JUL 07
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Science-meets-art-project-link-of-the-day
Pluractional Adverbials one after the other.
First, what are they ?
Some examples :
Side by side Piece by piece Page by page,
New research, just published in the ‘ Journal of Semantics ’ proposes a new theory for dealing with them. Pointing out that :
“ . . . pluralization affects simultaneously the event - and the individual-argument slot of a predicate. “
Consider, for example, the phrase ‘ Dog after Dog ’ – which might, at first glance seem reasonably straightforward, but which has underlying levels of complexity which the research team, from the Universität Tübingen , has been analysing in great detail for several years now.
“ . . . it can be divided into a sequence of subevents,
and the three dogs can be divided into a sequence of individual dogs, such
that
each dog entered
the room in a relevant subevent, and its predecessor entered in the preceding
subevent, and each subevent was one of one of the dogs entering, and the
preceding event was one of the predecessor of that dog entering. “
For a fine-grained explanation of the mathematical analysis involved to reach such conclusions,
See ‘ Dog after dog revisited ’
31 JUL 07
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Competition update :
A brand new sample for our ' trace that noise ' comp. here . .
Pizza String Theory
[ alt. title : Viscoelastoplastics in Vancouver ]
The human-world can be divided into two groups – those who know what Rheology is and those who don’t.
The numbers probably shifted slightly after the publication ( on The Industrial Physicist website ) of this article ‘ What is rheology anyway ? ‘ , which explains that it can be described as “ . . . the study of the flow of materials that behave in an interesting or unusual manner. “
And, as any good pizzaiolo will testify, mozzarella is certainly one of them.
To confirm this, turn to the current issue of the International Dairy Journal to read this article :
The research, which was recently performed by the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, The University of British Columbia, revealed that :
“ Mozzarella cheese is a viscoelastoplastic material at room temperature, which becomes viscoelastic at about 60 °C. Its yield stress gradually decreases with increase of temperature pointing to structural changes that occur at elevated temperatures. A Herchel–Buckley viscoplastic rheological model was found to describe adequately its rheology. “
؟ ؟ ؟
For further info, investigate The Society of Rheology :
“ If you are fascinated by gooey, sticky, stretchy substances, The Society of Rheology is for you. “
30 JUL 07
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The Jetsoms
Q.
What is it ?
A. You mean what was it ?
Q. OK, what was it ?
A. The International Space Station’s EAS.
Q. The EAS ?
A. The Early Ammonia Servicer. Sent up to the ISS in 2001.
Q. Function ?
A. It was a 650-kilogram backup aircon coolant tank full of ammonia - though it was never used.
Q. What’s it doing ?
A. Free-floating in space.
Q. Why ?
A. NASA and the ISS partners had decided that the time had come to ‘ throw it away ’.
Q. When ?
A. Earlier this week.
Q. But won’t it be contributing to the ‘ space-junk ’ problem ?
A. Q. What do you think ?
Further info here
: and here :
and here
28 JUL 07
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Comesnow morning
A reminder to readers . . .
that our useful 2Xlation facility ( see menu on left ) is still almost fully operational.
As an example, to see how it is currently rendering Jeffrey Archer's blog
cut and paste this url :
http://tinyurl.com/ofh6d
27 JUL 07 (midday edition)
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Media literate recontextualizations in Springfield
Back in 2005, Dr. Jonathan Gray, Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University New York, launched his book :
Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality
- which, as Routledge puts it, is “ A must read for any student of media studies.”
The book attempted to ' fully situate the show's parodic humor within the lived realities of its audiences. '
At the same time though, as the author pointed out in this radio interview (.mp3) earlier this year -
It's clear that The Simpsons “ . . . makes fun of America “
Now the professor has written a new piece on the global implications of Matt Groening’s most famous creation.
The article appears in the current issue of the journal ‘ Popular Communication ‘ and it seems to be striking a decidedly minor chord.
