Comments for odd letters

Comment on Masters Thesis Success! by El regreso del swarming | Guerras Posmodernas

El regreso del swarming | Guerras Posmodernas — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 21:24:54 +0000

[…] denegación de servicio (DDOS) como herramienta de activismo político. El libro nació a partir de una tesis de fin de máster y se nota, porque tiene ese típico discurso académico que mantiene una cierta distancia de las […]

Comment on Curiosity, Being Yourself and Being Bad at Things by dmf

dmf — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 14:19:00 +0000

http://syntheticzero.net/2014/12/18/the-coming-swarm-molly-sauter/

Comment on The Coming Swarm book tour! by Don van Eetveldt

Don van Eetveldt — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 06:34:00 +0000

Hi Molly , just bought your book. Am finishing up Gabriella’s book this weekend. Sad to see no one has posted a review. I’ll make my best effort to write one if by the time I am done no one else has. take it easy

Comment on The Coming Swarm book tour! by man

man — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 19:07:00 +0000

“radical politics” – a phrase that refers to many different things…

Comment on Curiosity, Being Yourself and Being Bad at Things by Goals | Rebekah Heacock | Jackfruity

Goals | Rebekah Heacock | Jackfruity — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 20:09:20 +0000

[…] been thinking a lot over the past few months about goal-setting, self-incubation, being myself and being bad at things, and finding direction and clarity. Today, I stumbled across Maggie Mason’s blog post on […]

Comment on Curiosity, Being Yourself and Being Bad at Things by Kat Friedrich

Kat Friedrich — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 22:18:00 +0000

I’ve heard other people I meet – primarily on the East Coast – describe this as an issue in their lives. I also see it in some dance classes in Massachusetts, where many people are physically afraid to make mistakes or express themselves freely.nnWhen I lived in the Midwest, the dominant metaphor for work was not “being a star.” Instead, the main Midwestern work metaphor was football. In football (and some other team sports), if you fall, you get up again and give it another try. Similarly, in the Midwestern business settings where I worked, there was very little perfectionism. People were focused on learning from their mistakes, trying again, and reaching team goals. nnnSince, before becoming a science journalist/blogger, I spent eight years of my life doing physical work at least part-time, I learned that making mistakes is also an essential part of learning to fix things. nnnSo my advice to people who are concerned about this would be to say that they should try participating in physical work, team sports, and/or improvisational activities like dance, drumming and other art forms where one is expected to make mistakes. Get out of the academic structure once in a while and try doing improv dance or fixing your plumbing.

Comment on Curiosity, Being Yourself and Being Bad at Things by NovySan

NovySan — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 02:19:00 +0000

Try taking a neuroengineering course when you were a Theater Major and did nothing but make very expensive pretty pictures for the last 16 years of your life. Actually, the math involved in Fourier Analysis I did 2 semesters ago was worse. Balls. Balls the size of Cleveland. Balls the size of Cleveland and whiskey. This is your only hope. Run. Here, let me introduce you to Spider Jerusalem. He is your Spirit Animal. Unfortunately he’s a terrible liar. So don’t believe a word he says.

Comment on Curiosity, Being Yourself and Being Bad at Things by Jon Penney

Jon Penney — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 23:41:00 +0000

Great post, Molly. I encountered some of the same challenges in the first year of my doctorate at the OII, where people often tackle social / political / legal / and policy related questions from much different empirical/theoretical orientations; and certainly often different from my own (or those approaches I had become accustomed to). This was, in fact, what I was looking for at OII and I’ve learned a tonne, but embracing that difference is always a work in progress.nnnPS: For Derrida, don’t start with Of Grammatology or The Post Card. Go find “Limited Inc”, which, IMHO, is essential reading to understand Derrida and his approach to language/writing. The piece “Afterwards” is worth the price itself, where Derrida (in an interview years later) reflects upon his dispute with John Searle over Speech Act Theory. In it, he really clarifies some of his key concepts and ideas and responds to critics who, sometimes intentionally, have misread him.

Comment on Curiosity, Being Yourself and Being Bad at Things by marco

marco — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 19:45:00 +0000

On a smaller and impersonal scale, your post makes me think to a research project I’m doing with some master students about an agent-based model of a social network. The model is doing all the good stuff of a social network, a lot of triangles, a giant component, they nicely exchange messages and so forth. They “evolve” as a community. Nice, it’s what it’s supposed to do. But, you know, nobody is curious in that world. They follow the rules, and yes, the outcome could be unexpected, its an intrinsic network property, but still, they are never curious or weird. Ultimately, it’s the network to decide for them, they just loops though some easy steps. Instead, I’m curious to know what happens if the agents became curious, rather than caged in a social mesh, call it curiosity or serendipity or just randomness, it doesn’t matter here, but Hey, I said to the students, do you really want to design a network that always decides for this bunch of agents without letting at least some of them to escape from its dynamics? But, still I was thinking to a better and, let’s say, more intellectual real case and, here it comes your post that is a perfect intellectual description of an agent that is escaping from the overall network dynamics and is reclaiming its curiosity to go where it knows less or even just through a random exploration. I’m pretty sure we will see some interesting behavior with our curious agents.nYours is a great post.nmarco

Comment on Self Promotion Without Guilt! by jmreagle

jmreagle — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:47:00 +0000

“Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great” ― Golda Meir. That’s one of my favorite quotes from one of the few things I’ve read on this topic: Rosenburg’s chapter 13, “Expressing Appreciation in Nonviolent Communication”.