Bruno Unna

Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit - Seneca

Robert Lang

Origami Artist and Theorist

The last decade of the twentieth century saw a revolution in the development and application of mathematical techniques to origami. Robert J. Lang describes how geometric concepts have led to the computer solution of a broad class of origami folding challenges and, as a consequence, enabled origami designs of astonishing complexity and realism to be developed.

As often happens in mathematics, a theory originally developed for its own aesthetic value has led to some surprising practical applications. In addition, it has shed light on long-standing mathematical questions and solved practical engineering problems. Lang gives examples of how origami has enabled safer airbags, Brobdingnagian space telescopes, and more.

Tom Kelley

Managing Director, IDEO

Dr. Moira Gunn interviews Tom Kelley, author of "The Ten Faces of Innovation -- IDEO's Strategies for Beating the Devil's Advocate. Tom is the managing direcor of IDEO, that innovative design firm known worldwide for its originality.

Norman Packard

Pop!Tech 2005: It's Alive!

Syhnthetic Biology

What makes something alive and where is the boundary between a machine and a life form? Can a system such as the internet be considered alive, since it is self-maintaining, self-reproducing and evolving? Can a cell that was created from whole cloth in the lab still be considered life?

These questions are aroused in this talk by Norman Packard of ProtoLife, who is creating "synthetic biology" - artificial living cells made of non-living material. ProtoLife is exploring the possibilities to create "designer" life, for example, cells that are programmed to create hydrogen. The goal is make tiny living machines that can be used for medical and other applications.

This talk was from the It's Alive! session at Pop!Tech. The other speaker in this session was Theo Jansen. The question and answer period can be heard at the end of Theo Jansen's talk.

Once again, Julio dragged my attention to something interesting. Thanks, Julio!

This time, it is a series of 6 tests to help a person find out whether his/her brain is male or female.

With some reserves, I find it interesting. My results:

Overall score

Part 1

Angles

This task tested your ability to identify the angle of a line by matching it with its twin. This is a spatial task, which looks at how you picture space.
Your score: 10 out of 20
Average score for men: 15.1 out of 20
Average score for women: 13.3 out of 20

What does your result suggest?

If you scored 0 - 12: You have more of a female brain. Scientists believe that people with a female brain find it more difficult to judge the slope of a line because they're not wired for spatial tasks. In past studies, 65 per cent of people who scored in this range were women.

If you scored 13 - 17: You found this test neither hard nor easy. This suggests your brain has male and female traits when it comes to spatial ability.

If you scored 18 - 20: You have more of a male brain. On average, men outperform women in this task and those with more mathematical knowledge tend to score quite high as well. In past studies, 60 per cent of the people in this range were men.

Interestingly, men's testosterone levels fluctuate through the seasons and studies have shown that men's scores are lower in the spring, when their testosterone levels are at their lowest.

Do our cave dwelling ancestors offer us any clues about why men and women score differently on this task? Find out more.

Spot the difference

This task tested your ability to identify which objects changed position. You lost points, if you incorrectly identified objects.
Your score: 29%
Average score for men: 39%
Average score for women: 46%

What does your score suggest?

If you scored between 0 - 33%: You may have more of a male brain. Scientists say men tend to under perform in this task. The corpus callosum, the part of the brain that links the right and left hemispheres, is a fifth larger in women. This means women can process visual and other signals at the same time more easily than men. There is also a theory that oestrogen levels in women give them an added advantage in spatial memory.

If you scored between 34 - 66%: You may have a balanced female-male brain.

If you scored between 67 - 100%: Those with a female-type brain generally score in this range. Your ability to remember where objects are may serve as an advantage to you when you're trying to find your way around places. You're more capable of recalling landmarks to get from one place to another.

Part 2

Hands

You said your right thumb was on top when you clasped your hands together.

Right thumb on top: This suggests the left half of your brain is dominant. Many studies have tried to establish whether there is a relationship between handedness and brain dominance. Some scientists believe that if you are left brain dominant, you would be more verbal and analytical.

Left thumb on top: This suggests the right half of your brain is dominant. Some studies theorise that as a right brain dominant person, you may excel in visual, spatial and intuitive processes.

However, these theories are debatable and leave much to be said about the small percentage of people who are ambidextrous.

Part 3

Emotions and Systems

This task looked at whether you prefer to empathise or systemise.
Empathising

Your empathy score is: 7 out of 20
Average score for men: 7.9 out of 20
Average score for women: 10.6 out of 20

What does your result suggest?

Empathisers are better at accurately judging other people's emotions and responding appropriately. If you scored 15 and above, you are very empathic and would be an ideal person to comfort people in a time of crisis. Women in general are better at empathising.

Systemising

Your systemising score is: 17 out of 20
Average score for men: 12.5 out of 20
Average score for women: 8.0 out of 20

What does your result suggest?

Systemisers prefer to investigate how systems work. A system can be a road map, flat pack furniture, or a mathematical equation – anything that follows a set of rules. A score of 15 and above suggests you're good at analysing or building systems. Men in general are better at systemising.

Scientists are keen to learn more about people who score high or low on both tests. They want to find out whether or not empathising and systemising are linked. Is a possible to make yourself more empathic?

