1. ⁘  ⁘  ⁘
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  12. anxiety 9
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  14. Aptekar-Cassels, Wesley 5
  15. Arango, Jorge 4
  16. architecture 110
  17. art 86
  18. Asimov, Isaac 5
  19. attention 17
  20. Auping, Michael 6
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  23. Baker, Nicholson 10
  24. beauty 58
  25. Behrensmeyer, Anna K. 7
  26. Bell, Larry 3
  27. Bjarnason, Baldur 8
  28. Blake, William 5
  29. blogging 22
  30. body 11
  31. Boeing, Geoff 7
  32. boredom 9
  33. Botton, Alain de 38
  34. Brand, Stewart 4
  35. Bringhurst, Robert 16
  36. Brooks, Frederick P. 22
  37. Broskoski, Charles 6
  38. brutalism 7
  39. building 16
  40. bureaucracy 12
  41. Burnham, Bo 9
  42. business 15
  43. Byron, Lord 14
  44. Cagan, Marty 8
  45. Calvino, Italo 21
  46. Camus, Albert 13
  47. care 6
  48. Carruth, Shane 15
  49. Cegłowski, Maciej 6
  50. Cervantes, Miguel de 7
  51. chance 11
  52. change 16
  53. Chiang, Ted 4
  54. childhood 6
  55. Chimero, Frank 17
  56. choice 8
  57. cities 51
  58. Clark, Robin 3
  59. Cleary, Thomas 8
  60. Cleary, J.C. 8
  61. code 20
  62. collaboration 18
  63. collections 31
  64. Collison, Simon 3
  65. color 23
  66. commonplace 11
  67. communication 31
  68. community 7
  69. complexity 11
  70. connection 24
  71. constraints 25
  72. construction 9
  73. content 9
  74. Corbusier, Le 13
  75. Coyier, Chris 4
  76. craft 66
  77. creativity 59
  78. crime 9
  79. Critchlow, Tom 5
  80. critique 10
  81. Cross, Nigel 12
  82. Cross, Anita Clayburn 10
  83. css 11
  84. culture 13
  85. curiosity 11
  86. cycles 7
  87. Danielewski, Mark Z. 4
  88. darkness 28
  89. Darwin, Will 10
  90. data 8
  91. death 38
  92. Debord, Guy 6
  93. decisions 10
  94. design 131
  95. details 31
  96. Dickinson, Emily 9
  97. Dieste, Eladio 4
  98. discovery 9
  99. doors 7
  100. Dorn, Brandon 11
  101. drawing 23
  102. Drucker, Peter F. 15
  103. Duany, Andres 18
  104. Eatock, Daniel 4
  105. economics 13
  106. efficiency 7
  107. Eisenman, Peter 8
  108. Eliot, T.S. 14
  109. emotion 8
  110. ending 14
  111. engineering 11
  112. Eno, Brian 4
  113. ethics 14
  114. euphony 38
  115. Evans, Benedict 4
  116. evolution 9
  117. experience 14
  118. farming 8
  119. fashion 11
  120. features 25
  121. feedback 6
  122. flaws 10
  123. Flexner, Abraham 8
  124. food 16
  125. form 19
  126. Fowler, Martin 4
  127. Franklin, Ursula M. 30
  128. friendship 6
  129. fun 7
  130. function 31
  131. games 13
  132. gardens 26
  133. Garfield, Emily 4
  134. Garfunkel, Art 6
  135. geography 8
  136. geometry 18
  137. goals 9
  138. Gombrich, E. H. 4
  139. goodness 12
  140. Graham, Paul 37
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  142. Greene, Erick 6
  143. Hamming, Richard 45
  144. happiness 17
  145. Harford, Tim 4
  146. Harper, Thomas J. 15
  147. Hayes, Brian 28
  148. heat 7
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  150. Herbert, Frank 4
  151. Heschong, Lisa 27
  152. Hesse, Herman 6
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  154. Hoffman, Yoel 10
  155. Hofstadter, Douglas 6
  156. home 15
  157. Hoy, Amy 4
  158. Hoyt, Ben 5
  159. html 11
  160. Hudlow, Gandalf 4
  161. humanity 16
  162. humor 6
  163. Huxley, Aldous 7
  164. hypermedia 22
  165. i 18
  166. ideas 21
  167. identity 33
  168. images 10
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  170. information 42
  171. infrastructure 17
  172. innovation 15
  173. interaction 10
  174. interest 10
  175. interfaces 37
  176. intuition 8
  177. invention 10
  178. Irwin, Robert 65
  179. Isaacson, Walter 28
  180. Ishikawa, Sara 33
  181. iteration 13
  182. Ive, Jonathan 6
  183. Jackson, Steven J. 14
  184. Jacobs, Jane 54
  185. Jacobs, Alan 5
  186. Jobs, Steve 20
  187. Jones, Nick 5
  188. Kahn, Louis 4
  189. Kakuzō, Okakura 23
  190. Kaufman, Kenn 4
  191. Keith, Jeremy 6
  192. Keller, Jenny 10
  193. Kelly, Kevin 3
  194. Keqin, Yuanwu 8
  195. Ketheswaran, Pirijan 6
  196. Kingdon, Jonathan 5
  197. Kitching, Roger 7
  198. Klein, Laura 4
  199. Kleon, Austin 13
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  219. Magnus, Margaret 12
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  230. melancholy 51
  231. memory 28
  232. metaphor 10
  233. metrics 19
  234. microsites 49
  235. Miller, J. Abbott 10
  236. Mills, C. Wright 9
  237. minimalism 10
  238. Miyazaki, Hayao 30
  239. Mod, Craig 15
  240. modularity 6
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  242. morality 8
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  244. music 16
  245. Müller, Boris 7
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  365. transportation 16
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Science

