Sunday, November 10, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Monday, July 1, 2013
Creating With The Machines
The Luddites were a group of expert
weavers in the 19th century who, upon seeing that the invention of the factory loom had
made their skills obsolete, smashed the machines in protest. Ever since,
“Luddites” has become a disparaging term for those who fear technological
advance.
As I wrote previously in Forbes, we all luddites now, at least in the sense that many of the
hard won skills that we’ve come to depend on for income and social status are
now being automated.
MIT's Erik brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have argued that
the solution is to learn to “race with the machines;” to become less like the
mythical John Henry struggling to outdo a
steam hammer and more like an Indy car driver, using technology to race at
incredible speed. If so, we will need to not only redefine work, but
ourselves as well.
- See more at: www.creatfreaks.blogspot.com
Public Dialogue About Mental Health
In his recent book Hallucinations, Dr. Oliver Sacks tells the
tale of a woman who couldn’t stop hallucinating Kermit the
Frog. Sometimes the frog wore an angry expression; sometimes a sad one - and
his shifting moods distressed the patient. When she brought her case to Dr.
Sacks, she had two questions: “Am I going crazy?” and “Why Kermit?”
As I’ll explain in a
moment, neither of those questions can be answered in a straightforwardly
Freudian way. But they do reveal some prevalent cultural superstitions that
continue to dominate and distort our culture’s dialogue about mental health.
The word “superstition” has
its origin in Latin, where it literally meant “a standing-over” - a thing that
remains standing from an earlier period. Superstitions, then, are holdovers;
outdated distinctions and vocabularies that
continue to inform (or uninform) the ways many of us discuss hot-button issues
like death, sexuality and mental health - issues, in other words, where old
words and categories serve up doses of comfort at stressful times.
What’s our main
mental-health superstition? The belief that, just as we can look for germs in a
human body and classify it as “sick” or “well,” we can look for delusions in a
person’s mind and classify it as “sane” or “crazy.” But as anyone who’s dealt
with cancer knows, the activity of germs may not be the cause of a person’s worst
sickness - and as doctors now realize, many of the same bacteria that make us
sick can also play crucial
roles in a healthy body’s metabolism. By the same token, we’ve
all met a few deluded people who still hold down jobs and raise families - and
sometimes, even delusions themselves can inspire works of creative art.
This is why
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (better
known as the “DSM-IV”) contains extensive lists of diagnostic criteria for
most of the disorders listed within its pages: Many are designed to determine
whether a patient’s mental state interferes with his or her ability to
communicate effectively, hold onto a job, avoid committing crimes, and
distinguish between reality and hallucination. This is also why federal law
draws a clear
distinction between a defendant who’s suffering from a mental
disease and a defendant who’s mentally incompetent to stand trial: Even a
person suffering from psychosis may remain lucid enough to know that
he or she is psychotic; even a person who hallucinates every day may realize
the hallucinations aren’t real.
-See More At : www.creatfreaks.blogspot.com
Book Review - Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined
Intelligence Turns out to be a difficult topic, for reason that aren't at all obvious at first. our understanding of mental ability has been captures in several independent threads of research that are surprisingly blivious of each other for the most part. Our stereotypes of the gifted and the ingifted often miss the details of what is going on. The study of individual differences in general, while useful, doesn't just de-emphasize, but actuallyy sustematically misses some of the most important things going on when people beacome exceptionally sucessful contributors.
-See More : www.creatfreaks.blogspot.com
Video Games & Violence, Yet Again
While there is an abundance of violence in the real world,
there is also considerable focus on the virtual violence of video games.
Interestingly, some people (such as the head of the NRA) blame real violence on
the virtual violence of video games. The idea that art can corrupt people is
nothing new and dates back at least to Plato's discussion of the corrupting
influence of art. While he was mainly worried about the corrupting influence of
tragedy and comedy, he also raised concerns about violence and sex. These days
we generally do not worry about the nefarious influence of tragedy and comedy,
but there is considerable concern about violence.
While I am a gamer, I do have concerns about the possible
influence of video games on actual behavior. For example, one of my published
essays is on the distinction between virtual vice and virtual virtue and in
this essay I raise concerns about the potential dangers of video games that are
focused on vice. While I do have concerns about the impact of video games,
there has been little in the way of significant evidence supporting the claim
that video games have a meaningful role in causing real-world violence.
However, such studies are fairly popular and generally get attention from the
media.
The most recent study purports to show that
teenage boys might become desensitized to violence because of extensive playing
of video games. While some folks will take this study as showing a connection
between video games and violence, it is well worth considering the details of
the study in the context of causal reasoning involving populations.
