WNYC Soundbite: Why A Cultural Darwin Is Needed

I found this to be pretty engaging. Basically talks about the need for someone to come along and do for the study of culture what Darwin did for the study of genetics. It then starts to go off into population growth and the like, but its still worth a listen. The person being interviewed is Paul Ehrlich, a professor at Stanford University.

There are some points brought up here that I feel would be great for discussion. One of them would be the premise of cultural evolution to begin with. As Ehrlish said, culture in many ways is always being re-written, yet there are certain patterns in culture that have a tendency to remain unwavering. And you can't analyze one culture on its own - sooner or later you'll have to observe its interaction with other cultures around it. All of which may lead a person down an endless line of research.

Which is why I just love social sciences.

Another part I found to be really good is that it brings up culture and the environment's relationship with one another. I personally feel that they're highly interconnected. Especially ancient cultures that have long since ran their course. For example, I'm right now re-reading The Odyssey by Homer and in it you can see how much the location of where their world is centered around plays a role in their culture. You have deities for local bodies of water, the material their weaponry was crafted from, etc.

The audio clip can serve as a nice stepping stone for going deeper into the the topics it (sadly) touched upon very quickly. With that said, what do you guys think about what Ehrlish brought up?

Knol - Google's giant "We can do it better than you" to Wikipedia

Knol is cute.

Seriously, it is. And while it may not necessary be an attack on Wikipedia, it sure does seem that way. At least to most people.

For those not in the know, Knol is Google's lastest project, aimed at having users write articles on whatever they choose to for the benefit of others. So long as you have an account, you can join in and write (hopefully) about what you know. One thing I've noticed is the use of people's actual names for those who publish articles. I don't recall ever really noticing that on wikipedia.

Another thing is the lack of pictures. I don't see much pictures and diagrams on Knol. Look at these two pages on entrepreneurship - one from Wikipedia and the other from Knol. Wikipedia has two related diagrams on their page while Knol doesn't. Finally, Wikipedia has a lot of links to related articles within the wikisphere. Knol doesn't point inward of itself to refer people to new ideas within the text of any given article.

I must say that for now, I'm going to stick with Wikipedia, mainly because it has a larger base of knowledge (it appears that Knol has about seven pages worth of "featured" articles). But, I'm sure that as time goes on, Knol will grow to be a much more realistic alternative to the Wiki-King.

Critical Mass Bicyclist vs. the NYPD

This happened just a few days ago, bringing more light to the tension between Critical Mass and the City. While the cop was wrong - the bicyclist didn't seem to do anything even remotely questionable in the video - I'm hearing that many of the other cyclists involved in those events are quite obnoxious. From reading people's comments about this I'm gathering that they're a big obstruction to traffic. Purposely.

Now, I've yet to actually encounter a Critical Mass event in progress and I think that the idea of a whole bunch of people getting together to ride is a great idea. However, if you purposely get in the way of the masses in an unorderly manner, it makes me sort of wonder if I should even listen to your group. No matter how important your message is.

So what do you guys think of what happened? Ever got caught up in one of their get-togethers and/or find them as annoying as other people do or do you agree with their methods?

Update:
After looking around youtube some more I found this video from an arrest during Critical Mass in 2004. The video is fairly intense, so watch at your own discretion. But believe that it will help to fuel the conversation in the comments.

To Niche Or Not To Niche

I've been wondering lately if I should make this blog of mine fall into a "niche". As you can tell, I've allowed this place to become a pool where all my thoughts continuously spill out into - as was the original plan. Even the name of this blog captures its nature quite perfectly, if I do say so myself. But, I do think that there are some valid reasons why I should consider following a niche instead of being all over the place. And at the same time there are reasons why I should stay the way I am. Here are 3 arguments from both sides of the fence.

To Niche:
1. A set focus in terms of content.

2. Force me to put thought into what I write so that my posts fit the mold of the blog(s) I'd be running.

3. Hopefully provide my readers a more "pure" experience. If people come here to read about one thing, they don't get bombarded by other matters that don't interest them, say my experiences at the near by Apple Store or something.


To Not Niche:
1. If I were to take this blog and then alter it, it would then become many blogs. Each with their own area of thought. That would mean I'd then have to divide myself between each blog and I don't have that much willpower for that. One blog is going to get more attention than the other - I can tell you that much now. So if I already know that, why bother attempting it?

2. I personally like to think that most of what I write about have a way of being interconnected, should you hang around long enough for them to. In my head, this is certainly the case and then for me purposely separate them into boxes, I might be shooting myself in the foot. I just don't think within such lines.

3. Tags were invented for a reason. Really. I don't have them there because I think they are a nice little distraction. I do try to use tags to help organize my posts into actual themes. You guys should use them as well.

For the time being, I'm going to stick with this blog. Its treated me well up until now and I don't see a need to change it around unless I'm moving to my own servers. I'm highly content with this place and I want to see it mature naturally - breaking it up into branches would only hinder that.

And besides, if this blog is too disordered, just have fun with it. I know I am :)

MOUSE Goes To NASDAQ

Last Friday many members of MOUSE got a chance to visit the Marketsite to participate in the Closing Ceremony. Just going there was simply great, but I was also given the chance to act as their student representative on stage. This meant I got to say a few words, get my mug on that giant monitor they have outside overlooking Times Square, and last but not least, push the button that signified the end of the trading day.


(Can you guess which one I am? Hi Carole!)

It was amazing how much of a "T" people there have gotten the process down to. The four of us each got a few seconds to introduce ourselves, talk more about the program, and finally what we've each down through our involvement with MOUSE - many of mine, you can read about here.

After that, everyone in our little (correction: enormous) group had joined us on stage for the button pressing. Reaching over to touch something gets a lot harder when you're being squished, hence the odd looking expression on my face in the picture below - its a look of concentration.



My one biggest peeve was that the button did not glow red. I know that sounds ridiculous, but for some reason any button like that should glow red, not orange. No one ever has ever spoken about a "big orange button" being important before - it was always a big red button. Get my drift? Some how I felt a bit let down because of that...

All in all it was a great experience. How many people my age can say that they had a hand in such an event? I'm very proud to have had yet an other opportunity to support MOUSE and I look forward to what other events lie ahead.