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Gideon Burton

I Heard You Like Feedback Loops | Oscillator, Scientific American Blog Network - 1 views

blogs.scientificamerican.com/...-heard-you-like-feedback-loops

cybernetics Norbert Wiener control communication

shared by Gideon Burton on 17 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Gideon Burton on 17 Sep 12
     
    A basic introduction to control theory and cybernetics (now applied to biology)
Shuan Pai

Civil Disobedience: The Destroyer of Democracy - 0 views

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search

civil disobedience democracy

shared by Shuan Pai on 09 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Shuan Pai on 09 Oct 10
     
    An interesting paper on civil disobedience
Brian Earley

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Burke's Writings and Speeches, Volume the Second, by Edm... - 0 views

www.gutenberg.org/...15198-h.htm

edmund burke gutenberg project digiciv

shared by Brian Earley on 30 Sep 10 - No Cached
    • Brian Earley
      Brian Earley on 30 Sep 10
       
      Irish born English conservative approves of the American Revolution
  • Brian Earley on 30 Sep 10
     
    The gutenberg project is an amazing source for online books and I just happened to find a compilation of Edmund Burke's works online.
Andrew DeWitt

Learning in the Light of Faith - 0 views

magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=2626

byu devotional learning light faith ross spencer future shock physics research science

shared by Andrew DeWitt on 19 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • When I was just out of graduate school, I attended my first meeting of the American Physical Society in New York City. A highlight was a special event arranged by the conference organizers: the great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had been invited to speak to us.
  • Hour after hour he wrote down the stories he found in books in the university library about people protesting the invention of things like machines to spin thread and to weave cloth, steam-powered trains, automobiles, airplanes, etc. All of these advances were perceived by the general public either to be physically dangerous or to be a threat to the livelihoods of workers in trades that were about to be destroyed by these advances.
  • when he started to write science fiction, he remembered all of this work he had done. So while his fellow writers were all rhapsodizing about the thrill of rockets and space travel (long before such things were possible), he wrote a story about how the local populace showed up at the launch site with torches and pitchforks in opposition to space travel. Years later, when rockets and travel outside of the earth’s atmosphere became possible, there were protests, and many of Mr. Asimov’s colleagues were astounded that he had predicted so far in advance that this would occur.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “Why,” Mr. Asimov then asked us, “among all of these talented and visionary writers, was I the only one who was able to predict that this resistance to change would occur?” He let us think about the question for an uncomfortably silent minute, then leaned into the microphone and said in an intense voice that I still vividly remember: “It’s because people are stupid!”
  • The lesson I take from my memory of this experience is that the proper attitude to have when confronted with the vast complexity both of the universe and of the ideas and activities of the people who live on this small planet orbiting an ordinary star far away from the center of things in our galaxy is profound humility.
    • Andrew DeWitt
      Andrew DeWitt on 19 Oct 10
       
      This is how we ought to deal with future shock: "humility"
  • Andrew DeWitt on 19 Oct 10
     
    Great Devotional Talk by Ross Spencer.  Includes a great reference to "Future Shock".
Megan Stern

American Thinker: The Disappearing Middle Class - 0 views

www.americanthinker.com/...disappearing_middle_class.html

Communism Socialism digiciv Marx middle class Tea Party conservative

shared by Megan Stern on 05 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • The government is helping out, "redistributing" money to the bottom. "The Rich" can use their money and influence to get in. The middle class gets no special consideration or privilege. Because they do work hard, they get to work harder -- and the Ruling Class calls this "justice."
    • Megan Stern
      Megan Stern on 05 Oct 10
       
      So. True.
  • And this is what the Tea Party is really mad about.
  • And the balance between the lower class and their upper-class leaders is upset by the injection of the middle class and its struggles to carve out its niche.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • His Communist Manifesto is nothing more than a rant about the evils of this group and how they have inflicted harm and damage to everyone around them through colonialism and ingenuity.
  • Marx and Engels envisioned a return to the simpler time, where a vast lower class was ruled by its betters. Not surprisingly, they saw themselves as leading the underlings to the new paradise.
  • their opinions are tainted by "greed" (the single biggest sin of the bourgeoisie).
  • The byproduct of this Socialization is the shrinking of the middle class. When you punish people for working hard, those people will stop working so hard.
  • se bailouts are transfers of wealth -- not from the rich to the poor, but from the working middle class to both the upper and lower classes.
  • True: all the
  • Megan Stern on 05 Oct 10
     