Close
  • Atoms and aggregates

    I see science reversing the trend toward atomistic explanation that has been so triumphant in the last 400 years, and I predict a more human future based on the symbiosis of exact knowledge (which is by its very nature limited) and experience.

    ...Matter cannot be understood without a knowledge of atoms; yet it is now becoming evident that the properties of materials that we enjoy in a work of art or exploit in an interplanetary rocket are really not those of atoms but those of aggregates...It is not stretching the analogy much to suggest that the chemical explanation of matter is analogous to using an identification of individual brick types as an explanation of Hagia Sophia.

    Matter versus Materials: A Historical View
    1. ​​The edifice from which they came​​
    • architecture
    • science
  • Interdisciplinary

    These papers are probably to be called interdisciplinary—an “in” word these days—but any value they may have derives from the fact that the author started with a rather deep immersion in a single discipline. One cannot hope to understand the nature of interaction between impinging areas without a firm knowledge of at least one of them.

    Apologia
    • knowledge
    • science
  • Which half?

    One day when I was a junior medical student, a very important Boston surgeon visited the school and delivered a great treatise on a large number of patients who had undergone successful operations for vascular reconstruction. At the end of the lecture, a young student at the back of the room timidly asked, "Do you have any controls?" Well the great surgeon drew himself up to his full height, hit the desk, and said, "Do you mean did I not operate on half of the patients?" The hall grew very quiet then. The voice at the back of the room hesitantly replied, "Yes, that's what I had in mind." Then the visitor's fist really came down as he thundered, "Of course not. That would have doomed half of them to their death!" God, it was quiet then, and one could scarcely hear the small voice ask, "Which half?"

    E.E. Peacock Jr., Seeing With Fresh Eyes
    • science
  • Scientific writing

    What Mick Southern taught me was both the imperative to and the means of writing scientific prose—“if it’s not published it’s not done,” as a later adviser put it. Mock showed me that the rather dry technical requirements of scientific writing did not necessarily mean that elegance, humor, and even wit need be excluded from the scientists’ products.

    Roger Kitching, A Reflection of the Truth
    1. ​​Selling new ideas​​
    2. ​​You cannot consume what is not produced​​
    • science
    • writing
  • A tiny rivulet in a distant forest

    Science, like the Mississippi, begins in a tiny rivulet in the distant forest. Gradually other streams swell its volume. And the roaring river that bursts the dikes is formed from countless sources.

    Abraham Flexner, The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge
    • science
    • knowledge
  • The downgrading of experience

    Today scientific constructs have become the model of describing reality rather than one of the ways of describing life around us. As a consequence there has been a very marked decrease in the reliance of people on their own experience and their own senses.

    The downgrading of experience and the glorification of expertise is a very significant feature of the real world of technology.

    Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology
    • science
    • experience
  • Humility

    Maybe what the real world of technology needs more than anything else are citizens with a sense of humility – the humility of Kepler or Newton, who studied the universe but knew they were not asked to run it.

    Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology
    • science
    • humanity
    • curiosity
  • Art and science

    "What the artist does is essentially the same as the scientist. In other words, what you do when you start to do a painting is that you begin with a basic idea, a hypothesis of what you're setting out to do. Then it's just a million yes-no decisions. You try something in the painting, you look at it, and you say, 'N-n-no.' You sort of erase it out, and you move it around a little bit, put in a new line; you go through a million weighings. It's the same thing in science, the only difference in the character of the product."

    Lawrence Wechler & Robert Irwin, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees
    • science
    • decisions
    • choice
  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

    A Book by Thomas Kuhn
    1. ​​You need to make the step forward​​
    • science
    • philosophy
    • progress
  • BLDGBLOG

    A Blog by Geoff Manaugh
    www.bldgblog.com
    1. ​​A World Where Things Only Almost Meet​​
    2. ​​Buttresses​​
    3. ​​The Gosling Effect​​
    4. ​​Auditory Hallucinations from Offworld Megafarms​​
    1. ​​125 Best Architecture Books​​
    • architecture
    • geography
    • nature
    • science
  • The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn

    A Book by Richard Hamming
    www.amazon.com

    The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is the full expression of what "You and Your Research" outlined. It's a book about thinking; more specifically, a style of thinking by which great ideas are conceived.