“ . . . one of America's most globally successful television products may actually be circulating a parodic-satiric suspicion of America and American capitalist values. “
Have things recently taken a chilling turn for the worst ? Is it possible that Springfield could be a hatchery for quasi-subversive globally-destabilising meta-forces ?
Call us a blinkered ostrich if you like, but Really Magazine is still not convinced, preferring to turn back to the author’s radio interview, when he said :
“ . . . you don’t find too many people worrying about its quote ‘ anti-Americanism ‘ “
؟ ؟ ؟
27 JUL 07
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Slight anachronism of the day
Spread spread
Today’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine is carrying an unusual article which examines social-networking as a factor in the spread of the current US ‘ obesity epidemic ‘.
Data on the body-mass-index (BMI) of more than 12,000 people had already been collected as part of a now-famous 32-year-long study into heart disease in the town of Framingham, Massachusetts.
The researchers re-analysed the dataset and correlated it with any interconnected social network links – family, friends, neighbours etc etc.
The results were complex, but showed in general that social connections ( as distinct from genetic ones ) do appear to have a substantial effect on the chances that a person might become obese.
For example, between mutual friends, if one became obese during the study period, then the chances that the other would also become obese increased by a fairly astonishing 171% .
The study also revealed linking factors between non-obese people – for both groups showed a clear tendency to form clusters within the network.
Possible explanations of the observed effects include :
• social contacts might change a person's own tolerance towards being obese.
• social contacts could inluence one's choice of preferred foodstuffs.
• physiological imitation might be occurring - ' areas of the brain that correspond to actions such as eating food may be stimulated if these actions are observed in others '.
• Or perhaps, as has been suggested before, ‘ even infectious causes of obesity are conceivable. ‘
As yet, none can be completely discounted.
Looking on the bright side though, the authors ask whether the same social-networking factors which seem to be spreading obesity could instead be harnessed to slow the spread “ . . . since health improvements in one person might spread to others. “
See a graphical animation of the study results, with an audio explanation, here :
26 JUL 07 (late)
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Roses, Mars, and Otherness
As part of their “ exploration into non-terrestrial zones of life and otherness. “ researchers at the UK’s C-lab wondered how a rose might fare if subjected to the
• atmosphere [ 95.72% Carbon dioxide, pressure 7 - 10 millibar ]
• temperature [ average -46°C ]
• and Ultra Violet radiation levels [ 10 W m-2 ]
on Mars.
To find out, they enlisted the help of the Mars Simulation Laboratory at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.
Two roses were placed in the university’s Mars-simulating environmental chamber for eight hours.
Results :
They froze and shrivelled.
؟ ؟ ؟
Further info and a slightly stubborn (25MB) video here :
26 JUL 07
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Think Tank Targets Customers
If you were thinking of a word to describe the civilian population of a country under occupation by military forces, the word ‘ Customers ‘ might not be the first to spring to mind.
The novel application for the word did occur though to the Rand Corporation , for it turns up 41 times in their new report – commissioned for the US military – suggesting that a Madison Avenue-style marketing approach might be what is required ’ to earn popular support in theatres of operation. ‘ [ a.k.a. War Zones. Ed. ]
According to the think tank's 241 page report, the occupying coalition forces in, say, Iraq and Afghanistan should be concentrating on :
• Branding. [ where 'The Brand' = the U.S.
military, Ed. ]
• Instilling customer satisfaction.
• Customer-informed decision-making.
• Harnessing the power of influencers.
• Social marketing.
But even the most bullish and hard-nosed Madison Avenue marketing firms would certainly pause for thought before taking on such a task - bearing in mind that this is the kind of thing they’d be up against :
Explore ‘ A picture is worth a thousand words ‘ from Robert-Fisk.com
؟ ؟ ؟
You can buy the report for $27.00 here :
Or read it for nothing here :
25JUL 07
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New Competition
Give it a try and maybe win a unique yours-to-print-out potser-sized cartoon (file).