    Concisely presents the consensual argument most conservatives adopt against Marx's principles in our day.
Andrew DeWitt

Earth Station Nine - 0 views

www.earthstation9.com/index.html

worlds fair expo exposition crystal palace hydes park victorian

shared by Andrew DeWitt on 04 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • The US exhibit included the: McCormack Reaper, Colt Revolver, a 16,400 lb hunk of zinc, unpickable locks, a model of Niagara Falls and a piano that could be played by 4 people at the same time.
  • The Egyptian Court featured the hieroglyphic "Rosetta Stone"
  • Items on display included: the Jacquard loom, an envelope machine that could handle 60 pieces a minute, Lucifer matches, tools, steam engines, kitchen appliances, steel-making displays, powdered graphite in the form of yellow pencils, McCormack Reaper, Bowie knives, Swiss watches, a stuffed elephant, 40 foot scale model of the London docks with 1600 miniature ships, a knife with 1851 blades, prototype submarine, farm equipment, electric clocks, washing machine, false teeth, artificial limbs, chewing tobacco, centrifugal pump, Jacquard lace machine, steam-press, camerae-obscurae, Caloric Engine, Colt's Pistols, Prouty and Mears' Plows, American Bridges, household furniture made of coal, rhubarb champagne, artificial arms and legs, two chairs designed by Mr. Carl Leistler, centrifugal impellers (pumps). 
  • Andrew DeWitt on 04 Oct 10
     
    List of facts about the 1851 Crystal Palace
Megan Stern

New Rules for Online Living - PCWorld - 0 views

www.pcworld.com/...w_rules_for_online_living.html

digiciv frontier

shared by Megan Stern on 12 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Megan Stern on 12 Oct 10
     
    Not too long ago, the Internet was the American frontier, where society was more primitive and you could live very much how you wanted. Now, as more and more settlers move in, more and more rules pop up in attempts to restrain how we live virtually.
alexandergunnarson

Survey: Americans don't know much about religion - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/...us_rel_religious_literacy_poll

digiciv religion poll

shared by alexandergunnarson on 30 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • alexandergunnarson on 30 Sep 10
     
    It's unfortunate. But on the upside, we know the most about our religion and religions in general than any other religious group does (besides atheists and agnostics, which aren't really a "religious" group).
Shaun Frenza

Communist Manifesto (Chapter 1) - 1 views

www.marxists.org/...ch01.htm

shared by Shaun Frenza on 04 Oct 10 - Cached
  • holy alliance to exorcise
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Religious diction
  • All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Man is responsible for technology which is responsible for a fast paced world, which they don't like
  • It compels all nations, on pain of extinction,
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Japan
    • Shaun Frenza
      Shaun Frenza on 05 Oct 10
       
      Seems a little singular - is there a specific reason why you only say "Japan"
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Capitalism has taken over the world, and those that were slow to buy into the idealology are being left in the dust, and dependant on others, which they don't like.
  • Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Communists retaliate by not producing enough goods.
  • He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Paints these people as the suffers, clearly appealing to them to call for "equality"
  • Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      In Communism all become slaves of the state and the state leaders, how is that better?
    • Shaun Frenza
      Shaun Frenza on 05 Oct 10
       
      Or they become the machine - They are not the slave, they are the mechanizm together... at least that is what they tell themselves.
  • All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Conflicts with the MIT lesson, except for those that have to work. (in regard to females working) again an appeal to the working class people, who are the masses to revolt. This works less well in America because of the American dream and the possibility for change fostered by it.
  • At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984, they hope lies in the masses of uncontrolled people
  • Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      The working class fights back
  • so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat,
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      they aren't alone in their cause
  • The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations;
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      The shear fact of having money and therefore time to spend with children brings these differences.
  • The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.
  • Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Doesn't believe capitalism can survive.
    • Rhett Ferrin
      Rhett Ferrin on 05 Oct 10
       
