The structure of things such as buildings, novels, ideas.
There’s a feeling you getin the presence ofbeautiful buildings and bustling courtyards.A sense that these spacesare inviting you to slow down,deepen your attention, and bea bit more human. What if our software could do the same? This is the opening to the Resonant Computing Manifesto, a charter that aims direct our attention to the human…
The question isn’t “when will the robots become self-aware and take over?” The real question is, “are the robots adding life, supporting humanity, right now?” For instance, when AI is used to help radiologists read mammograms, there is a 20% improvement in detecting cancer. This is clearly a case where AI adds life. But when…
Here are two delightful animations that illustrate the idea of structural unfolding popularized by Christopher Alexander. They are fun to watch. And thought-provoking. A Matter of Form by Rene Jodoin A Geometry of Circles by Philip Glass Via Kottke
I once read a story about NASA engineers working on one of the first research satellites. They spent a long time trying to design a motorized system to deploy the solar panels that would power the satellite. Every solution they came up with was too complicated, too big, or required batteries that were too heavy.…
If we design and construct buildings to suit our purposes, why do some buildings adapt with us as our purposes change, but other buildings refuse to change? That’s the question Stewart Brand asks in this six part series created by the BBC, based on his book How Buildings Learn. Over the course of the series…
Ok, so I installed ActivityPub on my hosted WordPress blog. I can view my Wild Rye blog account (phoutz@wildrye.com) through my Mastodon account. But I can’t view any posts. Also, while Mastodon indicates that I’m following Wild Rye, my blog isn’t showing up in my followers list. I have no idea what’s wrong and wouldn’t…
I just installed the ActivityPub plugin and activated it. Theoretically that means this blog is now a Fediverse server. But nothing seems different. And I have no idea if it will publish to Mastodon. So let’s see. UPDATE ONE I can find my blog username via my Mastodon account. And I can follow it. But…
There has been a fair amount of buzz around Automattic’s acquisition of the ActivityPub for WordPress Plugin. There are also a good number of tutorials on how to install, activate, and set up the plugin. But I haven’t seen a lot about why you would want your blog to be part of the “fediverse”, or…
Alternative (Alt) text provides a textual description of your image. It is an HTML attribute that was initially intended to provide information about an element if the page did not render correctly. In the days when websites were accessed over slow dial-up modems, images were often very slow to load. Today Alt text is an…
When you first start on a writing project you don’t know what the structure of your project will be. As you do research, collect ideas, and clarify your thoughts, the structure will emerge. Using a tool like Tinderbox lets you test your ideas and see what kind of structure provides the best fit for your…
When you’re trying to re-design your life, you want some kind of idea what you want your life to look and feel like. Here’s a process that I’ve worked through a couple of times and I think could work for anybody. It’s pretty simple, start sketching out in words how you’d like your life to…
My Medium feed is littered with Productivity advice: Make these 7 Changes and You’ll Start Making Money Online Writing a Time Management Plan: 7 Essential Points 10 Beautiful Ideas to Change Your Career It’s not that these articles are bad. Some of them have very helpful tips. The problem is that they may not always…
Starting a design with a sketch risks starting with too much information – and information that is likely not a good fit with the project. There becomes a risk of working on and strengthening irrelevant parts of the structure at the expense of latent centers that are essential to the project. Christopher Alexander proposes starting…
