My favorite one is blue. I put it into my red plastic purse to keep it safe. I risk my other cat’s eyes to be shot at, but not this one. I don’t collect many marbles because I’m not a very good shot. My brother is deadly. He takes five common marbles to school with him in a blue Crown Royal Whisky bag and comes back with the bag and his pockets bulging. He keeps his winnings in screw-top Crown preserving jars, donated by my mother, which he lines up on his desk.

vizualize:

Pictographs Today and Tomorrow (1938) by Rudolf Modley via FastCo.Design

But having access to Big Data doesn’t guarantee that companies, or individuals, will understand or be able to derive much value from it. The very few examples of companies doing that, are very few. And for a good reason – finding insight in all that data is difficult and becomes more difficult the bigger the data sets.

Most artists earn very little. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of aspiring young artists. Do they give to the arts willingly or unknowingly? Governments and other institutions also give to the arts, to raise the low incomes. But their support is ineffective: subsidies only increase the artists’ poverty. The economy of the arts is exceptional. Although the arts operate successfully in the marketplace, their natural affinity is with gift-giving, rather than with commercial exchange. People believe that artists are selflessly dedicated to art, that price does not reflect quality, and that the arts are free. But is it true? This unconventional multidisciplinary analysis explains the exceptional economy of the arts. Insightful illustrations from the practice of a visual artist support the analysis.

Altruistic app could bring out the techie in little girls

gethopscotch:

Anne-Marie Imafidon spoke to The London Times last week about getting more girls into STEM (here too if you hit the paywall). 

“We should be saying to women: here are ten problems affecting the world right now. Try to find technological solutions.”

So true.  Research consistently shows that girls care more about technology when it is contextualized, and often have an altruistic bent.  Thanks for the Hopscotch shoutout, Anne-Marie!

Economics is easily the single most important failure of the application of Big Data. And to call economics the “dismal science” is unfair on scientists because there’s nothing scientific about it.

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
(Hat Tip to Lynn Schofield Clark)

deterritorialization:

jai—me:

Sacred Valley rock quarries! This ruin in Ollentaytambo was fascinating as it has so many different types of architectures and systems – and you could SEE the logic of the layout.
The quarries were pretty interesting – you could see so precisely where they had chipped into the stone to get a certain shape

Sacred Valley, Peru

How To Destroy Everything, Or, Why Video Games Do Not Exist (And How This Is Great For Everyone)

samcrisp:

This is the transcript of a talk given by Marigold Bartlett and Stephen Swift at the 2013 Freeplay Independent Games Festival.

Read More

much more after the cut.

How To Destroy Everything, Or, Why Video Games Do Not Exist (And How This Is Great For Everyone)

samcrisp:

This is the transcript of a talk given by Marigold Bartlett and Stephen Swift at the 2013 Freeplay Independent Games Festival.

Read More