Cathartics and HMM
When Aristotle wrote his masterwork ‘ Poetics ’ roughly 2.4
millennia ago, and coined the term ‘ Catharsis ‘ ,
it’s
almost certain* that the practice of ‘ headbanging ’ had
not yet been invented.
New research from the School of Business at the University of Sydney has brought things up-to-date by examining headbanging ( specifically Heavy Metal Music (HMM) headbanging ) and its possible relevance as a Cathartic process.
The research, published in the current issue of the journal ‘ Consumption Markets and Culture ‘ , points out that
“ . . . HMM experience often elicits strong emotional relatedness stemming from social disempowerment and holds potential for cathartic outcomes. “
In this context, headbanging was evaluated in five different frameworks :
• disempowered self,
• collective un/consciousness,
• ritual performance,
• cognitive/emotional
balance, and
• rejuvenation.
And revealed underlying factors that might not be immediately obvious, even to dedicated aficionados of the practice.
“ Emotional and cognitive modifications in the collective ritual not only relieve frustrations and tensions of daily life, but also facilitate enlightenment and moral justification that empower through positive reevaluation of self. “
The research is accompanied by a 26 minute film, which won first prize at the 2006 Latin American ACR Film Festival in Monterrey, Mexico.
Sadly, Really Magazine has been unable to source a www link to the film – if anyone can find one please let us know so that readers can see realworld examples of HMM cathartic headbanging in action.
؟ ؟ ؟
In the meantinme you could watch this instead (*note: origin dates disputed)
24JUL 07
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Disambiguation(s) of the day :
Idiodynamics - a psychological conceptual framework which views the human individual as the cornerstone of behavioral science.
“ Idiodynamics conceptualizes the individual as
a unique universe of experiential events. . . The term *idioverse* is used
to describe this
universe, “
source : Department of Psychology, Washington University
( not to be confused with :
Ideodynamics , the concept of dominant mental ideas causing unconcious muscular actions - first(?) proposed by hypnotic researcher James Braid , ( 1855 )
or :
Ideodynamics “ . . . the maidservant and disciplinarian of criticism “ from Ideas on the March , by Oscar Cargill, ( 1941 )
or :
Ideodynamics “ a
new mathematical model . . . to describe social responses to information “ by
David P. Fan , ( 1988 )
)
23 JUL 07 (late)
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Towards the holy grail of avian aerodynamics
Using specially adapted tracking radar, researchers from Lund University, Lund, Sweden, recently plotted the flight speed ( continuous flapping ) of 138 bird species - and the results have just been published. Table here :
Really Magazine was delighted and relieved to discover that Hirundo rustica ( the European swallow ) was one of them.
Finally, unequivocal data is available on flying-speed of Hirundo rustica ( unladen ) - it’s 10 metres per second.
( the speed of the (South) African Swallow ( Hirundo spilodera ) is sadly not included in the current list - but at least we are now part-way towards resolving the famous question )
Also see previous Really
Mag article here :
23 JUL 07
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Serving suggestions
Wm. Michael Lynn, Associate Professor of Consumer Behavior and Marketing at Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, is providing an on-line guide to Scientifically Tested Techniques to Increase Your Tips. ( The guide is aimed specifically at table-waiters and waitresses in 'casual' restaurants - but some of the techniques could presumably be applicable in other tip-reliant industries. )
Some ideas :
• Wear something unusual. ( increases tips by 17% )
• Smile. ( up to 140% increase )
• Say the weather is going to be good tomorrow. ( 19% increase )
• Draw ‘ Smiley faces ‘ on the customers’ bill [check]. ( 10% increase – Note : waitresses only. )
• And you could also try ‘ Squatting ‘ next to the table. ( 20% increase )
There's one though which Really Magazine is as yet not entirely convinced about :
• Touch customers. ( Research showed 12% tips for no touching, 14% for one touch on the shoulder, and 17% for two touches on the palms )
[ ¿Qué? Ed. ]
The article, Mega-Tips . is provided free of charge – though the professor does accept gratuities ( $5 suggested )
21 JUL 07
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The unbearable lightness of tourism
“ The efficiency and lightness of new media problematize
the experiential division between being at home and going away. “ begins
the intro to a newly published research
article on the subject of tourism - in the age of
New Media.
