There is no precise distinction between analog and digital computing, but, in general, digital computing deals with integers, binary sequences, and time that is idealized into discrete increments, while analog computing deals with real numbers and continuous variables, including time as it appears to exist in the real world. The past sixty years have brought such advances in digital computing that it may seem anachronistic to view analog computing as an important scientific concept, but, more than ever, it is.

{ George Dyson/Edge | Continue reading }

thing { Joseph Beuys, Gefängnis (Kabir + Daktyl), 1983 }

What gold does have is some rather remarkable physical properties that make it very likely that people will continue to value it highly: luster, corrosion resistance, divisibility, malleability, high thermal and electrical conductivity, and a high degree of scarcity. All the gold ever mined would only fill one large swimming pool, and most of that gold is still recoverable. (…)

The gold that was once locked up at Fort Knox is gone. It has been 40 years since the last indirect link between the dollar and gold was severed, and yet the government continues to hold some 8,000 metric tons of gold bullion—the world’s largest single stash. Oddly enough it is valued at $42 per ounce, the last official price before it was set free to be established in free trading. At today’s market price of around $1,300 per ounce, the hoard would be valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, although that much gold could not be dumped precipitously without suppressing the price. (…)

But is the gold still there? Yes, almost certainly, though we hear occasional calls for an outside audit. A more plausible accusation is that some of it has been leased to short sellers. This is a common practice among central banks that offers distinct benefits to the government. First, it earns a bit of interest income. More important, it can covertly suppress the gold price. Rising gold prices annoy Treasury secretaries and central bankers because the rise implies falling confidence in their currency. Leased gold remains in the vault and on the balance sheet even though it (or rather a paper claim on it) has been sold to someone else. Although one can find rumors on the Internet, there is no way, short of a thorough audit, to know the extent of gold leasing by the U.S. government, if any.

{ Freeman | Continue reading }

Swedish scientists have explored how a brain identifies its own body and how body image can change by successfully creating the illusion of owning three arms or being the size of a Barbie doll in a laboratory setting.

The research not only addresses some of the oldest philosophical and psychological questions about the relationship between body and mind, but also has potential applications in prosthetics and robotics. (…)

Ongoing projects question whether the perceived body can be shrunk to the size of a Barbie doll or if the brain can accept a body of a different sex.

Other seemingly bizarre recent projects have included giving participants the illusion of shaking hands with themselves, having their stomachs slashed with a kitchen knife and seeing themselves from behind. All were designed to trick participants into a false perception of owning another body.

{ Cosmos | Continue reading }

photo { David Fenton, Nurses on the Sidewalk, Chicano Moratorium, Los Angelos, CA, February 28th, 1970 }

The 27-page shareholder letter Berkshire Hathaway chief executive Warren Buffett just released reads like a motivational speech or a pep talk trying to win over an audience that is increasingly pessimistic about America’s future: “In 2011, we will set a new record for capital spending – $8 billion – and spend all of the $2 billion increase in the United States,” he writes. “Now, as in 1776, 1861, 1932 and 1941, America’s best days lie ahead.”

(Of course, Buffett also disclosed that Berkshire failed to outperform the S&P 500 in 2010 for the second year running, the first time in the company’s history that has happened.)

In any case, the letter is also replete with anecdotes that illuminate activity across various sectors of the U.S. economy. The style is somewhat reminiscent of the Federal Reserve’s own story-like account of economic activity, called the “Beige Book” after the hue of its cover, which is released every six weeks. So, this perhaps could be dubbed the “Buffett Book.” (…)

A housing recovery will probably begin within a year or so. In any event, it is certain to occur at some point. […] These businesses entered the recession strong and will exit it stronger. At Berkshire, our time horizon is forever. (…)

…the third best investment I ever made was the [$31,500] purchase of my home, though I would have made far more money had I instead rented and used the purchase money to buy stocks. (The two best investments were wedding rings.) (…)

IIn a nine-hour period [last year], we sold 1,053 pairs of Justin boots, 12,416 pounds of See’s candy, 8,000 Dairy Queen blizzards, and 8,800 Quikut knives (that’s 16 knives per minute). But you can do better. Remember: Anyone who says money can’t buy happiness simply hasn’t learned to shop.

{ WSJ | Continue reading }

photo { Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Pigeon Houses, Mit Gahmr Delta, Egypt | Thanks Daniel }

more { Critical Analysis of Buffett’s Annual Letter | Aleph blog }

We usually think of emotions as conveyed through facial expressions and body language. Science too has focused on these forms of emotional communication, finding that there’s a high degree of consistency across cultures. It’s only in the last few years that psychologists have looked at whether and how the emotions can be communicated purely through touch.

A 2006 study by Matthew Hertenstein demonstrated that strangers could accurately communicate the ‘universal’ emotions of anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, and sympathy, purely through touches to the forearm, but not the ‘prosocial’ emotions of surprise, happiness and sadness, nor the ’self-focused’ emotions of embarrassment, envy and pride.

Now Erin Thompson and James Hampton have added to this nascent literature by comparing the accuracy of touch-based emotional communication between strangers and between those who are romantically involved. (…)

The key finding is that although strangers performed well for most emotions, romantic couples tended to be superior, especially for the self-focused emotions of embarrassment, envy and pride.

{ BPS | Continue reading }

images { The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968, directed by Norman Jewison }

We know very well what sculpture is. And one of the things we know is that it is a historically bounded category and not a universal one. As is true of any other convention, sculpture has its own internal logic, its own set of rules, which, though they can be applied to a variety of situations, are not themselves open to very much change. The logic of sculpture, it would seem, is inseparable from the logic of the monument. By virtue of this logic a sculpture is a commemorative representation. It sits in a particular place and speaks in a symbolical tongue about the meaning or use of that place.

