Names vs. The Nothing This is the first site along the tour. In here we have a void. I remember the building that used to stand here, it was painted blue. Passing through it, you can imagine how us, as ghosts – should the building be standing here – would have to actually be invisible to pass through these walls and now it’s the reverse. The building is the ghost and we’re passing through these walls. Graham Coreil-Allen & Roman Mars, 99% Invisible 99percentinvisible.org New Public SitesLocal Code: 3,659 Proposals About Data, Design & The Nature of Cities emptinessnamescities
New Public Sites A Place by Graham Coreil-Allen newpublicsites.org New Public Sites walking tours explore the history, design and uses of public spaces. Through walking tours, maps and videos, Public Artist Graham Coreil-Allen pushes pedestrian agency, interprets aspects of the everyday and investigates the negotiable nature of the built environment. New Public Sites invites you to practice “radical pedestrianism” – traveling by foot through infinite sites of freedom while testing the limits of and redefining public space. Names vs. The Nothing urbanismwalking
You and Your Research A Speech by Richard Hamming www.cs.virginia.edu This talk centered on Hamming's observations and research on the question "Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?" Important problemsOpen doors, open mindsInverting the problemIntellectual investment is like compound interestGreat people can tolerate ambiguity+2 More The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn researchdiscoverycreativitylearning
Important problems Among the important properties to have is the belief you can do important things. If you do not work on important problems, how can you expect to do important work? Yet direct observation and direct questioning of people show most scientists spend most of their time working on things they believe are not important and are not likely to lead to important things.
Open doors, open minds I suspect the open mind leads to the open door, and the open door tends to lead to the open mind; they reinforce each other. doors
Inverting the problem When stuck, often inverting the problem and realizing the new formulation is better represents a significant step forward.
Intellectual investment is like compound interest Intellectual investment is like compound interest: the more you do, the more you learn how to do, so the more you can do, etc. I do not know what compound interest rate to assign, but it must be well over 6%—one extra hour per day over a lifetime will much more than double the total output. The steady application of a bit more effort has a great total accumulation.
Great people can tolerate ambiguity Great people can tolerate ambiguity; they can both believe and disbelieve at the same time. You must be able to believe your organization and field of research is the best there is, but also that there is much room for improvement! I don't necessarily agree with everything that I say
Selling new ideas I must come to the topic of “selling” new ideas. You must master three things to do this: Giving formal presentations, Producing written reports, and Mastering the art of informal presentations as they happen to occur. All three are essential—you must learn to sell your ideas, not by propaganda, but by force of clear presentation. I am sorry to have to point this out; many scientists and others think good ideas will win out automatically and need not be carefully presented. They are wrong; many a good idea has had to be rediscovered because it was not well presented the first time, years before! Scientific writing
A halo of opportunities It seems to me at almost all times there is a halo of opportunities about everyone from which to select.