Why Life Can’t Be Simpler
We’d all like life to be simpler. But we also don’t want to sacrifice our options and capabilities. Tesler’s law of the conservation of complexity, a rule from design, explains why we can’t have both. …
We’d all like life to be simpler. But we also don’t want to sacrifice our options and capabilities. Tesler’s law of the conservation of complexity, a rule from design, explains why we can’t have both. …
Our desire to fit in with others means we don’t always say what we think. We only express opinions that seem safe. Here’s how the spiral of silence works and how we can discover what people really …
Inventing new things is hard. Getting people to accept and use new inventions is often even harder. For most people, at most times, technological stagnation has been the norm. What does it take to …
Critical mass, which is sometimes referred to as tipping points, is one of the most effective mental models you can use to understand the world. The concept can explain everything from viral cat …
What makes a communications technology revolutionary? One answer to this is to ask whether it fundamentally changes the way society is organized. This can be a very hard question to answer, because …
You probably know that Gutenberg invented the printing press. You probably know it was pretty important. You may have heard some stuff about everyone being able to finally read the Bible without a …
Andrew Ng has quite the modern resume. He founded Coursera, a wonderful website that gives anyone with Internet access the ability to take high level university courses on almost any topic. He founded …
“I think a society in which people can do and say what they want will also tend to be one in which the most efficient solutions win.” *** Paul Graham is a programmer, writer, and investor. …
From Garrett Hardin‘s mind-blowingly awesome Filters Against Folly. In our highly technological society we cannot do without experts. We accept this fact of life, but not without anxiety. There …
“In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the …
A thoughtful passage by David Gelernter in Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox…How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean on how looking at a Rembrandt can teach us …
Software memory is increasingly doing more and more for us. Yet it lacks one important element of human memory: emotion. This thought-provoking excerpt comes from Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software …
People have worried about losing their jobs to robots for decades now. But how is growing automation really going to change us? Let’s take a look at the limitations of automation and the uniquely …
Paul Graham is a programmer, writer, and investor. His 2004 anthology Hackers and Painters explores the world and the people who inhabit it. He calls the book an “intellectual wild west,” …
“The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning.” — …
“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies,” writes Douglas Adams in The Salmon of Doubt. 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is …