Some scientists claim that our empathy and systemising abilities can be traced all the way back to prehistoric times. Find out more.

Eyes

This task tested your ability to judge people's emotions.
Your score: 8 out of 10
Average score for men: 6.6 out of 10
Average score for women: 6.6 out of 10

What does your result suggest?

If you scored 0 - 3: Do you think you're good at judging how another person is feeling? Your score suggests this doesn't come to you quite so naturally.

If you scored 4 - 6: Your result suggests you have a balanced female-male brain and find it neither easy nor difficult to judge people's emotions.

If you scored 7 - 10: Your result suggests you are a good empathiser, sensitive to other people's emotions. Women generally fall into this category.

Professor Baron-Cohen at the University of Cambridge says that people usually perform better than they expect to on this test.

Men often think a person's eyes are sending signals of desire when that's not the case at all.

Part 4

Fingers

We asked you to measure your ring and index fingers. Your ratios came to:
Right Hand: 0.98
Left Hand: 0.98

Average ratio for men: 0.982
Average ratio for women: 0.991

It's thought that your ratio is governed by the amount of testosterone you were exposed to in your mother's womb. The ratio of the length of your index finger to the length of your ring finger is set for life by as early as three months after conception. Even during puberty, when we experience intensive hormonal changes, the ratio stays the same.

Men generally have a ring finger that is longer than their index finger, which gives them a lower ratio than women, whose ring and index fingers are usually of equal length.

Studies have found that men and women with lots of brothers generally have more masculine finger ratios.

Part 5

Faces

This task looked at how you rate the attractiveness of a series of faces. The images you looked at were digitally altered to create slight differences in masculinity.

Your choices suggest you prefer more feminine faces.

Highly masculinised male faces possess more extreme testosterone markers such as a long, broad and lower jaw, as well as more pronounced brow ridges and cheekbones.

Interestingly, women's preferences are said to vary across the menstrual phase. A more masculine face is preferred during the 9 days prior to ovulation, when conception is most likely.

A typical 'attractive' female face possesses features such as a shorter, narrower, lower jaw, fuller lips and larger eyes than an average face.

Part 6

3D shapes

This task tested your ability to mentally rotate 3D shapes.

Your score: 11 out of 12
Average score for men: 8.2 out of 12
Average score for women: 7.1 out of 12

What does your result suggest?

If you scored 0 - 6: Do you find yourself having to physically rotate a map to point in the direction in which you're travelling? This might explain why you scored in the lower range in the 3D shapes test. Twice as many women as men score in this category. Previous studies suggest that those with a female-type brain or with an arts background fall into this range.

If you scored 7 - 9: In past studies, 50 per cent of the people who scored in this range were women and 50 per cent were men.

If you scored 10 - 12: Are you an engineer or do you have a science background? People with these skills tend to score in this range. Past studies have concluded that people in this range have a more male brain.

Nearly a third of men who took this test got full marks, whereas less than 10 per cent of women managed the same. Find out why.

Words

This task looked at your verbal fluency.

Your score: you associated 7 word(s) with grey and you named 7 word(s) that mean happy. We are assuming that all the words you entered are correct.
Average score for men: 11.4 words total
Average score for women: 12.4 words total

What does your result suggest?

If you produced 1 - 5 words: You are more of the strong, silent type with a male brain. You probably find it easier to express yourself in non-verbal ways, preferring action rather than words.

If you produced 6 - 10 words: Most people in this range have a female-type brain.

Women are said to use both sides of the brain when doing verbal tasks while men mainly use their left side. Studies have shown that girls develop vocabulary faster than boys. This difference in brain power is caused by levels of pre-natal testosterone. Find out more .

Ultimatum

This task asked you how you would divide money.

If you had to split £50 with someone, you said you would demand £30

So far on the Sex ID test, men have demanded 51.6% (£25.80) of the pot and women have demanded 51.0% (£25.50), on average.

What does your response suggest?

Sex differences are small in this task. Demanding less than 60% of the pot (ie £30) is more typically female. Demanding more than 65% of the pot (ie £32.50) is more typically male.

Scientists believe that people with lower testosterone levels tend to take fewer risks so they are probably more willing to keep less for themselves. Those with higher testosterone levels tend to drive a harder bargain and are less compromising.

Men's testosterone levels fluctuate over the seasons and are at their lowest levels during the springtime. This is said to influence their bargaining power.

On the last day of Supernova 2005, John Clippinger, Senior Fellow of The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, spoke about his work at Socialphysics.org. According to the website, "The goal of SocialPhysics is to help create a new commons, the 'social web.' The social web is a layer built on top of the Internet to provide a trusted way to link people, organizations, and concepts."

John approaches Social Physics from a multidisciplinary perspective drawing from theories of economics, philosophy, neurology and behavioral science. John discusses the role of trust in developing a social network. He suggests that centralized, authoritarian systems in networks are antithetical to non-hierarchical empathetic interaction on the Internet. Today, he says, individuals do not have the power to control their digital identity and what is needed are new roles to protect and empower those individuals on the edge, rather than at the center of networks. He suggests that by using systems of tagging (as a form of reputation) and empathy, people in networks are better able to meet those goals.

