2009/10/22
Brian Eno, Peter Schmidt, and Cybernetics
"Cybernetics is one of the most widely misunderstood concepts. The word itself seems sinister and futuristic, but the term has ancient roots – the Greek word kybernetes, meaning steersman. Cybernetics was famously defined in more recent times by Norbert Wiener in 1948, as the science of “control and communication, in the animal and the machine.” Words like "control” may seem to have creepy overtones, but at its heart, cybernetics is simply the study of systems. "Cybernetics is the discipline of whole systems thinking...a whole system is a living system is a learning system," as Stewart Brand put it in 1980. Cybernetic systems have been used to model all kinds of phenomena, with varying degrees of success – factories, societies, machines, ecosystems, brains -- and many noted artists and musicians derived inspiration from this powerful conceptual toolkit. Cybernetics may be one of the most interdisciplinary frameworks ever devised; its theories link engineering, math, physics, biology, psychology, and an array of other fields, and ideas from cybernetics inevitably infiltrated the arts. The musician and producer Brian Eno, for example, was a big fan of connecting ideas from cybernetics to the studio environment, and to music composition, in his work in the 1970s."
Full article @ Rhizone.
P.S. Thanks Artemy for sending this!
Full article @ Rhizone.
P.S. Thanks Artemy for sending this!
Labels: art, cybernetics
2009/01/07
R, the Software, Finds Fans in Data Analysts
"R is also the name of a popular programming language used by a growing number of data analysts inside corporations and academia. It is becoming their lingua franca partly because data mining has entered a golden age, whether being used to set ad prices, find new drugs more quickly or fine-tune financial models." Full Story @ NYTimes.com
2009/01/01
Slides for Lecture 9 online
2008/12/29
The Year Online
The Year Online:The business of social networking, cloud computing, and a flaw in the fabric of the Internet top the most notable stories of 2008. Full story @ Technology Review: The Year Online
The Year Online
The Year Online:The business of social networking, cloud computing, and a flaw in the fabric of the Internet top the most notable stories of 2008. Full story @ Technology Review: The Year Online
2008/12/02
Slides for Lecture 8 online
2008/11/20
Imagine Cup Student Competition 2009
The World’s Premier Student Technology Competition: Imagine Cup Student Competition 2009. Looks especially at the Information Technology Competition.
"I wish there had been an Imagine Cup when I was growing up. It gets people involved in seeing that software is changing the world."
--Bill Gates
Chairman, Microsoft Corp.
Everything that the world may become "someday" lies in the hands of young people today. As they look at the road ahead, their close relationship with technology enables them to dream in ways we never have before. Put the two together, and you have young minds holding the tools that can make their vision a reality.
This is the recipe that inspired Microsoft to create the Imagine Cup. What begins with a burst of inspiration and a lot of hard work can become a future software breakthrough, a future career, or a flourishing new industry. The Imagine Cup encourages young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world – today. Now in its sixth year, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real world issues.
Open to students around the world, the Imagine Cup is a serious challenge that draws serious talent, and the competition is intense. The contest spans a year, beginning with local, regional and online contests whose winners go on to attend the global finals held in a different location every year. The intensity of the work brings students together, and motivates the competitors to give it their all. The bonds formed here often last well beyond the competition itself.
"I wish there had been an Imagine Cup when I was growing up. It gets people involved in seeing that software is changing the world."
--Bill Gates
Chairman, Microsoft Corp.
Everything that the world may become "someday" lies in the hands of young people today. As they look at the road ahead, their close relationship with technology enables them to dream in ways we never have before. Put the two together, and you have young minds holding the tools that can make their vision a reality.
This is the recipe that inspired Microsoft to create the Imagine Cup. What begins with a burst of inspiration and a lot of hard work can become a future software breakthrough, a future career, or a flourishing new industry. The Imagine Cup encourages young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world – today. Now in its sixth year, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real world issues.
Open to students around the world, the Imagine Cup is a serious challenge that draws serious talent, and the competition is intense. The contest spans a year, beginning with local, regional and online contests whose winners go on to attend the global finals held in a different location every year. The intensity of the work brings students together, and motivates the competitors to give it their all. The bonds formed here often last well beyond the competition itself.
2008/11/19
CDI grant awards 2008
The body is obsolete
Links for Lecture 8
Animals using tools:
Crow and Wire
Capuchin Monkeys (Windows Media).
More about Tool Use in Animals.
Opaque Technology
List of bad designs.
Design Guru Donald Norman and his publications.
Towards portable knowledge technology
Google SMS, here is the Manual. And what about Google in your Brain? It is coming soon.
Cyborgs in Movies
Blade Runner
Ubiquitous computing
Smart Shopping
Mark Weiser
Tokyo RFID Map. More details at InfoWorld.
social dynamics and coordinated human activity
Crow and Wire
Capuchin Monkeys (Windows Media).
More about Tool Use in Animals.
Opaque Technology
List of bad designs.
Design Guru Donald Norman and his publications.
Towards portable knowledge technology
Google SMS, here is the Manual. And what about Google in your Brain? It is coming soon.
