ideambulate

The quote goes, “History is written by the victor.”
A stirring insight into the reality that, historically, those who wield power are best able to propagate their accounts and perspectives on the world.  After all, in the historical case of warring proto-states, it’s tough to imagine the losers scribing a grand narrative from the grave or [...]

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Powerful data visualizations are like masterful paintings– through art and insight, they intimate broad ideas and usher in understanding.
I, however, am neither a master painter nor an expert data visualizer.  Neither are many of my contemporaries in the “technically skilled and socially aware” demographic.  Still, I believe that even mediocre pieces of art or analysis [...]

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I bet you can learn a lot about a company by taking a look and how, when, and how much they pay their employees.  Naturally, to get the most out of this theoretical analysis, the data should be correlated with  publicly accessible or easily determinable individual information like employee positions, job title progressions, and larger [...]

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I’d like to peek around the next corner in technology.  Specifically, what technological challenges and solutions will arise following the advent/ascension of the mobile web. Let’s fast forward about five years, give or take some technological optimism.
Assumptions

Broadband wireless internet is widely accessible in the developed world.
Mobile audio and visual data capturing devices with day-scale battery [...]

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People remember images more easily than they can remember complex strings of words.  Furthermore, images can automatically evoke complex sets of associated thoughts and emotions.  We should leverage the associative power of images to help sort through thick information sets.
I’m talking about web-searching with an unconventional “semantic” twist.
The tools to make this work are all [...]

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Back as a grade school kid, I was impressed by the array of neat options we had for decorating our desktops on the old Macs.  Patterns!  Colors!  Eventually… whole pictures!  “Cool beans” at the times, really.  Even back then, I was wondering how we’d be entertaining our eyes in between games of Super Word Muncher, [...]

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If there is such a thing as a universal truism, is there a way to communicate it universally?
Some working definitions to guide the thought process:
Truism
A bit of wisdom about life.  More specifically, wisdom that can be practically applied.
Universal
Applicable and understandable at some point in any given person’s life, regardless of cultural circumstances.  Caveats added for [...]

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A truism or two about how assorted careerpeople respond to the professional imperative.
A Researcher’s Motto:
Publish or perish!

A Blogger’s Motto:
Post or perish!

A Preacher’s Motto:
Parish or perish!

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Wouldn’t it be a good morale-boosting strategy for corporations to encourage the development of in-company gaming groups?  For example, could mean formal all-company-member World of Warcraft guilds,  Team Fortress sides split up by department, or giant free-for-alls in any old multiplayer game.
Certainly seems more entertaining and lower-hassle than the old-fashioned notion of corporate softball leagues.  [...]

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Telegyresis.
The ability to alter the direction and magnitude of the spin of an object at a distance.
Huh?
It’s a “special ability.”   You know, the kind found in stories about mutants and warlocks or robots and morlocks.  Telegyresis is a specialized branch of telekinesis, the general ability to move things or apply force at will from a [...]

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Perhaps an enterprising secondary school math teacher could lead the charge by introducing regular expressions in Algebra class.
Regular expressions are algebraic, useful for  logical theory and, eventually, handy for programming manipulations with real language.  I posit that introducing students to regular expressions at the same time that they’re learning the axioms of algebra would be [...]

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The roiling media-orgy surrounding Barack Obama’s pastor, Reverend Wright,  will ultimately yield great benefit to Mr. Obama’s campaign.  Why?
The controversy draws significant attention to the fact that Senator Obama is Christian.  Some of the less scrupulous portions of American society have been trying to put the notion that Obama practices Islam into the heads of [...]

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It would be pretty interesting to visualize brainstorming sessions or problem-solving attempts that don’t quite get the job done.
There’s something oddly tragic and beautiful about the notion of a brain rustling around an issue, prodding it from many angles, and occasionally rebounding with an ache and a “THWRANG” after a head-long charge.  If these thoughts [...]

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The challenge is to condense the multi-format feedback loop that exists between various artists into a single experience.  I have two possible solutions, one reasonable, one far-out.
The reasonable idea is pretty straightforward and uses a combination of readily available hardware and relatively straightforward software.
We start with a song, playing on a computer.  Maybe it’s something [...]

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Great works of art often inspire further masterpieces, though not necessarily in the same medium as the original.
A musician sees a  beautiful painting and composes a song that tells the same story.  An abstract artist listens to a masterful concerto and incorporates representations of the music into her next sculpture.   A playwright observes both [...]

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