Self-organization Self-organization occurs in a variety of physical, chemical, biological, robotic, social and cognitive systems. Common examples include crystallization, the emergence of convection patterns in a liquid heated from below, chemical oscillators, swarming in groups of animals, and the way neural networks learn to recognize complex patterns. Overview[edit] The most robust and unambiguous examples[1] of self-organizing systems are from the physics of non-equilibrium processes. Self-organization is also relevant in chemistry, where it has often been taken as being synonymous with self-assembly.
Blog Archive » Solar-panel “trees” really are inferior (or: “In which hopelessly inept journalists reduce me to having to debunk a school science project”) This article is reproduced from here. For some reason it has been taken down from his blog… I have the intention of writing this very post on this blog, and I may well still do so, but for now here is someone else’s… Just to be clear, this is not a scam!
02002-02029 (27 years): By 2029 no computer - or &machine intelligence& - will have passed the Turing Test. - Long Bets - StumbleUpon The Significance of the Turing Test. The implicit, and in my view brilliant, insight in Turing's eponymous test is the ability of written human language to represent human-level thinking. The basis of the Turing test is that if the human Turing test judge is competent, then an entity requires human-level intelligence in order to pass the test. Futurist: We'll someday accept computers as human Futurist Ray Kurzweil spoke Monday at the South By Southwest Interactive conference. Ray Kurzweil, the acclaimed inventor and futurist, believes that humans and technology are merging Kurzweil on portentous sci-fi fears about computers: "I don't see it as them vs. us"He spoke to a crowd of more than 3,000 at the South by Southwest Interactive conference Austin, Texas (CNN) -- Any author or filmmaker seeking ideas for a sci-fi yarn about the implications of artificial intelligence -- good or bad -- would be smart to talk to Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil, the acclaimed inventor and futurist, believes that humans and technology are blurring -- note the smartphone appendages in almost everyone's hand -- and will eventually merge.
Chaos theory A double rod pendulum animation showing chaotic behavior. Starting the pendulum from a slightly different initial condition would result in a completely different trajectory. The double rod pendulum is one of the simplest dynamical systems that has chaotic solutions. Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.
Running robots A cheetah running in its natural environment is an elegant, fluid display of biomechanics. What if robots could run the same way, and be deployed for search and rescue operations in areas where conventional vehicles cannot go? According to University of Delaware assistant professor Ioannis Poulakakis, a large fraction of the Earth's surface remains inaccessible to conventional wheeled or tracked vehicles, while animals and humans traverse such terrain with ease and elegance. He believes that legs have the potential to extend the mobility of robots, enabling them to become useful in real-world situations, such as search and rescue. This Day In History This Day in History: April 11th Today in History: April 11, 1931 Dorothy Parker was a writer, poet and satirist whose quick turns of phrase made her a favorite among many prominent Jazz Age newspaper columnists. Along with Robert Benchley Read More » This Day in History: April 10th
Autopoiesis 3D representation of a living cell during the process of mitosis, example of an autopoietic system. The original definition can be found in Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living (1st edition 1973, 2nd 1980): Page 78: - An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network. [1] Page 89:- [...] the space defined by an autopoietic system is self-contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define another space.
Grocery Stores on Wheels - Neighborhoods The next wave of food trucks aren't whipping up Korean tacos for adventurous foodies or slinging ice cream to kids. Instead, they're delivering fresh meat and produce in an effort to improve public health in low-income communities. A few months ago, a Chicago non-profit launched Fresh Moves, a one-aisle grocery store on a bus that sells pineapples, mangoes, collard greens, onions and other fresh fruits and vegetables in West Side neighborhoods like Lawndale and Austin, where locals have minimal access to fresh produce.