Monthly Archives: June 2010

Categories, Links, and Tags

Posted on 2010-06-28 by alan

Both Heli Nurmi and MCMorgan have commented on the CritLit2010 week 4 reading from Clay Shirky Shirky: Ontology is Overrated — Categories, Links, and Tags. I can’t help feeling that the idea that search based on content and tags will … Continue reading →

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Selfish Altruism

Posted on 2010-06-13 by alan

‘Psychological Altruism’ is just a special case of ‘Biological Altruism’ and the “gene” for either is the most selfish of all. Of course the concept of genes for actual characteristics all being in one-to-one correspondence with discrete sequences of DNA … Continue reading →

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Does the Internet Make You Smarter?

Posted on 2010-06-11 by alan

I was led to this by a #CritLit2010 Tweet from Ruth Howard. In it Clay Shirky responds to Nick Carr and others who worry that “the internet is making us dumber”. But I think to some extent Shirky misidentifies the … Continue reading →

Posted in arts and culture, web | Tagged | Leave a comment

Collateral Murder

Posted on 2010-06-09 by alan

Arrest over leaked video of US gunship attack – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). The video really is shocking – especially since nothing I could see (except the camera) looked remotely like a weapon to me.  But the former soldier … Continue reading →

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A Mindful Beauty – Math and Poetry

Posted on 2010-06-08 by alan

I have nothing to add to this, just want to keep the link.

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Brain Scans as Lie Detectors

Posted on 2010-06-08 by alan

BBC News – Brain scans being misused as lie detectors, experts say. And of course those who claim to interpret the scans will also call themselves experts. (Which leads us off to another conversation entirely) I am troubled by the … Continue reading →

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Patterns of Change – Calculus as a Critical Literacy

Posted on 2010-06-08 by alan

Stephen Downes’ introductory blog posting for the second week of the Critical Literacies Online Course ( CritLit2010 ) deals mainly with how we describe change, and in fact it would (with some minor edits) be the basis of a good … Continue reading →

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50 (Not Exactly Honest) Ways to Be Persuasive

Posted on 2010-06-08 by alan

This “review” by Alex Moskalyuk of Goldstein,  Martinand and Cialdini’s Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive is rather more of a summary athan a review – and by being so it demonstrates both why reading books isn’t necessarily … Continue reading →

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Critical Literacies Online Course

Posted on 2010-06-08 by alan

Stephen Downes and Rita Kop are running an online course on  Critical Literacies ( #CritLit2010 ). This appears to be partly an experiment in the open-format self-defining student-driven connectivist type of course pioneered over the past couple of years by … Continue reading →

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Why People Hate Mathematics and Atheists

Posted on 2010-06-04 by alan

Jason Green’s response to the readings for Week 1 of the Downes&Kop Critical Literacies course concludes with the question  “how does one think critically without it coming across as a baseline of distrust?” I actually think that a “baseline of … Continue reading →

Posted in mathematics, religion | Tagged | 1 Comment

Delinkification causes Frustration

Posted on 2010-06-02 by alan

Nicholas Carr’s  ‘Experiments in delinkification’ includes (and depends for its rationale on) the following statement: “People who read hypertext comprehend and learn less, studies show, than those who read the same material in printed form”. But this deserves (needs!) at … Continue reading →

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