    1. ​​Gifts of knowledge to humanity​​
    2. ​​Hamming-greatness​​
    3. ​​It cannot be taught in words​​
    4. ​​Preparing for problems​​
    5. ​​Student's future, not teacher's past​​
    1. ​​You and Your Research​​
    2. ​​Chance favors the prepared mind​​
    3. ​​Serendipity​​
    • learning
    • science
    • engineering
    • discovery
  • The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.

    An Article by Matt Might
    matt.might.net
    Image from matt.might.net on 2020-12-22 at 11.20.16 AM.jpeg
    Image from matt.might.net on 2020-12-22 at 11.20.25 AM.jpeg
    Image from matt.might.net on 2020-12-22 at 11.20.16 AM.jpeg

    Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge.
    By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little.
    By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more.
    With a bachelor's degree, you gain a specialty.
    A master's degree deepens that specialty:
    Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge.
    Once you're at the boundary, you focus.
    You push at the boundary for a few years.
    Until one day, the boundary gives way.
    And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D..
    Of course, the world looks different to you now.
    So, don't forget the bigger picture.
    Keep pushing.

    • knowledge
    • science
    • progress
    • research
  • evermore, and other beautiful things

    An Article by Linus the Sephist
    linus.coffee

    If all evidence of civilization on Earth was destroyed, and humans had to re-build society from the ground up, what would be different? Feynman reckons that pivotal scientific moments, like the discovery of the atom, will still happen in the same way. Perhaps mathematics will be similarly rediscovered.

    Someone told me once in response to this question, no artwork would ever be recreated. The art we create – music, stories, dance, film – isn’t a fundamental element of the universe, or even of humanity. It’s unique to each artist. If you choose to create art, you leave something in the world that has never had a chance to exist before, and will never again have a chance to exist. There will never be another Beatles or Studio Ghibli or Picasso. Art, in its infinite variations of originality, is cosmically unique in a way the sciences will never be. Art immortalizes human experiences that would otherwise vanish in time.

    • art
    • science
    • humanity
    • society
  • Reality is Very Weird and You Need to be Prepared for That

    An Essay
    slimemoldtimemold.com

    We might be closer than we think to cures for depression, hypertension, and yes, even obesity.

    The answer to scurvy was just one thing, plus a few wrinkles — mostly “not all citrus has the antiscorbutic property” and “most animals can’t get scurvy”. This was only difficult because people weren’t prepared to deal with basic wrinkles, but we can do better by learning from their mistakes.

    This means don’t give up easily. It suggests that there is lots of low-hanging fruit, because even simple explanations are easily missed.

    Lots of theories have been tried, and lots of them have been given up because of something that looks like contradictory evidence. But the evidence might not actually be a contradiction — the real explanation might just be slightly more complicated than people realized. Go back and revisit scientific near-misses, maybe there’s a wrinkle they didn’t know how to iron out.

    1. ​​Scott and Scurvy​​
    • science
    • reality
    • health
  • Tortured phrases

    An Article by Holly Else
    www.nature.com

    In April 2021, a series of strange phrases in journal articles piqued the interest of a group of computer scientists. The researchers could not understand why researchers would use the terms ‘counterfeit consciousness’, ‘profound neural organization’ and ‘colossal information’ in place of the more widely recognized terms ‘artificial intelligence’, ‘deep neural network’ and ‘big data’.

    Further investigation revealed that these strange terms — which they dub “tortured phrases” — are probably the result of automated translation or software that attempts to disguise plagiarism. And they seem to be rife in computer-science papers.

    • language
    • science

    Via Language Log.

  • Why Most Published Research Findings Are False

    A Research Paper by John P.A. Ioannidis
    journals.plos.org

    There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance.

    • research
    • science
    • truth
  • A hypothesis is a liability

    A Research Paper by Itai Yanai & Martin Lercher
    genomebiology.biomedcentral.com
    BB34EE64-D085-4DF1-ADC7-39AE5C1CAF3F.webp

    There is a hidden cost to having a hypothesis. It arises from the relationship between night science and day science, the two very distinct modes of activity in which scientific ideas are generated and tested, respectively [1, 2]. With a hypothesis in hand, the impressive strengths of day science are unleashed, guiding us in designing tests, estimating parameters, and throwing out the hypothesis if it fails the tests. But when we analyze the results of an experiment, our mental focus on a specific hypothesis can prevent us from exploring other aspects of the data, effectively blinding us to new ideas.

    • research
    • science
    • discovery

See also:
  1. knowledge
  2. research
  3. humanity
  4. architecture
  5. progress
  6. discovery
  7. writing
  8. experience
  9. curiosity
  10. decisions
  11. choice
  12. geography
  13. nature
  14. philosophy
  15. learning
  16. engineering
  17. language
  18. truth
  19. reality
  20. health
  21. art
  22. society
  1. Ursula M. Franklin
  2. Abraham Flexner
  3. Roger Kitching
  4. Lawrence Wechler
  5. Robert Irwin
  6. Geoff Manaugh
  7. Thomas Kuhn
  8. Richard Hamming
  9. Matt Might
  10. Itai Yanai
  11. Martin Lercher
  12. E.E. Peacock Jr.
  13. Holly Else
  14. John P.A. Ioannidis
  15. Linus the Sephist