Cyborgs in Movies
Blade Runner
Ubiquitous computing
Smart Shopping
Mark Weiser
Tokyo RFID Map. More details at InfoWorld.
social dynamics and coordinated human activity
Labels: cyborgs, technology, tools
interactive fabrics
"A company called Luminex has hit on the idea of weaving fibre-optics into fabric, so the wearer can really light up a room when they enter it." Full article at BBC News.
Labels: cyborgs, intelligent fabrics, technology, tools
Surfing the Web with nothing but brainwaves.
"Kiss your keyboard goodbye: Soon we'll jack our brains directly into the Net - and that's just the beginning". Full Story at CNNMoney.com: Future Boy: This is your brain on Google
Labels: cyborgs, human intelligence, mobile, technology
Networking from the craddle
A host of new sites, including Totspot, Odadeo, Lil’Grams and Kidmondo, offer parents a chance to invite friends and family to join and contribute to a network geared to connecting them to the baby in their lives. Full story @ NYTimes.com
Labels: children, networking
2008/11/17
Give a laptop. Change the World
2008/11/07
Lecture slides for Lecture 7 online
Wikipedia Visualizations
Language: a social history of words
Language evolved as part of a uniquely human group of traits, the interdependence of which calls for an integrated approach to the study of brain function, argue Eörs Szathmáry and Szabolcs Számadó. Full article @ Nature
2008/11/05
Links for lecture 7
Turing Machine Simulator 1
Turing Machine Simulator 2
Pi the Movie
The Antikythera Mechanism
Interactive Relighting of the Antikythera Mechanism
Story @ BBC News
The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project
Fibonacci Sequence
A good description of L-Systems by Chris Jennings
Turing Machine Simulator 2
Pi the Movie
The Antikythera Mechanism
Interactive Relighting of the Antikythera Mechanism
Story @ BBC News
The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project
Fibonacci Sequence
A good description of L-Systems by Chris Jennings
Labels: modeling
XXI century science
"If handled appropriately, data about Internet-based communication and interactivity could revolutionize our understanding of collective human behaviour". Full essay @A twenty-first century science : Article : Nature
2008/11/04
New readings online
Bettencourt, L.M.A., J.Lobo, D. Helbing, C. Kühnert, and G.B. West [2007] "Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities.", PNAS 104(17), 7301-7306
T. Helikar, J. Konvalina, J. Heidel, and J.A. Rogers [2008] "Emergent decision-making in biological signal transduction networks.", PNAS. 105(6): 1913-1918
J. Lewis [2008] "From Signals to Patterns: Space, Time, and Mathematics in Developmental Biology.", Science. 322(5900): 399-403
T. Helikar, J. Konvalina, J. Heidel, and J.A. Rogers [2008] "Emergent decision-making in biological signal transduction networks.", PNAS. 105(6): 1913-1918
J. Lewis [2008] "From Signals to Patterns: Space, Time, and Mathematics in Developmental Biology.", Science. 322(5900): 399-403
lecture slides for lecture 6 online
2008/11/03
Bacteria That Do Logic
A team engineers microbes to perform AND, OR, NAND and NOR logic operations. Full story @Science News
2008/10/29
Hanoi problem
Ted Talk: kevin Kelly
2008/10/28
What is Computation? How Does Nature Compute?
Adrian German over in Computer Science has organized what looks to be a fascinating conference, Midwest NKS 2008, that will be taking place this weekend, starting on Friday. There is an amazing array of speakers, either live or by videoconference, including Gregory Chaitin, David Deutsch, Ed Fredkin, Sir Anthony J. Legget, Charles Bennett, Stephen Wolfram, and more.
The theme of the conference is "What is Computation? How Does Nature Compute?". There will be talks on the physics of information, quantum computation, cellular automata (of course; NKS == Wolfram's New Kind of Science), and, generally, the nature of reality and computability.
Though there are some lunches and dinners that require paid registration, everything else is FREE, including all of the lectures and the coffee, donuts, and other refreshments. Events start at 8:30am Friday 10/31 and run until Sunday 11/2 at 12:15pm.
Full schedule and additional info
The theme of the conference is "What is Computation? How Does Nature Compute?". There will be talks on the physics of information, quantum computation, cellular automata (of course; NKS == Wolfram's New Kind of Science), and, generally, the nature of reality and computability.
Though there are some lunches and dinners that require paid registration, everything else is FREE, including all of the lectures and the coffee, donuts, and other refreshments. Events start at 8:30am Friday 10/31 and run until Sunday 11/2 at 12:15pm.
Full schedule and additional info
2008/10/22
Slides for Lecture 5 online
2008/10/20
A computer for living cells
"In a boost to the field of synthetic biology, researchers have created an RNA-based device that can control gene expression of target genes, thus regulating molecular processes in living cells, a paper in this week's Science reports. " Full story @ The Scientist
2008/10/16
Assignment 1: New Deadline
2008/10/15
Library of Babel
Read the Jorge Luis Borges's Library of Babel, an optional readinf about information and meaning.
