Ribbonfarm A Blog by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com AngkorwatificationPremium MediocreDomestic Cozy
Domestic Cozy An Article from Ribbonfarm by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com Millennials and Gen. ZA squeezable nugget of comfortPremium Mediocre vs. Domestic Cozy A Brief History of the Digital Garden
Fermi Estimates and Dyson Designs An Article by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com A Fermi estimate is a quick-and-dirty solution to an arbitrary scientific or engineering analysis problem. Fermi estimation uses widely known numbers, readily observable phenomenology, basic physics equations, and a bunch of approximation techniques to arrive at rough answers that tend to be correct within an order of magnitude or so. The term is named for Enrico Fermi, who was famously good at this sort of thing. …It struck me that there is counterpart to this kind of thinking on the synthesis side, where you use similar techniques to arrive at a very rough design for a complex engineered artifact. I call such a design approach Dyson design, after the physicist Freeman Dyson, who was one of the best practitioners of it (not to be confused with inventor James Dyson, whose designs, ironically, are not Dyson designs). designphysics
One Tenth of a Second An Article by Venkatesh Rao studio.ribbonfarm.com The details are fascinating, but the central argument — that the birth of modernity can be traced to a meta-crisis spawned by the 0.1s problem — is worth understanding and appreciating whether or not you’re a time nerd like me. There is no convenient leitmotif, comparable to the 0.1s problem, for our contemporary version of the rhyming conditions, but something very similar to the “tenth of a second crisis” is going on today. I suspect our Great Weirding too involves some sort of limiting factor on human cognition that we haven’t yet properly wrapped our minds around. It isn’t reaction time, but something analogous. timeanalogyprogresscognition
Mediocratopia An Article by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com I once read a good definition of aptitude. Aptitude is how long it takes you to learn something. The idea is that everybody can learn anything, but if it takes you 200 years, you essentially have no aptitude for it. Useful aptitudes are in the <10 years range. Leveling up aptitude You need to make the step forward skill
Premium Mediocre An Article from Ribbonfarm by Venkatesh Rao www.ribbonfarm.com Cupcakes and froyoMaya MillennialWhat premium mediocre is not societyculture
The Spoken and the Unspoken An Essay from Field Notes on Science and Nature by Karen L. Kramer What is unspokenResearch questionsQuantitative data collectionAnthropological rapportScan samples, focal follows+4 More The observer effect
What is unspoken Ethnographic studies are distinct from ethological research in other species because we can speak with our subjects and ask them questions. This has tremendous value, but much of what humans do is not spoken, and we also observe, count, and measure. researchux
Research questions From my records, research questions emerged that I never expected when I was making them. notetakingquestions
Quantitative data collection Quantitative data collection involves systematic and repetitive observations on the same set of variables.
Anthropological rapport Accurately capturing how people spend their time is contingent not only on systematic data collection, but also on participants moving in a relaxed and normal manner through their daily activities. Just as primatologists habituate their subjects to their presence, anthropologists first must develop rapport and trust with the communities in which they live. ux
Scan samples, focal follows Scan samples and focal follows are two commonly used behavioral observation methods. During a scan sample, randomly selected individuals are located at specified time intervals, usually every ten to fifteen minutes, and the observer instantaneously records what the participant is doing. Focal follows complement scan samples by documenting the continuous sequence of an individual's activities. During a focal follow, each subject is observed over a period of several hours with each change in activity recorded with a start and stop time.
Multitasking In most traditional societies children help care for their younger siblings. However, it is often the case that a child minding his younger sibling does so out of the corner of his eye while playing with other children. Is this play or child care?
A nested classificatory hierarchy I organized behavioral codes to contain several levels of information. As in this example, if a child is outside playing with friends while minding her two-year-old sister, the activity was coded as 675: the 600 signifies noneconomic activity, the 70 that it is playing, and the 5 that it is playing while in charge of a child. All activities were coded in this way. A nested classificatory hierarchy preserves both detail for future research and flexibility to lump or disaggregate activities for analyses. This method of nesting information carries over into many kinds of coding and classificatory schemes. research
A child's question Because they live so successfully in their world, we expect our subjects to readily explain the strategies that underlie the behaviors we observe. This can be trying, because from their point of view we are asking the obvious, a child’s question.
The research agenda Important connections are often made by accident, outside the bounds of our research agenda. The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge creativity