When conducting a cause to effect experiment, one rather
important factor is the size of experimental group (those exposed to the cause)
and the control group (those not exposed to the cause). The smaller the number
of subjects, the more likely that the difference between the groups is due to
factors other than the (alleged) causal factor. There is also the concern with
generalizing the results from the experiment to the whole population.
The experiment in question consisted of 30 boys (ages 13-15)
in total. As a sample for determining a causal connection, the sample is too
small for real confidence to be placed in the results. There is also the fact
that the sample is far too small to support a generalization from the 30 boys to
the general population of teenage boys. In fact, the experiment hardly seems
worth conducting with such a small sample and is certainly not worth reporting
on-except as an illustration of how research should not be conducted.
The researchers had the boys play a violent video game and a
non-violent video game in the evening and compared the results. According to
the researchers, those who played the violent video game had faster heart rates
and lower sleep quality. They also reported "increased feelings of
sadness." After playing the violent game, the boys had greater
stress and anxiety.
According to one researcher, "The violent game seems to
have elicited more stress at bedtime in both groups, and it also seems as if
the violent game in general caused some kind of exhaustion. However, the
exhaustion didn't seem to be of the kind that normally promotes good sleep, but
rather as a stressful factor that can impair sleep quality."
Being a veteran of violent video games, these results are
consistent with my own experiences. I have found that if I play a combat game,
be it a first person shooter, an MMO or a real time strategy game, too close to
bedtime, I have trouble sleeping. Crudely put, I find that I am
"keyed" up and if I am unable to "calm down" before trying
to sleep, my sleep is generally not very restful. I really noticed this when I
was raiding in WOW. A raid is a high stress situation (game stress, anyway)
that requires hyper-vigilance and it takes time to "come down" from
that. I have experienced the same thing with actual fighting (martial arts
training, not random violence). I've even experienced something
comparable when I've been awoken by a big spider crawling on my face-I did not
sleep quite so well after that. Graduate school, as might be imagined, put me
into this state of poor sleep for about five years.
In general, then, it makes sense that violent video games
would have this effect-which is why it is not a good idea to game up until bed
time if you want to get a good night's sleep. Of course, it is a generally a
good idea to relax about an hour before bedtime-don't check email, don't get on
Facebook, don't do work and so on.
While not playing games before bedtime is a good idea, the
question remains as to how these findings connect to violence and video games.
According to the researchers, the differences between the two groups
"suggest that frequent exposure to violent video games may have a
desensitizing effect."
Laying aside the problem that the sample is far too small to
provide significant results that can be reliably extended to the general
population of teenage boys, there is also the problem that there seems to be a
rather large chasm between the observed behavior (anxiety and lower sleep
quality) and being desensitized to violence. The researchers do note that the
cause and effect relationship was not established and they did consider the
possibility of reversed causation (that the video games are not causing these
traits, but that boys with those traits are drawn to violent video games).
As such, the main impact of the study seems to be that it got media
attention for the researchers. This would suggest another avenue of research:
the corrupting influence of media attention on researching video games and
violence.
Synopsis
Coffee Shops have been known to boost creative productivity. But it's not the caffeine that does it.
Freelancers, creatives, and the work-from-home-set have long
held the local coffee shop (or chain) as their secondary, semi-private office.
You arrive, order a drink, set your stuff down, and many times enter into to a
flow-like state of work, only to be interrupted when your cups runs dry or your
battery runs out. Many even believe they are more productive or more creative
when working from coffee shops–and they could be right.
In a recently published study in the Journal of Consumer
Research, a team of professors led by Ravi Mehta at the University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign
The study’s results imply what many freelancers already
know, that locking yourself off from the world to try to break a creative block
in your work may not be the right method. Instead, consider leaving your normal
routine and finding a semi-noisy environment to settle down into and let your
creativity flow like $4 lattes.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Looping Roller-Coaster Stairway You Can Actually Walk On
As you come closer, you’ll see that there’s a portion of this looping, curving stairway that seems to go upside-down, just as a real roller coaster would. Unfortunately, that’s part of the ‘magic’.
Architects Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth explain, “Having a closer look, the public is disappointed in a disarming way. The visitor climbs on foot via differently steep steps the roller-coaster-sculpture. So the sculpture subtly and ironically plays with the dialectic of promise and disappointment, mobility and standstill.”
LED lights were integrated into the handrails so that the sculpture is not only accessible at night, but acts as a landmark, visible for miles. It was built on the site of a toxic zinc-slag pit left over from a local zinc operation that was cleaned up and made fit for public use.
Famous Architects Dressed as their Buildings
Retronaut dug up this awesome photo of famous architects literally dressed as their buildings in what could almost be described as a living infographic.
