MIT

[Reading #8] Discounting, data stories and long journalism

May 1, 2011

1. Discounting So discounting is what retailers do – at Christmas, to seize the momentum of buying ahead of Christmas, and, in June, to get cash rather than debts on the books ahead of the end of financial year. But it’s something we all do. Think about the choice between watching TV or doing exercise. [...]

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Opening science’s books for the crowd

February 3, 2011
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Researchers can slave over their work, publishing modest increments for years before something really connects, and sometimes it’s not even then – it can be years later, when someone else makes the connection. But paying for that time can be politically tricky, and in any case the funding tends to come with the political cycle and with the tide of political opinion. Seems like a bit of a gap between what researchers need and what they’re getting, so what’s the answer?

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Reading #4

November 23, 2010

Imagine a situation that brings sci-fi writers Douglas Rushkoff, Ray Hammond, Scarlett Thomas and Markus Heitz together with experts in photonics, robotics, telematics, dynamic physical rendering and intelligent sensors. Sounds perfect, right? That’s what Intel’s Morrow Project did (follow that link to read/watch the stories). Brian David Johnson is the futurist/futurecaster responsible for this project, and although [...]

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REVIEW: Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson

November 22, 2010

In 1943, the famed MIT radiation laboratory – the Rad Lab – needed a quick fix. So they threw up a building to house researchers until the end of the second world war, expecting to tear it down within a few years. But 50 years later the wooden, asbestos-ridden Building 20 was still producing spectacular [...]

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Reading #2

November 16, 2010

Graphic designer/computer scientist John Maeda is really a perfect case of someone bridging the art/science divide. President of the Rhode Island School of Design, former research director at the MIT Media Lab, one of the guys behind Second Life. Here’s a great NY Times profile. He’s now on a mission to expand the STEM (science, [...]

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