Labels: information
Biology's Gift to a Complex World
"How studying biological interactions and evolution yields techniques for predicting the outcome of complex interactions". By John Holland @ The Scientist
Labels: biology, complexity
2008/10/13
Slides for Lecture 4 online
Lecture 4 - Organized Complexity, Information, and Symbols
Also see the lecture notes: Formalizing and Modeling the World
Also see the lecture notes: Formalizing and Modeling the World
Warren Weaver's View of Problems and Systems
Labels: complexity, information, symbols
Around the World
What kind of information is conveyed here? What do the figures represent?
By the way, the "Daft Punk is Playing in my House" video, by the LCD Soundsystem pays homage to the video above.
Michel Gondry at the Internet Movie Database
Daft Punk - Around the World by Michel Gondry
By the way, the "Daft Punk is Playing in my House" video, by the LCD Soundsystem pays homage to the video above.
Michel Gondry at the Internet Movie Database
Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar (High Quality Real Media Video). Description of Video by Michel Gondry
2008/10/08
links for lecture 4
Semiotics by Mick Underwood
Mayan Hieroglyphs on wikipedia
Egyptian Glyphs
Write Like an Egyptian
Cut up your Text!
2008/09/23
Assignment 1
The Black Box: Please start playing with the applet. Don't feel intimidated! It is supposed to make you feel as if you are looking into a World that you are supposed to model, but know nothing about. As a first approach, look and take notes to eventually use for a model. It is a black box, so you need to try to figure out what is inside. It will take considerable time and patience...
Labels: assignment
Data and Search Institute Studio Open House -- Wed, Sept 24
We are very excited about the upcoming Open House on Wed September 24th, from 3pm to 5pm. We'll be featuring information on the research pursued by members of the Center, and will be seeking to entice students to work with our stellar, cross-disciplinary faculty. We hope that you can attend, and we encourage you to invite any students you know who might be interested in pursuing new research opportunities.
We will have food and refreshments available!
We will have food and refreshments available!
Lecture slides for lecture 3 online
2008/09/22
High risk NIH grants
"The NIH Director's Pioneer and New Innovator Awards aim to fund high risk-high reward projects that tend to get passed over during the peer-review selection for NIH R01 grants." Full story @ The Scientist
2008/09/20
Tap Into the 12-Million-Teraflop Handheld Megacomputer
"The next stage in technological evolution is a single worldwide computer. Collectively, we are already assembling this megacomputer from our billions of Net-connected PCs, cell phones, PDAs, and the like. As an increasing number and variety of devices are lashed to one another via the Internet and other communication systems, they form the components of what we might call the One Machine". Full Story @ Wired: Infoporn
Labels: computing, global brain
Email Bots
2008/09/18
Geeks rap too!
2008/09/17
Proto-Life
"a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building simple cell models that can almost be called life. Szostak's protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication. Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system that satisfies the conditions of life, but isn't anything like life on earth now, but might represent life as it began or could exist elsewhere in the universe." Full article @
Wired Science
Wired Science
2008/09/16
Fault in Effort to Decode Human Genome to Fight Disease
"David B. Goldstein, a leading young population geneticist, says the effort to nail down the genetics of most common diseases is not working." Full story @ NYTimes.com - Science
2008/09/11
Slides for Lecture 2 online
Lecture 2 - Cybernetics
Some links with materials used in class:
John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC Computer
Computer Architecture by Tim Margush
Some links with materials used in class:
John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC Computer
Computer Architecture by Tim Margush
John Von Neumann
Labels: Alan Turing, computing, cybernetics, John Von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Warren McColluch
2008/09/05
Aware of All Statistical Traditions
Cosma Shalizi's response to Chris Anderson's Wired article about how massive data availability is making theory and the scientific method obsolete, is truly worth reading in detail---following all the links.
Labels: computing, informatics, statistics
Slides for Lecture 1 online
Lecture 1 - How did we get here?
I also recommend reading the following paper by Prof. Eden Medina, related to her wonderful presentation to the class:
Medina, E. [2006] "Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende's Chile.", Journal of Latin American Studies. 38, 571-606 .
I also recommend reading the following paper by Prof. Eden Medina, related to her wonderful presentation to the class:
Medina, E. [2006] "Designing Freedom, Regulating a Nation: Socialist Cybernetics in Allende's Chile.", Journal of Latin American Studies. 38, 571-606 .
Participants of the Tenth Conference on Cybernetics, April 22-24, 1953, Princeton, N.J. from "Interview with Heinz von Foerster"
Labels: chile, cybernetics, informatics, Macy Conferences
2008/09/03
History of Cybernetics
Dark Hero of the Information Age
"[...]there's another kind of scientist who never breaks through, usually because while his discovery is revolutionary it's also maddeningly hard to summarize in a simple sentence or two. He never produces a catchy hit single. He's more like a back-room influencer: his work inspires dozens of other innovators who absorb the idea, produce more easily comprehensible innovations and become more famous than their mentor could have dreamed. Find an influencer, and you'll find a deeply bitter man. Norbert Wiener -- the inventor of ''cybernetics'' -- is precisely this type of scientist." Full article @
The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'Dark Hero of the Information Age': The Original Computer Geek
The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'Dark Hero of the Information Age': The Original Computer Geek
Labels: cybernetics, informatics, information age, Norbert Wiener