The article, from the dept. Media and Communication Studies, Karlstad University, Sweden. takes further the concept of ‘ meeting-ness ‘ ( first introduced in ' Social networks, travel and talk ' by John Urry in 2003 )
The new paper suggests a new dialectic of :
' encapsulation/decapsulation ' . . .
" as a framework for understanding how the liminal (encapsulated) sense of tourism is always haunted by its double (decapsulation). “
To clarify, the idea of ‘ encapsulation ' here refers to mutual interplay between the tourist and ‘ space entrepreneurs ’ ( e.g. the designers of Club Med, cruise ships, and Romanian ex-communist environments etc ) who " . . . try to govern the interpretation and formation of texture by means of symbolic mediation and socio-material arrangements “
- where ‘ texture ’ means that which “ . . . emerges through the tension field between spatial arrangements, in terms of both material structure and social rules and resources, and communicative and spatial practices . . . ”
The author goes on to ask, alarmingly perhaps, whether New Media
might present a “ Threat
of Decapsulation “ to the tourist ?
؟ ؟ ؟
The new article, in the current issue of the journal ' Tourist Studies ' is subscribers only,
- but insight can be gained from a free-access preceding paper by the same author here ;
؟ ؟ ؟
Our Editor’s tip : ' Never take your work-mobile on holiday '.
20 JUL 07
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Ponderable of the day
Over the counterintuitive
The University of Kentucky recently completed a study into the inks between aggression and alcohol - with a twist.
Experimental subjects were first given three or four ‘ Screwdrivers ’ ( or a placebo ) and subsequently received ‘ mild ’ electric shocks if they failed tasks in a staged competition against ‘ a fictitious opponent ‘.
The semi-inebriates, not surprisingly perhaps, became somewhat aggressive.
However, when the researchers gave them a difficult memory task to perform at the same time, the drinkers became far less aggressive – so much so in fact , that were, on average, more docile than the sober participants.
Could the study have implications for city-centre Friday-night policing ?
“ Ok lads, it’s Cognitive Distractors all round “
The research is published in the current issue of Psychological Science.
Comments:
Reader Carmelita wonders whether bars should implement ‘Poetry from Memory’ schemes " You could only order another round after successfully reciting a Shakespeare sonnet or soliloquy. “
19 JUL 07
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Course of the day
Do cows like orange juice ?
In
case any readers have been wondering whether dairy cows like drinking flavoured
water – specifically ‘ Orange ’ and ‘ Vanilla ’ -
we can point you in the direction of the current issue of the Journal
of Dairy Science
The research was carried out by the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Guelph, Canada.
Nine calves and four cows were tested for their preferences regarding the flavoured waters ( as opposed to plain water ).
Some of the calves slightly preferred the 'Orange' , but we're not enticed by the 'Vanilla'. As far as the cows were concerned though, they showed very little preference for any of the three options, and : “ No significant changes were found for dry matter intake, water consumption, or milk yield. “
؟ ؟ ؟
Suggestions for further research :
• Fizzy mineral waters ?
• Organic natural flavours as opposed to artificial ones ?
• Other flavours – e.g. coconut, raspberry, 'clover' or ‘grass’ etc
?
• Beer ?
• Shall we just not bother, and stick to water ?
18 JUL 07
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Getting there.
The Malacological
Society of London was founded in 1893, and is dedicated
to the study of all molluscs – snails, whelks, limpets, &etc
Here’s their webpage detailing the society's forthcoming meetings :
There’s one in November 2006, another in March 2006, two in September
2006, and the latest scheduled for April 2007.
17 JUL 07 (midnight edition)
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Research paper of the week.
