Have a gag to suggest? Send it in with a quick description of the visual, along with your punchline.
The Sage of Ribbonfarm #2
April 22, 2008 By
Have a gag to suggest? Send it in with a quick description of the visual, along with your punchline.
The Sage of Ribbonfarm #1
April 14, 2008 By
(Ribbonfarm is insanely proud to debut a weekly comic panel, inspired by R. K. Laxman’s style. You can contribute your own 1-panel gag ideas through the contact form. The only rule is that the gag must be generally about research and innovation, and that the black-curly-haired guy must be in every scene. Describe the visual and punchline in your suggestion).
Against Clouds
April 3, 2008 By
I don’t usually look to Slate for technology analysis, but I thought I’d blog this as an instance of Nicholas Carr’s ‘Big Switch’ arguments starting to percolate into, and find reactions in, non-techie media (though the author is a credible techie).
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The NAE’s Grand Challenges vs. Mine
March 30, 2008 By
The US National Academy of Engineers recently released a list of ‘Grand Challenges.’ As you’ve no doubt noticed, this sort of top-down driving of research agendas has picked up pace recently. You also have the new X-prize for a 100mpg car, following on the heels of the one which Burt Rutan won for commercial space flight. A bunch of other X-prizes have also come into being. Google joined the fray with its Lunar X-prize. Consider also the DARPA Grand Challenges. Then of course, there are the Clay Millenium problems in mathematics. Something bothers me about this top-down agenda setting for research, and formal competition as a way to drive innovation. Let’s poke at it by comparing the NAE’s list with mine.
The Founding Fathers of Technology
March 27, 2008 By
I want to propose to you a powerful way of looking at technology. The plural form of the word, technologies, is becoming meaningless. There is only one globe-spanning beast, comprising vast systems of engineering design, production and operations, held together by a web of standards, and a central nervous system called ‘the Internet’ (ever wonder why we use the definite article?) This beast is what answers to the singular noun ‘technology.’ I started exploring this idea in a comic book format recently, in my story Mousetrap 2.0. With Nicholas Carr’s Big Switch, the idea seems set for the big time. In this post I want to introduce you to four of my favorite scientist-engineers, who conceived and enabled the creation of this beast in the short span of 50 years between the end of World War II and the turn of the century. Reading from left to right below, these are: Claude Shannon, Vannevar Bush, Norbert Wiener and Herbert Simon.
Roundup: Jan 17 – March 20
March 21, 2008 By
Since mid-January, we’ve had 16 new new articles. There were 4 articles relating to books, 4 relating to technology, 4 relating to business and economics, and 4 on thinking and philosophy. Here is a grouped list of each of the 16 new posts. But first, some interesting quick highlights.
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Trollope, Fitzgerald and Holmes for the Generalist’s Soul
March 9, 2008 By
I think I must be a generalist by default, because I am not stand-out good at anything in particular. Generalists cannot live forever on left-handed ‘renaissance man’ compliments, so we must become good at collecting pieces of validation about our attitude towards life (and our resistance towards specialization). Three quotes have anchored my views on being a generalist. I thought I’d share them.
Book Review and Summary: Strategic Intuition
February 11, 2008 By
There are certain books that invite a certain mischievous kind of self-referential review. Strategic Intuition is about that key insight which organizes a mass of simmering raw information-input into an elegant decision about a course of action. So the moment I got the book’s theme, the first question that popped into my mind was: does this book contain the strategic intuition about strategic intuition? The answer is no, but this is still a pretty thought-provoking addition to the popular literature on decision-making, and a useful step towards the definitive treatment.
How to Pick Business and Self-Improvement Books
January 24, 2008 By
After a couple of decades of yo-yo-ing between Stuart Smalley-like solemn earnestness and Dilbertish disdain towards all self-improvement literature and business books (two genres with very similar conventions, intellectual cultures and authorial intentions), I think I’ve developed a pretty good system for picking out the winners and weeding out the losers. Here’s my algorithm, with some fun examples of both good and bad.
