland, planners are known to visit their parks immediately after the first snowfall, when the existing paths are not visible.[1] People naturally choose desire lines, which are then clearly indicated by their footprints and can be used to guide the routing of new purpose built paths. Land managers have devised a variety of techniques to block the creation of desire paths. See also[edit]
List of common misconceptions This incomplete list is not intended to be exhaustive. This list corrects erroneous beliefs that are currently widely held about notable topics. Each misconception and the corresponding facts have been discussed in published literature. History Ancient to early modern history Modern history Napoleon on the Bellerophon, a painting of Napoleon I by Charles Lock Eastlake.
Allegory of the Cave Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc., without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.) Here are some students’ illustrations of Plato’s Cave Go back to lecture on the Phaedo Go back to lecture on the “One Over Many” Argument Go to next lecture on Criticism of Forms Need a quick review of the Theory of Forms? Return to the PHIL 320 Home Page Copyright © 2006, S.
Private Language and Marketing-Speak Marketing is, to a large extent, about communication. Consumer desire needs to be translated into a product and, in turn, the consumer has to understand how the product will make his life better in some way. A good marketer is a communication professional. Many marketers often use their own private language, marketing-speak, to communicate among their own tribe and with others. Moreover, the often indecipherable babble obscures meaning to such an extent that often marketing professionals don’t understand it themselves. The Beetle in the Box Ludwig von Wittgenstein made the point in his essay, Private Language and Private Experience. He made the analogy of a beetle in a box. The word “beetle,” wouldn’t describe anything in particular. At first, the idea seems suspect. The Difference between Knowledge and Reference Wittgenstein’s point was that there is a substantive difference between reference and meaning. Using Our Brains vs. Modern neurology supports Wittgenstein (he died in 1951). Huh?
The Kirkbride Plan Qu’est-ce qui peut rendre un homme clairvoyant aveugle, un homme intelligent idiot ? Cette question, déjà posée dans le cas de Bérillon, s’incarne à merveille dans celui de Michel Chasles (1793-1880), polytechnicien, membre de l’Académie des sciences, auteur de nombreux et remarquables mémoires de géométrie, un des grands savants français à qui l’on doit le fameux théorème qui porte son nom. Il semble que ce soit le nationalisme, plus encore que la passion du collectionneur d’autographes, qui l’entraîna à la fin de sa vie dans une aventure ridicule relatée par l’immense Marc Bloch. En 1865, alors âgé de soixante-douze ans, il se mit en tête de prouver à l’Académie que la gloire de Newton était usurpée. Le Français Pascal avait, avant lui, découvert les grandes lois de l’univers. Expertises et contre-expertises se succédèrent, mais les experts n’allaient pas aussi vite que Chasles, qui découvrait chaque semaine de nouveaux documents et les versait au dossier. Ce VI des Kal. de Jullius.”
PARALLAX How to Do What You Love January 2006 To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We've got it down to four words: "Do what you love." But it's not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated. The very idea is foreign to what most of us learn as kids. And it did not seem to be an accident. The world then was divided into two groups, grownups and kids. Teachers in particular all seemed to believe implicitly that work was not fun. I'm not saying we should let little kids do whatever they want. Once, when I was about 9 or 10, my father told me I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up, so long as I enjoyed it. Jobs By high school, the prospect of an actual job was on the horizon. The main reason they all acted as if they enjoyed their work was presumably the upper-middle class convention that you're supposed to. Why is it conventional to pretend to like what you do? What a recipe for alienation. The most dangerous liars can be the kids' own parents. Bounds Notes
A Most Unholy Architecture: Six Devil's Bridges If the medieval legends are to be believed, the devil was a prolific architect. All around Europe are bridges known as the Devil's Bridge, each with a story of soul-selling deals and outwitting satan. These stories that developed independently of each other likely were related to the gravity-defying structure of these bridges, the likes of which had rarely been seen and seemed beyond the possibilities of human hands. Below are six (the devil's traditional number) of these Devil's Bridges with a most unholy story in their stones: DEVIL'S BRIDGE OF CEREDIGIONCeredigion, Wales (via Wikimedia) Unholy Features: This Devil's Bridge in Ceredigion, Wales, is actually three bridges stacked strangely on top of each other — the oldest at the bottom being from 1075-1200, the second from 1753, and the third from 1902 — all looming over a yawning ravine in the woods. (via Wikimedia) (via Wikimedia) DEVIL'S BRIDGE OF ARDINOArdino, Bulgaria (via Wikimedia) Deal with the Devil: This has a double legend.
Epistemology 1. What is Knowledge? 1.1 Knowledge as Justified True Belief There are various kinds of knowledge: knowing how to do something (for example, how to ride a bicycle), knowing someone in person, and knowing a place or a city. Although such knowledge is of epistemological interest as well, we shall focus on knowledge of propositions and refer to such knowledge using the schema ‘S knows that p’, where ‘S’ stands for the subject who has knowledge and ‘p’ for the proposition that is known.[1] Our question will be: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for S to know that p? According to TK, knowledge that p is, at least approximately, justified true belief (JTB). Initially, we may say that the role of justification is to ensure that S's belief is not true merely because of luck. 1.2 The Gettier Problem The tripartite analysis of knowledge as JTB has been shown to be incomplete. To state conditions that are jointly sufficient for knowledge, what further element must be added to JTB? 2.
The Acute Heptagram of Impact Not as catchy a title as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but I hope you'll walk through this with me: I can outline a strategy for you, but if you don't have the tactics in place or you're not skilled enough to execute, it won't matter if the strategy is a good one. Your project's success is going to be influenced in large measure by the reputation of the people who join in and the organization that brings it forward. That's nothing you can completely change in a day, but it's something that will change (like it or not) every day. None of this matters if you and your team don't persist, and your persistence will largely be driven by the desire you have to succeed, which of course is relentlessly undermined by the fear we all wrestle with every day. These seven elements: Strategy, Tactics, Execution, Reputation, Persistence, Desire and Fear, make up the seven points of the acute heptagram of impact. Feel free to share the AHI, but please don't have it tattooed on your hip or anything.
Le hasard explique très bien les séries noires L'enchaînement des trois récentes catastrophes ferroviaires survenues en Europe n'est pas aussi improbable qu'on le pense du point de vue des mathématiques. En moins de 20 jours, trois catastrophes ferroviaires ont endeuillé l'Europe coup sur coup. D'abord à Brétigny-sur-Orge, en France, le 12 juillet, puis à Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, en Espagne, le 25, et enfin à Granges-près-Marnand, en Suisse, le 29. Le train est pourtant, avec l'avion, le mode de transport le plus sûr au monde (2 morts tous les 100 millions de passagers-heure). Deux mathématiciens de l'université de Rouen, Elise Janvresse et Thierry de la Rue, l'expliquent dans leur ouvrage La Loi des séries, hasard ou fatalité? Le hasard n'est pas nécessairement le désordre La probabilité d'une telle série noire est pourtant bien plus grande qu'on ne l'imagine. Ces calculs montrent plus généralement que le hasard aime bien former des petits paquets d'événements similaires. La «loi des séries» n'existe pas