The first time I found myself onboard an airplane was when I was 9-10 years old or so. At the time, travelling by myself to visit my aunt who lived on a remote island was a big experience. In particular, I think, the sensation that the environment was managed in the extreme made a big [...]
Monomorphic
Conceptual meandering
society
The aesthetics of technology
Different technologies have different kinds of aesthetics, and they affect us in various ways, whether we are particularly fascinated with technology or not. The easiest technologies to understand on an intuitive-emotional basis seem to be those that involve physical processes. Objects rotating, moving, being lifted and displaced, compressed, crushed. Gases and liquids being sent around [...]
Making playtime useful with color filling games
There’s a veritable torrent of little games constantly being released for the iPhone. One of the more likable ones is Flood-It, which I’ve been playing recently. The premise is extremely simple: you start off with a grid divided into squares of different, randomized colors. You are given a tool that works a bit like the [...]
Small ideas that hide in the dark
In the Japanese summer, minor cockroach infestations are common. Every pharmacy makes a fortune selling a wide variety of cockroach repellents, traps and poisons. Cockroaches are interesting from an evolutionary point of view. They are inherently passive and defensive in their approach to life. When danger threatens, they run to the darkest possible place. They [...]
Basic research in the UK
The Guardian reports that a new government panel will henceforth judge what research is worthy of funding in the UK. Universities will have to make the case for their research projects in order to receive money. Reuters UK, perhaps keen to draw attention, blurt out that “‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees face [a] funding battle”. Examples cited by [...]