From the current issue of the journal : Perspectives on Psychological Science
17 JUL 07 (late)
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Operational Note !
[ The site was off-air for a few hours yesterday due to almost unavoidable www server-pointing issues. During that time, any e-mails, or postings via our cont4ct form, will have probably have gone premanently astray . . . Sorry ! Ed. ]
No person’s land.
“ I’ve found that theoretically wiping humans off the face of the earth intrigues rather than frightens people. “ says journalist and author Alan Weisman regarding his new book ‘ The World Without Us ‘
His 336-page perplexing thought-experiment explores what might happen to the world if all humans were spontaneously removed ( think : abducted by spaceships or killed-off by a virus. )
According to the author. there are some places on Earth where clues might already be found. The evacuated area around Chernobyl, and the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea.
Or perhaps this beach resort, Varosha, frozen-in-time
in the no-man’s land
separating the ‘Greek’ and ‘Turkish’ parts of Cyprus
since 1974.
As an example of probable outcomes, Weisman points out that “ The emergency fuel supply to diesel generators that circulate cooling water to nuclear reactors cores would run out “ inside a week.
Looking on the bright side though, within just 100 years the global elephant population would have increased by a factor of 20.
Timeline here :
Buy it here :
17 JUL 07
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Comment ça marche ?
As of
yesterday, there are thousands self-service bicycles available in Paris -
at the swipe of a credit card.
The Vélib’ scheme is providing 10,468 specially designed heavy-duty ‘unisex’ bikes for short-term hire.
Multi-language terminals allow uses to buy yearly, monthly or daily licenses:
- 1-day Vélib’ subscription priced at €1
- 7-day Vélib’ subscription priced at €5
- Annual Vélib’ subscription priced at €29
But, on top, there is a mathematically biased hourly-charging system. The first half hour is free, the next costs €1, the subsequent €2 and the fourth ( or more ) costs €4.
According to the organisers, the rising charges are “ to encourage the turnover of bikes “
Full
details ( in English ) here
16 JUL 07
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Triggering intelligence
The University of London “ . . . is a family of world-class institutions, collectively upholding its international reputation of academic distinction in teaching and research. “
Here’s some extremely concise and yet revealing info on one of their intellectual development courses.
14 JUL 07
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Return of the doughnut-tax ( idea ) ?
It’s not the first time it’s been proposed, but a new scientific study ( this one from the University of Oxford in the UK ) has floated again the concept of implementing a so-called Fat Tax.
The idea is to apply a supplementary tax to unhealthy food items. The researchers say that the measures could save between 2000 and 3000 lives per year in the UK - and would directly raise around £2 billion per year in tax revenue ( that’s not including the financial savings which would be made by health service )
One proposal of the scheme is to categorise foods not according to how much fat they contain - but by assessing how ‘ un-healthy ’ they are.
So, on the new scale :
• chocolate digestive biscuits score +29,
• jam doughnuts are +5,
• fried rice 0 , and
• peaches -11
taxes would be applied accordingly.
Given the very substantial savings in lives and cash, you might think that the idea is a ‘no-brainer’ from the government’s point of view – but they rejected similar proposals back in 2004.
And to give a flavour of the likely enthusiasm from the food industry, a spokesperson for the Food and Drink Federation ( which reps food manufacturers ) called the new proposals " . . . utter nonsense . . . “.
The research will be published in the August issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
If you have plenty of time to spare, and Powerpoint™ on your computer, here’s a sneak preview of some of the ideas.
( Here's the same file in HTML - ( loads immediately ))
Notes: Roughly 25% of Britain's adults are obese and the proportion of obese
children rose by over 40 per cent between 1995 and 2004.
13 JUL 07
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Down on the conventional farm
Why is ‘ organic ’ food generally more expensive ? The stock answer is that without pesticides and artificial fertilisers, yields are lower – so the price has to be higher to compensate.