      Wait, all these sound like good things. Is he saying its bad to have Toyotas? Is it bad to have bannanas in December?
  • rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.
    • Rhett Ferrin
      Rhett Ferrin on 05 Oct 10
       
      Can someone help me out here? Is he being sarcastic? He says capitalizm is bad then says that the bourgeoisie 'rescued' people from the 'idiocy of rural life' Thomas Jefferson thought the rural life was the ideal and to be sought after. I can't tell if Marx is for or against it.
  • By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour
  • By proletariat, the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.
  • immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation
    • Shaun Frenza
      Shaun Frenza on 05 Oct 10
       
      Notice how we are in the same situation now as were were then - the facilitation of communication with the internet and how it shapes the world to become more homogenous.
Morgan Wills

Johanna Schmitt: 'Natural Selection in an Age of Global Change' | Today at Brown - 0 views

today.brown.edu/...schmitt

natural selection Brown Schmitt global change

shared by Morgan Wills on 16 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • A famous early example of natural selection in action was actually discovered right here in Providence by a Brown professor, Hermon Carey Bumpus. Passing by the Atheneum (just a few blocks from here on Benefit Street) after a severe blizzard in January 1898, Professor Bumpus found a flock of English house sparrows that had been knocked down by the storm. A typical scientist, he picked them all up and took them back to his lab, where some revived and some didn’t. When he measured them he discovered that the living were morphologically different from the dead. That was a case of natural selection acting in a single night!
  • Some of those experiments have already produced results — such as the rapid, pervasive, and dangerous evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
  • And a Gallup poll on Darwin’s birthday this February showed that only 39 percent of the American public overall “believes” in the theory of evolution.
  • Morgan Wills on 16 Oct 10
     
    I've always wondered if Natural Selection is different for humans in a day and age where debilitating physical characteristics don't always prevent humans from reproducing. I found this article and highlighted some interesting points.
Mike Lemon

G. Stanley Hall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...G._Stanley_Hall

psychology

shared by Mike Lemon on 02 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • There, Hall objected vehemently to the emphasis on teaching traditional subjects, e.g., Latin, mathematics, science and history, in high school, arguing instead that high school should focus more on the education of adolescents than on preparing students for college.
  • Hall believed that humans are by nature non-reasoning and instinct driven, requiring a charismatic leader to manipulate their herd instincts for the well-being of society. He predicted that the American emphasis on individual human right and dignity would lead to a fall that he analogized to the sinking of Atlantis.
  • Hall coined the phrase "storm and stress" with reference to adolescence, taken from the German Sturm und Drang movement. Its three key aspects are conflict with parents, mood disruptions, and risky behavior.
Margaret Weddle

The Atomic Revolution: A Nuclear Comic Book from 1957: Scientific American Slideshows - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm

shared by Margaret Weddle on 05 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Margaret Weddle on 05 Nov 10
     
    A Non-Fiction comic book of the history of the Atomic Age
Shuan Pai

History Magazine - The Impact of Refrigeration - 0 views

www.history-magazine.com/refrig.html

shared by Shuan Pai on 16 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Refrigeration brought distant production centers and the North American population together. It tore down the barriers of climates and seasons. And while it helped to rev up industrial processes, it became an industry itself.
    • Shuan Pai
      Shuan Pai on 16 Nov 10
       
      Allowed all types of food to be made available year-round
  • Ice was harvested and stored in China before the first millennium. Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans placed large amounts of snow into storage pits and covered this cooling agent with insulating material.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • For centuries, people preserved and stored their food — especially milk and butter — in cellars, outdoor window boxes or even underwater in nearby lakes, streams or wells.
  • food preservation used time-tested methods: salting, spicing, smoking, pickling and drying.
  • Shuan Pai on 16 Nov 10
     
    how the invention of refrigerators affected society
Sarah Wills

House Un-American Activities Committee - 0 views

www.nps.gov/...huac.htm

Red Scare

shared by Sarah Wills on 11 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Sarah Wills on 11 Nov 10
     
    I think this committee contributed to the culture of the Red Scare.
Katherine Chipman

