As part of my infatuation with scientific mysteries, I really dug this Nature News piece about how the number 10^122 keeps popping up in many seemingly-unrelated places in physics. Scott Funkhouser (what a name) from The Citadel identifies five of […]
Michael Edward Johnson
Posts by Michael Edward Johnson
Quote: On First Versions
Paul Buchheit on The most important thing to understand about new products and startups: For web based products at least, there’s another very powerful technique: release early and iterate. The sooner you can start testing your ideas, the sooner you […]
Cognitive Enhancement, The Book
As a few readers of this blog know, since last summer I’ve been working on a large writing project. The tentative plan is for a book, and the release date is unknown. I’m about 60,000 words in, most of the […]
Open Source Government
They say that discussing politics can be like pulling teeth. So, as long as I’m at it, here are some political musings before I head out to get my wisdom teeth out. Geek icon RU Sirius of the webzine 10 […]
America’s New Constitution
A contemplation for a Sunday night- America’s founding fathers meant for the Constitution to be a living and binding governance document. To both guide and reflect the shape of America’s government, and to be amended as things came up. However, […]
Citizendium: Choosing a Free Content License
Citizendium, the wiki encyclopedia I volunteer with, is holding a call for essays about which free content license we should choose for our content. It’s an open call for essays, so even if you’re not a member of Citizendium and […]
Update
Dear Readers, Here’s a quick update on what I’ve been up to and blog plans: 1. I’ve written an article for the Wikipedia community newsletter, the Wikipedia Signpost. It covers what’s been going on at Citizendium, our future plans, why […]
Quote of the Week: July 22
A lot has been said about Andrew Keen’s new book, The Cult of the Amateur, in which he argues that the products of user-driven content communities (e.g., Wikipedia) often compare poorly to those produced by more traditional institutions. Over at […]
Scientific Research (3/5: Dark Energy)
What I’d do with a research lab, part 3:Test a pet theory regarding Dark Energy Working hypothesis: There is a fairly elegant modification to gravity that may explain Dark Energy, and that current MOND theories do not touch upon. We’ve […]
Quote of the Week: July 15
From the New York Times article Make Money, Save the World, on efforts to decompartmentalize modern philanthropy by encouraging ‘for-benefit corporations’ or ‘for-profit charities’: “There’s a big movement out there that is not yet recognized as a movement,” said R. […]