(9,670 words)
This online EDGE edition is available at:
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html
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THE THIRD CULTURE
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Only one third of a search engine is devoted to fulfilling search requests. The other two thirds are divided between crawling (sending a host of single-minded digital organisms out to gather information) and indexing (building data structures from the results). Ed's job was to balance the resulting loads.
When Ed examined the traffic, he realized that Google was doing more than mapping the digital universe. Google doesn't merely link or point to data. It moves data around. Data that are associated frequently by search requests are locally replicated—establishing physical proximity, in the real universe, that is manifested computationally as proximity in time. Google was more than a map. Google was becoming something else. ...
ENGINEERS' DREAMS
By George Dyson
Introduction by Stewart Brand
How does one come to a new understanding? The standard essay or paper makes a discursive argument, decorated with analogies, to persuade the reader to arrive at the new insight.
The same thing can be accomplished—perhaps more agreeably, perhaps more persuasively—with a piece of fiction that shows what would drive a character to come to the new understanding. Tell us a story!
This George Dyson gem couldn't find a publisher in a fiction venue because it's too technical, and technical publications (including Wired) won't run it because it's fiction. Shame on them. Edge to the rescue.
—SBB
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#dyson
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THE NEXT RENAISSANCE
A Talk By Douglas Rushkoff
Computers and networks finally offer us the ability to write. And we do write with them. Everyone is a blogger, now. Citizen bloggers and YouTubers who believe we have now embraced a new "personal" democracy. Personal, because we can sit safely at home with our laptops and type our way to freedom.
But writing is not the capability being offered us by these tools at all. The capability is programming—which almost none of us really know how to do. We simply use the programs that have been made for us, and enter our blog text in the appropriate box on the screen. Nothing against the strides made by citizen bloggers and journalists, but big deal. Let them eat blog.
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#rushkoff
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THE REALITY CLUB
ON "IS GOOGLE MAKING US STUPID?" By Nicholas Carr
W. Daniel Hillis, Kevin Kelly, Larry Sanger, George Dyson, Jaron Lanier, Douglas Rushkoff
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The July/August issue of Atlantic Monthly features a cover story by Nicholas Carr: "Is Google Making Us Stupid: What The Internet is doing to Our Brains". Carr is author of the recently published The Big Switch: Rewiring the world, from Edison to Google and a blogger: Rough Type. He is also an Edge contributor.
Danny Hillis disagrees with his argument. Here is Hillis's comment which is hopefully the beginning of an interesting Edge Reality Club discussion. —JB
W. DANIEL HILLIS: We evolved in a world where our survival depended on an intimate knowledge of our surroundings. This is still true, but our surroundings have grown. We are now trying to comprehend the global village with minds that were designed to handle a patch of savanna and a close circle of friends. Our problem is not so much that we are stupider, but rather that the world is demanding that we become smarter. Forced to be broad, we sacrifice depth. We skim, we summarize, we skip the fine print and, all too often, we miss the fine point. We know we are drowning, but we do what we can to stay afloat. ...
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#rc
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IN THE NEWS
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THE GUARDIAN
From Obama to Cameron, why do so many politicians want a piece of Richard Thaler?
By Aditya Chakrabortty
What is the big idea of Richard Thaler, the economist quoted by David Cameron and Barack Obama? It comes down to this: you're not as smart as you think. Humans, he believes, are less rational and more influenced by peer pressure and suggestion than governments and economists reckon. ...
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#guardian
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THE NEW YORKER
Surfing the Universe
By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
ANNALS OF SCIENCE about physicist Garrett Lisi's "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything." Writer describes Lisi giving a talk at a conference in Morelia, Mexico in June of 2007. The conference was attended by the top researchers in a field called loop quantum gravity, which has emerged as a leading challenger to string theory. ...
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#newyorker
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THE TIMES
Why Barack Obama and David Cameron are keen to 'nudge you'
By Carol Lewis
Richard Thaler, professor of economics and behavioural science at Chicago Graduate School of Business, talks about his new book and why nudging has caught the imagination of top politicians.
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#times
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THE BUSINESS TIMES (SINGAPORE)
Psychology's Ambassador to Economics
The father of behavioural economics Daniel Kahneman talks to VIKRAM KHANNA about cognitive illusions, investor irrationality and measures of well-being
...Many mainstream economists still view behavioural economics with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, but they are increasingly coming around, because some of its findings are too compelling to ignore.
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#businesstimes
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THE WASHINGTON POST
Jason Calacanis' First New Email Post
By Nik Cubrilovic
TechCrunch.com
Jason Calacanis announced on Friday that he was retiring from blogging. There was a very mixed reaction to the news, with most believing it to be a publicity stunt. Jason said in his farewell post that instead of blogging, he would instead be posting to a mailing list made up of his followers, capped at 750 subscribers. That subscriber limit was reached very quickly, and today Jason sent out his first new 'post' to that mailing list, which we have included below.
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#wapo
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NEW SCIENTIST
A Way With Words
By Jo Marchant
Interview: The language detective
Everyone's favourite linguist, Steven Pinker, is known for his theory that the mental machinery behind language is innate. In his latest book, The Stuff of Thought, he asks what language tells us about how we think. He says the words and grammar we use reflect inherited rules that govern our emotions and social relationships. Jo Marchant asked Pinker why he thinks that concepts of space, time and causality are hard-wired in our brain, and why he's turning his thoughts to violence.
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#newscientist
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HIGHFIELD NAMED EDITOR OF NEW SCIENTIST
ROGER HIGHFIELD, award-winning Science Editor of The Daily Telegraph, where he worked for more than 20 years, has been named as the next Editor of New Scientist magazine, which is now the world's biggest selling weekly science and technology magazine.
[MORE]
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html#highfield
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This online EDGE edition is available at:
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge250.html
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Edge Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit private operating foundation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
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EDGE Newsbytes: http://www.edge.org/newsbytes.html
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EDGE
John Brockman, Editor and Publisher
Russell Weinberger, Associate Publisher
Karla Taylor, Editorial Assistant
Copyright (c) 2008 by EDGE Foundation, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Published by EDGE Foundation, Inc.,
5 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022
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