{ Rosalind Krauss, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, 1979 | Continue reading }

photo { Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes }

{ 1. Jurgen Teller | 2 }

…Known as mnemonists, they have unfathomable memories and data recall. (…)

Shereshesvkii was reporting on a talk given by Luria. At one point Luria looked around the room and noticed that, unlike all the rest of the journalists, there was an individual not taking any notes. Luria confronted Shereshesvkii asking why he was not taking notes, at this point Shereshesvkii recited his entire talk back to word for word. (…)

Luria’s studies revealed many interesting things about the workings of Shereshesvkii mind. His descriptions indicate that Sherevskii had “at least six different types of synaesthesia” triggered by at least four different sensations.

{ B Good Science | Continue reading }

image { Maybe the dumbest Photoshopped ad ever | copyranter | related: Rubik’s Brain Cube }

Shanghai is to extend the one-child policy to man’s best friend after tens of thousands of people complained of being bitten last year – and to prevent dog mess spoiling the country’s showcase business city.

The rule has already been imposed in several other Chinese cities, but Shanghai’s size – it has a population of more than 20 million – has made the presence of thousands of dogs more problematic. Dogs bigger than 3ft will be banned from the centre of the city and so-called “attack dogs”, including bulldogs, will be banned completely.

The ruling is the latest instance of uneasy relationships between man’s best friend and the Chinese authorities. During the Communist era of Mao Zedong, pets were frowned upon as a middle-class affectation and government opponents were condemned as capitalist running dogs. But China’s growing openness, combined with its rising affluence, means that pets are making a comeback, and there are around 100 million pet dogs in China. However, from May, a one-dog policy will be introduced in Shanghai and more than 600,000 unlicensed dogs will be declared illegal – and killed because of fears of rabies.

{ The Independent | Continue reading }

photo { Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes }

related { The special bond that often forms between people and both domesticated and wild animals may be, paradoxically, part of what makes us human. | Seed | full story }

{ 1. Koen Hauser | 2. Ray Caesar }

{ Armelle Caron, Le monde rangé, 2009 | Thanks Cole }

Google just changed its search algorithm and effectively declared war on Content Farms like Demand Media.

In a blog post, Google search engineers Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts write that the update, which will effect a whopping 11.8% of all search results, “is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.”

{ Business Insider | Continue reading }

painting { Nouar }

The English language makes a distinction between blue and green, but some languages do not. Of these, quite a number, mostly in Africa, do not distinguish blue from black either, while there are a handful of languages that do not distinguish blue from black but have a separate term for green.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

painting { Ellsworth Kelly, Blue Green Red, 1962–63 }

Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Alan Sorenson and Wharton Business School professor Jonah Berger studied an unexpected question: “Can bad publicity boost book sales?”

They discovered that a popular author’s books can suffer from bad publicity, but a lesser-known writer’s titles can actually benefit from it.

{ GalleyCat | Continue reading }

illustration { Paul Sahre }

{ Back to the 50’s }

The current pace of population aging is without parallel in human history but surprisingly little is known about the human aging process, because lifespans of eight decades or more make it difficult to study. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have replicated premature aging in the lab, allowing them to study aging-related disease in a dish.

In the February 23, 2011 advance online edition of the journal Nature, Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, Ph.D. a professor in the Salk Institute’s Gene Expression Laboratory, and his team report that they have successfully generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from skin cells obtained from patients with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome—who age eight to 10 times faster than the rest of us—and differentiated them into smooth muscle cells displaying the telltale signs of vascular aging. (…)

Progeria’s striking features resemble the aging process put on fast-forward and afflicted people rarely live beyond 13 years.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

photo { Brandon Pavan }

Most of my interest in the use of biology in economics concerns humans being subject to the forces of selection like any other biological organism. With this starting point, it is natural to pull across many of the tools, models and methods of analysis that evolutionary biologists use.

Sometimes those models and tools are of value without the biological underpinnings. Evolutionary economics is one of the major areas where this is done, with the concepts of selection applied at the level of firms.

Another instance of this crossover was in an article published three weeks ago by Andrew Haldane and Robert May, who have proposed that analysis of complexity and stability in ecosystems (dating from the 1970s) is of some use in examining financial systems.

{ Evolving Economics | Continue reading }

photo { Justin Fantl }

Only great pain, the long, slow pain that takes its time—on which we are burned, as it were, with green wood—compels us philosophers to descend into our ultimate depths and to put aside all trust, everything good-natured, everything that would interpose a veil, that is mild, that is medium—things in which formerly we may have found our humanity. I doubt that such pain makes us “better;” but I know that it makes us more profound.

{ Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 1882 }

image { Niki Shelley | Jewelry }

In his 1962 book “The Theory of the Avant-Garde” Renato Poggioli observed that “Like any artistic tradition, no matter how antitraditional it may be, the avant-garde also has its conventions.” The most conventional of modernist conventions has been the need to shock and offend, doing so, as the lingo has it, by “transgressing boundaries.” But once all the boundaries have been blurred, what’s left?

{ WSJ | Continue reading }

Since most folks are uncomfortable with explicit sexual conversation in public, obscenity laws limit such public conversation. But when artists create high quality and hence high status art with explicit sexual discussion, people are reluctant to let obscenity laws apply to it. 

{ Overcoming Bias | Continue reading }