Plausible – but wrong, according to a new study from the School of Natural Resources and Environment , at the University of Michigan. The research team looked at production data from 293 farms across the world. The yield rates for conventional and organic farms were roughly equal in the ‘developed’ countries – but in developing countries the organic methods outperformed the chemical methods by a factor of two, or in some cases three times.
Even on farms where yields were more or less equal, the organic methods also cleaned up in another sense – being substantially less harmful in terms of toxic residues on farmland and in water runoff.
So, back to the oriiginal question, why is organic more pricy ?
“ Corporate interest in agriculture and the way agriculture research has been conducted in land grant institutions, with a lot of influence by the chemical companies and pesticide companies as well as fertilizer companies - all have been playing an important role in convincing the public that you need to have these inputs to produce food " says the lead author of the study.
The research is published in the current issue of the journal Renewable
Agriculture and Food Systems
11 JUL 07
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BO by any other name.
Researchers at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, and Dipartimento di Scienze della Cognizione e della Formazione, Università degli Studi di Trento, Rovereto, Italy, wondered if various smells - pleasant or unpleasant - might affect whether people regard faces as ‘ attractive ’ or not.
The four smells in question were ‘ geranium ’ , a ‘ male perfume ‘ , ‘ body odour ‘ and ‘ rubber* ‘.
16 experimental participants ( all female ) were shown photos of men and asked to rate them as attractive or not ( on a scale of 1 to 9 ). At the same time, the odours were administered via a custom-built olfactometer – possibly not unlike this one :
( As a control, during the trials, the fragrances were randomly replaced by fresh air. )
Results ?
“ . . . the participants rated the male faces as being significantly less attractive in the presence of an unpleasant odor . . . “
What might come as a surprise though – and a disappointment for male-perfume enthusiasts – was that there were no significant differences between the effects of the male-perfumes and fresh air . . .
The research is published in the current issue of the journal ‘ Chemical Senses ‘.
* note : In case the odd high court judge reads this, the rubber odour was grouped in the ' unpleasant ' category. Ed.
10 JUL 07
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In response to readers' requests . . .
. . . Really Magazine is now available, worldwide, in a ' Print Edtion '
09 JUL 07 (midnight)
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Appalled mathematics
• Number of new ' Science Ministers' created this month 1
• Number of the new minister’s scientific qualifications 0
09 JUL 07 (late)
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Someone left a Cake out in the Rain (?)
“ In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone
to far,
Oh-a-aho oh,
Oh-a-aho oh “
- readers will no doubt recognise this lyrical excerpt from the 1979 pop-song ‘ Video killed the Radio Star ‘ by Buggles.
The words were written by (now) verteran music-producer Trevor Horn , and were inspired by the J.G. Ballard short story ' The Sound-Sweep. '
Can such lyrics be analysed ? What do they really mean ? Could the application of Narrative Theory help us to identify, quantify and clarify possible underlying multiple narratives ?
The Department of Music, School of Humanities, at the UK’s Southampton University believes that the answer may be yes.
A new research article, just published in the latest issue of Oxford Journal’s ‘ Music & Letters’ has applied narratological scrutiny to the Buggles lyrics, along with several other classic pop-songs – such as the Beatles’s Norwegian Wood (1968) and the Who’s Quadrophenia ( 1973 )
So, does the study open up a huge and previously unexplored (?) fertile territory for deconstructions of the last fifty year's worth of sometimes-obscure pop-lyrics ?
There is a coda : as the research article begins :
“ Narrative theory and popular music are not the
most obvious of bedfellows “
Sadly, the piece is for‘ subscribers only ’ but you can read a short abstract here ;
09 JUL 07
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Chaos applied to the real world.
There’s only three weeks or so to go before The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences will hold their 17th Annual International Conference, at Chapman University, Orange, California ( 27-29 July ).
If you’re interested in attending - and to find out about applied Chaos Theory, the schedule, agenda, and abstracts from the papers which will be presented - go here :
Update : Since we wrote the piece the society's schedule web-page has been de-chaoticised.
