The Octarine argument. Yes, yes - colour corresponds with real properties. But colour itself is not in the external physical world. It's like those cases where a picture from a telescope or a microscope is given colours artificially to help show up the different substances. The colours are not real, but they do help you understand more about what you're seeing. It turns out that all colour is more or less like that -yes, it's helpful, but that doesn't mean it directly reflects the physical reality. After all, we only actually sense three different wavelengths. If you think about it, though, this means that the way we see things is actually wrong. All the same, it is possible to do a bit better, and some animals detect more than three different wavelengths.
Too complex to exist - The Boston Globe ON . 10, 1996, a single power line in western Oregon brushed a tree and shorted out, triggering a massive cascade of power outages that spread across the western United States. Frantic engineers watched helplessly as the crisis unfolded, leaving nearly 10 million people without electricity. Even after power was restored, they were unable to explain adequately why it had happened, or how they could prevent a similar cascade from happening again - which it did, in the Northeast on Aug. 14, 2003. Over the past year we have experienced something similar in the financial system: a dramatic and unpredictable cascade of events that has produced the economic equivalent of a global blackout. Although these explanations can help account for how individual banks, insurers, and so on got themselves into trouble, they gloss over a larger question: how these institutions collectively managed to put trillions of dollars at risk without being detected. © Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
Simplexity Simplexity is an emerging theory that proposes a possible complementary relationship between complexity and simplicity. The term draws from General Systems Theory, Dialectics (philosophy) and Design. Jeffrey Kluger wrote a book about this phenomenon that describes how house plants can be more complicated than industrial plants, how a truck driver's job can be as difficult as a CEO's and why 90% of the money donated to help cure diseases are given only to the research of 10% of them (and vice versa). The term has been adopted in advertising, marketing and the manufacture of left-handed screwdrivers. Design aspects[edit] Complexity tends to rise as system elements specialize and diversify to solve specific challenges.Simple interfaces tend to improve the usability of complex systems. History of the term[edit] Like most terms, it has been shaped through dialogues and discussions, in much the same way that a camel is a horse designed by committee. Education[edit] In science[edit] References[edit]
9 Mind-Bending Epiphanies That Turned My World Upside-Down Over the years I’ve learned dozens of little tricks and insights for making life more fulfilling. They’ve added up to a significant improvement in the ease and quality of my day-to-day life. But the major breakthroughs have come from a handful of insights that completely rocked my world and redefined reality forever. The world now seems to be a completely different one than the one I lived in about ten years ago, when I started looking into the mechanics of quality of life. It wasn’t the world (and its people) that changed really, it was how I thought of it. Maybe you’ve had some of the same insights. 1. The first time I heard somebody say that — in the opening chapter of The Power of Now — I didn’t like the sound of it one bit. I see quite clearly now that life is nothing but passing experiences, and my thoughts are just one more category of things I experience. If you can observe your thoughts just like you can observe other objects, who’s doing the observing? 2. Of course! 3. 4. 5.
Möbius strip A Möbius strip made with a piece of paper and tape. If an ant were to crawl along the length of this strip, it would return to its starting point having traversed the entire length of the strip (on both sides of the original paper) without ever crossing an edge. The Möbius strip or Möbius band (UK /ˈmɜrbiəs/ or US /ˈmoʊbiəs/; German: [ˈmøːbi̯ʊs]), also Mobius or Moebius, is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It can be realized as a ruled surface. It was discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858.[1][2][3] The Möbius band (equally known as the Möbius strip) is not a surface of only one geometry (i.e., of only one exact size and shape), such as the half-twisted paper strip depicted in the illustration to the right. The Euler characteristic of the Möbius strip is zero. Properties[edit] August Ferdinand Möbius Topology[edit]
Complexity: It’s Not That Simple Complexity theory has been around for a generation now, but most people don’t understand it. I often read or listen to consultants, ‘experts’ and media people who proffer ludicrously simplistic ‘solutions’ to complex predicaments. Since it seems most people would prefer things to be simple, these ‘experts’ always seem to have an uncritical audience. Complexity theory argues that simple, complicated, complex and chaotic systems have fundamentally different properties, and therefore different approaches and processes are needed when dealing with issues and challenges in each of these types of systems. As the diagram above illustrates, natural systems (both social and ecological) are inherently complex. Human invention, for the most part, uses biomimicry, i.e. we attempt to manufacture, to replicate mechanically, things that appear to work in nature. Natural systems are highly effective but inefficient due to their massive redundancy (picture a tree dropping thousands of seeds).
Slow design Slow Design is a branch of the Slow Movement, which began with the concept of Slow Food, a term coined in contrast to fast food. As with every branch of the Slow Movement, the overarching goal of Slow Design is to promote well being for individuals, society, and the natural environment. Slow Design seeks a holistic approach to designing that takes into consideration a wide range of material and social factors as well as the short and long term impacts of the design. Origin and meaning[edit] Slow Design refers to the goals and approach of the designer, rather than the object of the design. While Fuad-Luke focused on the design of physical products, the concept can be applied to the design of non-material things such as experiences, processes, services, and organizations. Beth Meredith and Eric Storm attempt to summarize the concept, stating: Current and future practice[edit] Common qualities of Slow Design include: See also[edit] References[edit] External links[edit]
Scientific Notation Scientific Notation (also called Standard Form in Britain) is a special way of writing numbers: It makes it easy to use big and small values. OK, How Does it Work? Example: 700 Why is 700 written as 7 × 102 in Scientific Notation ? so 700 = 7 × 102 Both 700 and 7 × 102 have the same value, just shown in different ways. Example: 4,900,000,000 1,000,000,000 = 109 , so 4,900,000,000 = 4.9 × 109 in Scientific Notation So the number is written in two parts: Just the digits (with the decimal point placed after the first digit), followed by × 10 to a power that puts the decimal point where it should be (i.e. it shows how many places to move the decimal point). In this example, 5326.6 is written as 5.3266 × 103, because 5326.6 = 5.3266 × 1000 = 5.3266 × 103 Try It Yourself Enter a number and see it in Scientific Notation: Enter Number: Scientific Notation: © 2015 MathsIsFun.com v 0.85 Now try to use Scientific Notation yourself: Number: Other Ways of Writing It Example: 3 × 10^4 is the same as 3 × 104 Check!
Human Systems Dynamics User-centered design The chief difference from other product design philosophies is that user-centered design tries to optimize the product around how users can, want, or need to use the product, rather than forcing the users to change their behavior to accommodate the product. UCD models and approaches[edit] For example, the user-centered design process can help software designers to fulfill the goal of a product engineered for their users. User requirements are considered right from the beginning and included into the whole product cycle. These requirements are noted and refined through investigative methods including: ethnographic study, contextual inquiry, prototype testing, usability testing and other methods. Generative methods may also be used including: card sorting, affinity diagraming and participatory design sessions. Cooperative design: involving designers and users on an equal footing. All these approaches follow the ISO standard Human-centred design for interactive systems (ISO 9241-210, 2010).