tossing and tumbling

Contemporary

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:58:16 -0500

Contemporary

Contemporary (Taken with instagram)

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:30:39 -0500

Contemporary (Taken with instagram)

What Diet? (Taken with instagram)

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:59:40 -0500

What Diet? (Taken with instagram)

Salad For Lunch (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:11:08 -0500

Salad For Lunch (Taken with instagram)

"BlackBerry Season The easy explanation for what happened to R.I.M. is that, like so many other..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:42:20 -0500

“BlackBerry Season The easy explanation for what happened to R.I.M. is that, like so many other companies, it got run over by Apple. But the real problem is that the technology world changed, and R.I.M. didn’t. The BlackBerry was designed for businesses. Its true customers weren’t its users but the people who run corporate information-technology departments. The BlackBerry gave them what they wanted most: reliability and security. It was a closed system, running on its own network. The phone’s settings couldn’t easily be tinkered with by ordinary users. So businesses loved it, and R.I.M.’s assumption was that, once companies embraced the technology, consumers would, too. - In this week’s issue, James Surowiecki on Research in Motion and the BlackBerry’s rise and fall: http://nyr.kr/zYzs6g”

- The New Yorker

"They tell us that only a “managed economy” for intellectual “property” will preserve jobs, and that..."

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:40:05 -0500

“They tell us that only a “managed economy” for intellectual “property” will preserve jobs, and that ifthe serfs have more “freedom,” this will actually lead to slavery. The warn us that roving bands of pirates are living it up like drug barons on movie downloads. They explain how they need the senate to grant them special, temporary powers to download the contents of your phone or laptop when you cross the border, they explain why they need to send violent special forces police to arrest and extradite the owners of a file downloading business, they explain why they need to monitor the entire world’s tweets looking for jokes in poor taste.”

- Reginald Braithwaite

Café Art (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:13:21 -0500

Café Art (Taken with instagram)

Café Hopping (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:39:32 -0500

Café Hopping (Taken with instagram)

Wafting Coffee Aroma

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:17:48 -0500

Wafting Coffee Aroma

Dessert! (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:55:13 -0500

Dessert! (Taken with instagram)

"Sugar should be controlled like alcohol: reportSugar is so toxic it should be controlled like..."

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:23:24 -0500

“Sugar should be controlled like alcohol: reportSugar is so toxic it should be controlled like alcohol, according to new report that goes so far as to suggest setting an age limit of 17 years to buy soda pop.It points to sugar as a culprit behind many of the world’s major killers — heart disease, cancer and diabetes — that are now a greater health burden than infectious disease.A little sugar “is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly,” says the report to be published Thursday in Nature, a top research journal.Over the eons sugar was available to our ancestors as fruit for only a few months a year at harvest time, or as honey “which was guarded by bees,” says the report by Dr. Robert Lustig, a noted childhood obesity expert at the University of California, and two U.S. colleagues specializing in health policy.Now it is added to “nearly all processed foods.” In developing countries, sugary soft drinks are often cheaper than potable water or milk, they say, noting that over the past 50 years, consumption of sugar has tripled worldwide. (Photo: Jenelle Schneider: Postmedia files)”

- National Post

"This year will be the year of Big Data. The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) reported that 90..."

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:21:05 -0500

“This year will be the year of Big Data. The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) reported that 90 percent of the IT professionals it surveyed said they were familiar with big data analytics. And 34 percent said they already applied analytics to Big Data. The vast hordes of data collection during e-commerce transactions, from loyalty programs, employment records, supply chain and ERP systems are, or are about to get, cozy. Uncomfortably cozy. Why Big Data Won’t Make You Smart, Rich, Or Pretty”

- Fast Company

Andrei Trostel: Spell Chceker is Agiasnt Me!

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:41:05 -0500

Andrei Trostel: Spell Chceker is Agiasnt Me!:

andreitrostel:

As a dyslexic person, I spell atrociously, so without spell check on programs, I would probably be unintelligible to the world. However, I have recently realized that over time spell check is slowly working against me, even mocking me! When I type on a word processor or even chat in Gmail I find…

Sunday Brunch? (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:37:09 -0500

Sunday Brunch? (Taken with instagram)

Single Best Thing We Can Do for Our Health!

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:26:20 -0500

Single Best Thing We Can Do for Our Health!

Glasses (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:44:26 -0500

Glasses (Taken with instagram)

Afternoon Snack (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:35:45 -0500

Afternoon Snack (Taken with instagram)

washingtonpoststyle: Stephen Colbert interviews Maurice...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:48:43 -0500

washingtonpoststyle:

Stephen Colbert interviews Maurice Sendak.

This is the greatest interview in the history of “The Colbert Report.” (Go to our actual tumblog if you have trouble watching on the dashboard.)

riot!

The Atlantic: The Zynga Abyss

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:07:49 -0500

The Atlantic: The Zynga Abyss:

90wpm:

The Atlantic published an excerpt from my essay for Distance today. It’s a little over 1500 words, and covers some of the main points in the essay.

It also includes a fantastic photoshopped stock photo of a lab rat playing FarmVille in a Skinner box.

Here’s a small snip:

In the 1890s, while studying natural sciences at the University of Saint Petersburg, a Russian mathematician named Ivan Pavlov was analyzing dogs’ saliva output over time. Pavlov noticed that dogs tended to salivate more before eating and that merely the sight of a white lab coat would induce salivation — even if no food was on the way. So he tried ringing a bell before presenting them with food, and found that over time, the dogs would salivate even if a bell was rung with no food presented. Pavlov’s research defined classical conditioning, in which a primary reinforcer (one which naturally elicits a response, e.g. food or pain) is associated with a conditioned or secondary reinforcer, such as the lab coat or bell.

Forty years later, Burrhus Frederic Skinner built upon Pavlov’s observations as a young psychologist in graduate school. He constructed a soundproof, lightproof chamber that housed a small animal; a lever was placed within the animal’s reach, which triggered a primary reinforcer. Called the Skinner box, the device opened up many possibilities for experimentation, leading to breakthroughs in later research: from the relative addictiveness of cocaine in isolation versus in a larger community, to the question of whether rats have empathy.

I’m really, really excited about the impending release after Feb. 17, especially given the awesome essays that Vitorio Miliano and Jon Whipple are working on alongside me.

Anyone curious about social game design, behavioral psychology, or even just why FarmVille is so damn addictive should take a look at the full excerpt.

First Snow of the Season (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:21:46 -0500

First Snow of the Season (Taken with instagram)