04 JUL 07
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Looking forward . . .
The conference will principally be of interest to companies that ‘ transport and/or treat and dispose of hospital, medical, infectious, chemotherapeutic, and pathological wastes. ‘ - it runs from May 7-8, next year in Chicago.
As the organiser’s website explains :
“ Each year, the medical waste industry's most powerful leaders gather to learn, network, and have lots of fun. “
03 JUL 07 (late)
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Haaaaaappy, Happy-Talk . . . in Is-tan-bul.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD) has just concluded their 2007 World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy, Istanbul, Turkey.
Featuring on the agendum there was a paper entitled ‘ Measures
of Gross National Happiness ‘ from
the Erasmus University
Rotterdam, in The
Netherlands.
It covers GNH in great detail,
explaining the bearing of various psycho-socio-economic and geographical factors
on happiness. e.g :
• The Four Qualities of Life
• Hedonic Level of Affect
• The Utility of Life
• Top Experiences
and one which Really Magazine had not come across before :
• Negative Health
The paper even presents a disarmingly simple solution to the long-sought-after Holy Grail of Happiness Researchers – a definition of what it is :
“ How much one likes the life one leads ”
And the good news, according to the report, is that happiness is on the up-and-up.
“ . . . growth in HLY is unprecedented in human history and marks considerable social progress! “
( Note: Where HLY = Happy Life Years )
The OECD is of course interested in policies which could lead to global increase
of GNH.
“ The findings obtained using these measures show that happiness is a realistic policy aim. Happiness of a great number is apparently possible in modern society and (sic.) as is greater happiness. "
Really Magazine’s optimism was considerably deflated though by the sentence which follows it -
“ It is as yet less clear how this can be achieved
. . . “
GNH !
Read the full paper here :)
03 JUL 07
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Panning the ideas mountain
“ Idea generation is critical to new product development. “ begins
a paper in the current issue of the journal Marketing Science.
Despite of ( or perhaps because of ) the plethora of techniques available for idea-generation - such as :
• Brainstorming ( circa 1957)
• Lateral thinking (DeBono 1970)
• Synectics (Prince 1970, Gordon 1969)
• Six thinking hats (De Bono 1985).
• Electronic brainstorming (Nunamaker et al., 1987; Gallupe
et al., 1991, Gallupe et al., 1992; Dennis and Valacich 1993; Valacich
et al.,1994),
• Ideation templates (Goldenberg et al., 1999a; Goldenberg
et al., 1999b;Goldenberg and Mazursky 2002),
• Incentives-based idea generation (Toubia 2006).
There’s a problem.
The number of ideas created by an idea-generating exercise may well run into the hundreds – and not all of them not many of them only a tiny proportion of them will actually be useful in the real world.
In response. the new Columbia Business School research has developed
several mathematical algorithms to sort through the ideas – to find
the ‘ Good ‘ ones. (a.k.a. Top Ideas )
The ‘Top ‘ ideas were sifted using combinations of ‘ Dynamic Programming ’ , ‘ Heuristic threshold closeness ‘ and ‘ Myopic Maximization '
So, did the new techniques behave well as a practical tool for sifting out the Top Ideas ? Could they finally spell an end to the perma-glut of Bad Ideas foisted onto consumers and the public-at-large by manufacturers, the entertainment industry, and the Think-Tank-driven political machinery ? Can computer based Über-maths succeed where human wetware historically only manages to fudge-along at best ?
Really Magazine has read, re-read, and re-re-read the paper . . . but sadly has no idea is none the wiser.
02 JUL 07
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Crooke's Radiometer (virtual)
Duvel
"the world's best beer"
"the world's best Sciencebase"
The "DoDo"
( Cassina )
"the world's best chair"
Firefox
"the world's best web-browser"
Bösendorfer
"the world's best pianos"
! Ltd.
"the world's best
! company"