John says that markets are social networks; using tools like his open source software framework, Higgins, he and others are experimenting and creating new avenues for meta identity on the Internet.

I'm sure Sebastian and Juan will find (or have found) this podcast very thought provoking.

Perhaps I would have used a slightly softer set of terms, but I think Linus is basically right when expressing his position on the matter:

I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE.

This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do.

Please, just tell people to use KDE.

There has been a dispute between Mena Trott and Ben Metcalfe about "niceness".

The details of the dispute and the detailed way in which it settled down are not relevant (not to me, anyway). What is relevant is a question the former expressed in her blog:

Is it possible to have the sort of productive face-to-face connection or conversation that Ben M. and I had offline in an online world?

In my experience, this is a not an issue, for the following reasons:

Intelligent people carries out intelligent discussion, and usually ends up with a satisfactory escape from the clinch.

The aggresive people, the one which finds it difficult or useless to be nice, enjoys being rude. And if they find some equals to argue with in a rude manner, they will enjoy the situation. Why souldn't that occur?

Solutions to personal issues on-line are favoured by the fact of the impersonal nature of the on-line media. Distance facilitates forgiveness, let's say.

Anyway, I'm glad Mena and Ben are obviously both intelligent persons, flattened out the problem and provided the rest of us with some material to chew with the brain.

Guess what is the Word of the Year, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary?

Podcast!

Among the words that did not make it were two other terms popular in tech circles.

One was lifehack, which refers to a more efficient way of completing a everyday task.

The other was rootkit, defined as software installed on a computer by someone other than the owner, intended to conceal other programs or processes, files or system data.

Dice Zenon Grocholewski, un padrecito del Vaticano, que los homosexuales no son bienvenidos en la iglesia católica:

porque [la homosexualidad] contradice "absolutamente la antropología humana" (sic).

Me impresiona su sabiduría milenaria.

Seguramente los homosexuales son una aberración reciente, en la historia de la humanidad (la humana, por supuesto).
Seguramente los homosexuales son menos humanos que los demás humanos (los que estudia la antropología humana, vamos), especialmente menos humanos que los sacerdotes que se prohíben (al menos en teoría) ejercer su sexualidad (y que cuando la ejercen lo hacen sobre niños).
Seguramente las mujeres también contradicen la antropología de los hombres, y por eso no las dejan ejercer el sacerdocio. Habrá que crear una antropología «sólo para mujeres» que les abra un espacio.

Oremus.

I'm very glad since I've just learned that Kathy Sierra is again with us.

As usual, she provides us with a juicy piece of information for us to -mentally- chew: a process to come up with innovative (more than innovative: breaktrough) ideas.

She brings into our attention the analogy of the equalizer when designing a product or an strategy. Interesting approach, indeed, specially when the method for innovation involves the creation of sliders, instead of the mere tweaking of their values.

However, I think the analogy is incomplete. An equalizer is a two-dimensional device, in which the horizontal position of any given slide represents the frequency it will control. There is an order relationship between any two sliders in an equalizer: the one at the right controls a higher frequency than the one at the left. I would like to see some concept in the analogy mirroring the relation between the sliders. I gave it a thought before writing this very post, but haven't arrived to any intelligent conclusion. Ideas? Would love to read them.

Trough 43folders, I got to Ev William's #10 rule for a startup:

#10: Be Balanced

What is a startup without bleary-eyed, junk-food-fueled, balls-to-the-wall days and sleepless, caffeine-fueled, relationship-stressing nights? Answer?: A lot more enjoyable place to work. Yes, high levels of commitment are crucial. And yes, crunch times come and sometimes require an inordinate, painful, apologies-to-the-SO amounts of work. But it can’t be all the time. Nature requires balance for health — as do the bodies and minds who work for you and, without which, your company will be worthless. There is no better way to maintain balance and lower your stress that I’ve found than David Allen’s GTD process. Learn it. Live it. Make it a part of your company, and you’ll have a secret weapon.

And this rule reminds me of one of the core practices of eXtreme Programming (XP): Sustainable Pace. XP is the realm I come from, and the reasons behind this practice are "suspiciously" similar to the reasons behind the "balance rule" of Williams.

In general, I think XP represents a wealth of knowledge (wisdom, perhaps?) that the "productivity seekers" can benefit from, even if they are not submerged in the software development world.

Bruno Unna

Categories: Science and Nature, Anthropology, Applied sciences, Biology, Information science, Physics, Psychology, Space

01/05/06

10:49:51 pm Today's podcast: Computational Origami

12/22/05

12:51:29 pm Today's podcasts

12/21/05

01:09:10 pm Do I have a male or a female brain?

12/16/05

06:33:58 pm Today's podcast: Supernova 2005 (John Clippinger)

12/14/05

02:37:26 pm Switch to KDE

12/09/05

02:48:28 pm Automatic settlement of on-line disputes

12/07/05

10:26:30 am The word of the year

11/30/05

16:18:24 Los geniales padrecitos

03:22:04 pm How to come up with Breakthrough Ideas

11/28/05

03:00:10 pm Balance