Tonight I’ve been toying with the idea of personal utility and aesthetic. The way I see it, like most systems, people can be viewed as having both function and form. The idea of usefulness and emotional experience. In a more general sense, these are very interrelated things that generally work together, but like most models, […]
Semantics! I’m not talking about the semantic web, but semantics in general. I’m sure you know, but the idea of semantics is the concern of meaning. For example, when I use language to communicate, I really want it to convey my meaning because that’s the reason I’m communicating. Hence, the importance of semantics and meaning.
On […]
I’m planning and preparing a new blog that will focus on systemics. Hopefully it will make a difference in the world and help us deal with the implications of facts like these…
glumbert.com - Shift Happens
This came to my attention by Creative Generalist, which is a blog that’s about another major theme of my upcoming blog.
A while back I discovered the MDA framework for game design, which, like a Will Wright presentation, struck a chord. As a recap, it’s a conceptual framework that breaks games down into mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics as a much needed formal vocabulary for game design. In the context of games, the components of MDA are […]
Mental models represent a very important way to view the way we think. More importantly, models in general represent a very useful way to represent known knowledge. The significance of models might not be obvious, but I’m going to try and paint a picture that will help you understand them as I do. First though, […]
At the last DevHouse, I met somebody else that was interested in systems theory. I recommended him Ackoff’s Best, which he recently got and started writing about on his blog.
I haven’t written about any systems stuff for a while, but I think about it all the time. To me it’s really exciting because it’s one […]
Today I saw an award-winning documentary on the Science Channel called Ants: Nature’s Secret Power. You see, I have a love for ants, not just because Will Wright loves them, but because they’re great examples of emergence and systems principles. They’re also completely decentralized social systems, making them a superorganism with collective intelligence, which is […]
I’ve wanted to see this video for a while now, but I never thought to look on YouTube. Luckily, information aesthetics found it and brought it to my attention.
Afterwards, watch the quick Simpsons Powers of Ten. It jokingly poses an interesting hypothesis that the Eames’ didn’t bother to, which is that the universe is paradoxically […]
The other night I was craving some Jay Forrester system dynamics goodness, so I decided to run out to the nearby Borders and try to pick up Principles of Systems. Unfortunately it’s out of print, along with the rest of Jay Forrester’s books and most other books on systems theory. As an alternative, I ended […]