Building Alphabet
This graphic brings together photographs taken from street level looking up at the tops of buildings, capturing the letters of the alphabet. Says creator Lisa Reinermann, “Standing in something like a little courtyard in Barcelona I looked up. I saw houses, the sky, clouds and a “Q”. The negative space in-between the houses formed a letter. I loved the idea of the sky as words, the negative being the positive. If I could find a “Q” other letters should be somewhere around the corner. The following weeks, I kept running around looking up to the sky. Bit by bit I found all the letters of the alphabet.”
Inside the Mind of an Architect by Raynes Architecture
Ever wonder how an architect comes up with a plan for a building, step-by-step? Raynes Architecture lays it out in this infographic, from their first surveys to handing the completed project over to a builder.
The Architecture of Inception
There are three types of architecture in the Martin Scorcese film Inception: real-world architecture, the intricately designed architecture created for the dream worlds, and the structure of the film’s plot throughout those dream worlds. This infographic, by graphic designer Rick Slusher, deals with the third. The many layers of plot throughout each ‘level’ of the dream world is laid out here in a way that is easier to understand than the movie itself.
Architecture Icons
Notable architects of the 20th and 21st centuries including Santiago Calatrava, Frank Lloyd Wright, Tadao Ando, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid get the graphic treatment in this All Nighter Original poster. The infographic breaks down each architect’s most notable works into graphic icons, like Foster + Partners’ 30 St. Mary Axe tower (‘The Gherkin’).
Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany
Is Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin the best example of Deconstructivism in the world? This zig-zagging structure, clad in thin zinc sheeting punctuated by windows in shapes meant to recall wounds and scars, houses two millennia of German Jewish history. It sits upon a space once occupied by the Berlin Wall, and butts up to an 18th century appeals court which is also part of the museum. Its shape is said to be inspired by a warped Star of David, and its jaggedness is likened to the human condition. A huge void cuts through the form of the museum, symbolizing the absence left by the thousands of Berliners who were killed or deported in the Holocaust.
Says the architect, “I believe that this project joins architecture to questions that are now relevant to all humanity. To this end, I have sought to create a new Architecture for a time which would reflect an understanding of history, a new understanding of Museums and a new realization of the relationship between program and architectural space. Therefore this Museum is not only a response to a particular program, but an emblem of Hope.”
Zaha Hadid’s Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Baghdad-born, Britain-based Zaha Hadid, the first woman to win a Pritzker Prize, has also contributed a number of notable Deconstructivist works to international architecture. One such structure, Hadid’s first design to ever be built, is the 2003 Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio. Known popularly as the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC), the building is both blocky and soft, defined by geometric volumes on the facade and featuring an unusual ‘urban carpet’, with the ground slowly curving upward from the sidewalk outside into the building and ultimately up the back wall. A ramp resembling a twisted spine draws visitors up to a landing at the entrance to the galleries.
OMA/Rem Koolhaas’ Seattle Central Library, Washington
With famed architect Rem Koolhaas at the helm, architecture firms OMA and LMN gave Seattle one of the world’s most stunning Deconstructivist buildings in the form of the Seattle Central Library. This groundbreaking structure consists of eight horizontal layers in varied sizes, encased within a structural steel and glass skin which defines additional exterior public spaces. Elevating the library beyond a mere receptacle for books, the design focuses on information as a whole where all forms of media can be accessed, reflected upon and discussed.
Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, a founding partner of OMA, has largely defied labels, variously categorized as Deconstructivist, Modernist and Humanist by critics. The Pritzker Prize winner may at times be controversial for designs that seem visually disjointed or difficult to actually use, but in the Seattle Central Library he has helped create one of America’s most notable structures, and one of the most important Deconstructivist buildings in the world.
Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette, Paris, France
The Parc de la Villette in Paris is unlike any public park you’ve ever seen, with its strange network of bright red structures designed, according to architect Bernard Tschumi, not for ordered relaxation and self-indulgence but interactivity and exploration. Built from 1984 to 1987 on the grounds of a former meat market, the park contains themed gardens, playgrounds for children, facilities dedicated to science and music and 35 architectural follies, all of which are inspired by the ideas of Deconstructivism. Visually and intellectually stimulating, the steel follies provide a frame for activity, in contrast to the idea of a park as open green space.
In his book ‘Architecture and Disjunction’, Tschumi describes meeting the French philosopher Jacques Derrida to talk about Derrida’s concept of deconstruction, which Tschumi and Eisenman have pulled into their own architectural aesthetics. “When I first met Jacques Derrida, in order to convince him to confront his own work with architecture, he asked me, ‘But how could an architect be interested in deconstruction? After all, deconstruction is antiform, anti-hierarchy, anti-structure, the opposite of all that architecture stands for’. ‘Precisely for this reason,’ I replied!”
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