http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:04:01 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In the field of designing control systems, there's a heuristic that states "keep your feedback loops tight." My knowledge of control systems engineering is a bit patchy, but I suspect this has to do with minimizing the delay between an event in the real world and the system's perception of ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=709 Systems Engineering is one of the 'hot' disciplines right now. According to CNN, it's the best (or highest paying, or fastest growing, or something) job in America. That's not why I'm pursuing it, but it at least makes for a nice talking point should the moment require one. Unfortunately, it's ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=706 Hello blog. It's been awhile. You're looking good. I've missed you. Anyway. A heuristic that I've seen pop up, in several different arenas, is the principle of doing more with less. To be successful, really successful, it's necessary to strip things down to the absolute minimum. Find the essence of what you're trying ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=702 The current format of this blog has, I think, been taken as far as it can. Ideas are starting to get recycled. The same bits are making appearances over and over again. Proposing a 'perhaps it's like this' can only take me so far, and I'm largely recycling ideas better ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=698 A few whimsical thoughts on consciousness: -Evidence suggests that consciousness is integral to the resolution of conflicting motor commands (think how intensely aware you are when you have to hold on to a burning plate, or when you're pulling off a band-aid, or any other time you have to fight a ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=694 One of the most useful manufacturing concepts ever invented was the idea of interchangeable parts. It was (depending on who you ask) first used by Eli Whitney for the manufacture of rifles. Before interchangeable parts, each rifle was essentially a custom job, built by hand. The main pieces would be ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=692 Semantic satiation is what happens when you repeat a word so many times that it seems to lose all meaning. The process behind this is something called 'reactive inhibition' - essentially, your brain gets bored with the word and produces a weaker response each time the word is heard, eventually ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=690 If you're the villain of an 80's action movie, and you're fighting the hero in the climactic showdown, there's a good chance that you'll try to throw sand (or dust, or powder) in the eyes of the hero to try to blind him. After all, he can't fight if he ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=688 Something I struggle with is conveying my exact state of knowledge about something. Much of the fault can be attributed to the brain's design - the data my beliefs are based on is buried under miles of tangled subconscious tape. It only surfaces as an intuition, it's original source having ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=683 Complex natural phenomena typically have a size window that the laws of physics allow them to operate in, where the processes required for them to occur dominate. Cyclones are caused by a variety of atmospheric phenomena that result in stable areas of rotating fluid. The smallest cyclones are tornados and waterspouts, ... http://www.hegemonicon.com/blog/?p=679