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Katherine Chipman

Overview - The Babbage Engine | Computer History Museum - 0 views

  • Babbage embarked on an ambitious venture to design and build mechanical calculating engines to eliminate the risk of human error in the production of printed tables. The 'unerring certainty of machinery' would solve the problem of human fallibility. His work on the engines led him from mechanized arithmetic to the entirely new realm of automatic computation. Tabular errors provided a practical stimulus. But this was not his only motive. He also saw his engines as a new technology of mathematics.
  • It was not only the grindingly tedious labor of verifying a sea of figures that exasperated Babbage, but their daunting unreliability. Engineering, astronomy, construction, finance, banking and insurance depended on printed tables for calculation. Ships navigating by the stars relied on printed tables to find their position at sea. The stakes were high. Capital and life were thought to be at risk.
Katherine Chipman

The Story of the Triangle Fire: Part 2 - 0 views

  • Even today, sweatshops have not disappeared in the United States. They keep attracting workers in desperate need of employment and illegal immigrants, who may be anxious to avoid involvement with governmental agencies. Recent studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor found that 67% of Los Angeles garment factories and 63% of New York garment factories violate minimum wage and overtime laws. Ninety-eight percent of Los Angeles garment factories have workplace health and safety problems serious enough to lead to severe injuries or death.
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    Yikes! Horrible working conditions are not completely gone from even our society today.
Morgan Wills

Freud, "Civilization and its Discontents," 1930 (excerpt) - 0 views

  • If private property were abolished, all wealth held in common, and everyone allowed to share in the enjoyment of it, ill-will and hostility would disappear among men.
  • But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the systems based are an untenable illusion.
    • Megan Stern
       
      Freud says something worthwhile.
  • It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness
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  • horrors of the recent World War
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Something people would like to forget, but which shapes their world views. 
    • Morgan Wills
       
      definitely. Looking at much of Europe's reticence to join the US in armed conflict is a case in point.
  • s the factor which disturbs our relations with our neighbor and which forces civilization into such a high expenditure [of energy]
  • civilized society is perpetually threatened with disintegration
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Tyranny to Anarchy to Tyranny
  • instinctual passions are stronger than reasonable interests.
  • commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself -- a commandment which is really justified by the fact that nothing else runs so strongly counter to the original nature of man
  • liverance from our evil
  • The communists believe they have found  the path to de
  • Since everyone's needs would be satisfied, no one would have any reason to regard another as his enemy; all would willingly undertake the work that was necessary.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      The problem is that people have more than needs. 
  • but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness, nor have we altered anything in its nature. Aggressiveness was not created by property
  • If we were to remove this factor, too, by allowing complete freedom of sexual life and thus abolishing the family, the germ-cell of civilization, we cannot, it is true, easily foresee what new paths the development of civilization could take; but one thing we can expect, and that is that this indestructible feature of human nature will follow at there.
  • We can now see that it is a convenient and relatively harmless satisfaction of the inclination to aggression, by means of which cohesion between the members of the community is made easier
  • n this respect the Jewish people, scattered everywhere, have rendered most useful services to the civilizations of the countries that have been their hosts;
  • find its psychological support in the persecution of the bourgeois
  • s Civilization imposes such great sacrifices not only on man's sexuality but on his aggressivity, we can understand better why it is hard for him to be happy in that civilization.
  • primitive man was better off in knowing no restrictions of instinct.  To counterbalance this, his prospects of enjoying this happiness for any length of time were very slender.
  • Civilized man has exchanged a portion of his possibilities of happiness for a portion of security.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      John Locke
  • But I shall avoid the temptation of entering upon a critique of American civilization; I do not wish to give an impression of wanting myself to employ American methods.
Brad Twining

Game Theory scene from A Beautiful Mind - Mind Your Decisions - 0 views

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    Blog about the Nash equilibrium with more examples
Ariel Szuch

Differences Between Classical & Keynesian Economics | Small Business - Chron.com - 0 views

  • Two economic schools of thought are classical and Keynesian. Each school takes a different approach to the economic study of monetary policy, consumer behavior and government spending. A few basic distinctions separate these two schools.
  • Classical economic theory is rooted in the concept of a laissez-faire economic market. A laissez-faire--also known as free--market requires little to no government intervention. It also allows individuals to act according to their own self interest regarding economic decisions.
  • Keynesian economic theory relies on spending and aggregate demand to define the economic marketplace. Keynesian economists believe the aggregate demand is often influenced by public and private decisions. Public decisions represent government agencies and municipalities. Private decisions include individuals and businesses in the economic marketplace. Keynesian economic theory relies heavily on the fact that a nation’s monetary policy can affect a company’s economy.
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  • Government spending is not a major force in a classical economic theory.
  • Too much government spending takes away valuable economic resources needed by individuals and businesses. To classical economists, government spending and involvement can retard a nation’s economic growth by increasing the public sector and decreasing the private sector. Keynesian economics relies on government spending to jumpstart a nation’s economic growth during sluggish economic downturns.
  • Classical economics focuses on creating long-term solutions for economic problems.
  • Keynesian economics often focuses on immediate results in economic theories. Policies focus on the short-term needs and how economic policies can make instant corrections to a nation’s economy. This is why government spending is such a key cog of Keynesian economics.
Andrew DeWitt

History of Computers and Computing, Internet, Dreamers, Murray Leinster - 2 views

  • Leinster made one of the first descriptions of a personal computer (called a "logic") in science fiction
  • Leinster envisioned logics in every home, linked through a distributed system of servers (called "tanks"), to provide communications, entertainment, data access, and even commerce
  • Information runs rampant as every logic worldwide crunches away at problems too vast in scope for human minds to have attempted. Societal chaos quickly ensues, the situation became critical.
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    Sweet story!
Jeffrey Whitlock

Microblogging has become too important for Twitter to rule the field. - By Farhad Manjo... - 1 views

shared by Jeffrey Whitlock on 30 Nov 10 - Cached
    • Jeffrey Whitlock
       
      This article briefly touches on many aspects of the Network Effect and the lock-in that can occur because of it. It is interesting that the communities that make some Web 2.0 services so successful are also the cause of their problems.
anonymous

Media influence on politics and government - by Tatum Wilcox - Helium - 0 views

  • Not only does the mass media have extensive authority in political campaigns, but they can even exercise power over government officials and affairs. The media and the president both need each other; "The media need news to report, and the president may need coverage." Therefore, both the president and the media work hard to utilize one another. Public problems that receive the most media coverage are considered to be the most important ones by the public, giving the media an important role in the public agenda. The media provides the government with a better understanding of the need and desires of the society.
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