CPA, CA, CITP
When we consider a problem of nature such as that of atomic reactions and atomic explosives, the largest single item of information which we can make public is that they exist. Once a scientist attacks a problem which he knows to have an answer, his entire attitude is changed. He is already some fifty percent
Continue reading “Norbert Wiener on Information and the Scientific Approach”
My favourite source for modular synthesizer patching ideas is Monotrail Tech Talks. This channel consistently provides inspiration for new techniques to try, illustrated by easy to follow block diagrams.
Where a man’s word goes, and where his power of perception goes, to that point his control and in a sense his physical existence is extended. To see and to give commands to the whole world is almost the same as being everywhere. Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society
We in our modern world have many ways of dealing with personal impurity. Contemporary hygiene and chemicals mean we don’t need to worry about it nearly as much as people in the ancient world … there are still other types of pollution as well: the pollution which gets into our minds and hearts, into our
Thinking about hiring, the typical process for screening candidates using written applications is likely to become far less effective as it becomes a game of adversarial bots both creating applications for positions and evaluating them. In light of this I see one possibility being less emphasis on written applications going forward, resulting in more emphasis
One may get a remarkable semblance of a language like English by taking a sequence of words, or pairs of words, or triads of words, according to the statistical frequency with which they occur in the language, and the gibberish thus obtained will have a remarkably persuasive similarity to good English. This meaningless simulacrum of
Continue reading “Norbert Wiener on Using Statistics to Emulate Language”
Feedback is a method of controlling a system by reinserting into it the results of its past performance. If these results are merely used as numerical data for the criticism of the system and its regulation, we have the simple feedback of control engineers. If, however, the information which proceeds backward from the performance is
Cybernetics takes the view that the structure of the machine or organism is an index of the performance that may be expected from it. Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings, Cybernetics and Society
Yet even this modified formless democracy is too anarchic for many of those who make efficiency their first ideal. These worshipers of efficiency would like to have each man move in a social orbit meted out to him from his childhood, and perform a function to which he is bound as the serf was bound
Continue reading “Norbert Wiener on Efficiency and Social Order”
Chuck Grimmett’s post on recapturing the magic of the early blogging days describes a lot of my intentions with the latest changes to my website. The one thing I would add from my philosophy is: ‘spend less time building, more time using and maintaining’