Take Cover: Living Under a Mushroom Cloud, a collection at the Museum at the Wisconsin ... - 0 views

www.wisconsinhistory.org/...takecovr.asp

atomic

shared by Katherine Chipman on 10 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • By the late 1950s, officials of the Eisenhower administration, after having seen the results of numerous atomic bomb tests, had a fairly realistic idea of how difficult it would be to survive a nuclear bomb blast. They continued, however, to disseminate somewhat dubious survival information, primarily to give the American public a sense of hope and control over their own lives. They also believed that a public confident of surviving an atomic war would support the federal government's decision to increase its own atomic arsenal, even though its existence could provoke a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Katherine Chipman

WGBH American Experience . The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer . Then & Now | PBS - 1 views

www.pbs.org/...oppenheimer-then-now

atomic oppenheimer

shared by Katherine Chipman on 10 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Today, the world is attempting to control nuclear proliferation through diplomacy and treaties. In 1996, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty prohibited nations from using bombs for either military or research purposes. Forty-one states with nuclear capabilities have signed the treaty, but it cannot take effect until three more nations join. India, Pakistan, and North Korea are among the countries that have refused. Although the United States has signed the treaty, it has not ratified it yet.
James Wilcox

Airplane Timeline - Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century - 0 views

www.greatachievements.org/?id=3728

digiciv

shared by James Wilcox on 15 Nov 10 - Cached
    • James Wilcox
      James Wilcox on 15 Nov 10
       
      I love helicopters!  But I never knew that they had been around for so many years.
  • 1947   Sound barrior broken U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager becomes the fastest man alive when he pilots the Bell X-1 faster than sound for the first time on October 14 over the town of Victorville, California.
  • 1952   Discovery of the area rule of aircraft design Richard Whitcomb, an engineer at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, discovers and experimentally verifies an aircraft design concept known as the area rule. A revolutionary method of designing aircraft to reduce drag and increase speed without additional power, the area rule is incorporated into the development of almost every American supersonic aircraft. He later invents winglets, which increase the lift-to-drag ratio of transport airplanes and other vehicles.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • 1925-1926   Introduction of lightweight, air-cooled radial engines The introduction of a new generation of lightweight, air-cooled radial engines revolutionizes aeronautics, making bigger, faster planes possible.
  •   1917   The Junkers J4, an all-metal airplane, introduced Hugo Junkers, a German professor of mechanics introduces the Junkers J4, an all-metal airplane built largely of a relatively lightweight aluminum alloy called duralumin.
  • 1904   Concept of a fixed "boundary layer" described in paper by Ludwig Prandtl German professor Ludwig Prandtl presents one of the most important papers in the history of aerodynamics, an eight-page document describing the concept of a fixed "boundary layer," the molecular layer of air on the surface of an aircraft wing. Over the next 20 years Prandtl and his graduate students pioneer theoretical aerodynamics.
  • 1933   First modern commercial airliner In February, Boeing introduces the 247, a twin-engine 10-passenger monoplane that is the first modern commercial airliner. With variable-pitch propellers, it has an economical cruising speed and excellent takeoff. Retractable landing gear reduces drag during flight.
  • 935   First practical radar British scientist Sir Robert Watson-Watt patents the first practical radar (for radio detection and ranging) system for meteorological applications. During World War II radar is successfully used in Great Britain to detect incoming aircraft and provide information to intercept bombers.
  • 1937   Jet engines designed Jet engines designed independently by Britain’s Frank Whittle and Germany’s Hans von Ohain make their first test runs. (Seven years earlier, Whittle, a young Royal Air Force officer, filed a patent for a gas turbine engine to power an aircraft, but the Royal Air Ministry was not interested in developing the idea at the time. Meanwhile, German doctoral student Von Ohain was developing his own design.) Two years later, on August 27, the first jet aircraft, the Heinkel HE 178, takes off, powered by von Ohain’s HE S-3 engine.
  •   1939   First practical singlerotor helicopters Russian emigre Igor Sikorsky develops the VS-300 helicopter for the U.S. Army, one of the first practical singlerotor helicopters.
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