Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryTechnology

daydreaming
Young woman relaxing at winter sea beach. Traveler resting by blue mountain
Type
post
Author
News
Date
April 7, 2023
Categorized
Technology
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In Defense of Daydreaming

Andrew McDiarmid encourages people to set aside their devices and embrace the discomfort of silence
News
April 7, 2023
3
Technology

At the end of the day, do you ever feel like you’ve ingested so much information but have thought and contemplated so little? When do we take the time to simply be quiet and think? Discovery Institute’s Andrew McDiarmid encourages people to set aside their devices and embrace the discomfort of silence in a piece from The Epoch Times. He writes, A recent study reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests that the act of “just thinking” can be more rewarding than we might realize. The authors of the paper acknowledge that the ability to engage in internal thoughts without external stimulation is a unique characteristic in humans, yet we regularly underappreciate the benefits of doing so. This constant feed of Read More ›

clock
Business times concept people walking overlay with time clock
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post
Author
News
Date
March 29, 2023
Categorized
Technology
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It’s About Time

The cliche phrase "time is money" needs to be subverted by better metaphors, according to Odell
News
March 29, 2023
2
Technology

Artist and writer Jenny Odell, author of the new book Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, was recently interviewed by Wired. Odell’s 2019 book is called How to Do Nothing. In the interview, Odell discussed how the invention of the clock has altered the way people think about time, labor, and productivity. The cliche phrase “time is money” needs to be subverted by better metaphors, according to Odell, ones that emphasize meaning instead of mere activity. When she was asked how she avoided productivity “burnout” in her own writing life, Odell responded, If you’re not thinking of time as money, the other thing that you could be trying to find is meaning. That’s ultimately what I want out Read More ›

computer chip
Artificial intelligence. Microchip connections, electric pulses and binary codes.
Type
post
Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
March 20, 2023
Categorized
Technology
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The Raspberry Pi Phenomenon

A Raspberry Pi is a full computer that is not much larger than a credit card, but still packs enough power to be usable as a desktop computer
Jonathan Bartlett
March 20, 2023
5
Technology

For the uninitiated, the Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer that runs the Linux operating system. It can be either operated as a desktop computer or as an embedded system (i.e., a custom electronic device), or both. Historically, computer systems were either general-purpose computers or embedded systems. General-purpose computers required too much hardware, too many chips, and too much power to work inside an electronic device. However, as manufacturers packed more and more functionality into less and less space using less and less power, eventually it became possible to have a computer that was small, cheap, powerful, and not especially power-hungry. The Raspberry Pi came about right as this was happening. A Raspberry Pi is a full computer that is not much Read More ›

world of cyber
Cyber ​​relationships on the Internet. Connected people. People and microchips. Cybernetic society. Alone in the net.
Type
post
Author
News
Date
March 2, 2023
Categorized
Technology
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The Technological Society We Live In

In today's world, we think we can solve everything through technique. How's that going for us?
News
March 2, 2023
2
Technology

In a blog post this week from Salvo, Joshua Pauling cites the influential thinker Jacques Ellul on the development of a “technological society” in Western culture. Pauling writes, Even in the mid-20th century, Ellul, a French philosopher and theologian, saw technique and efficiency coming to consume every aspect of life and society. As he defined it in The Technological Society (originally entitled La Technique in French), technique is the “totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency in every field of human activity” (xxv). Just as the factories of the industrial world were optimized according to new standards of efficiency, now everything is measured, recorded, analyzed through a lens of efficiency, and then submitted to a technique to maximize outcomes according to Read More ›