October 2019 – ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

The Problem with Functional Fixedness in Creativity

2019-10-21

Lots of creative problems can be solved when we see what is really there, instead of seeing what we see.
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First Impression of Apple’s Watch Series 5

2019-10-19

A change in iOS infrastructure led me to give the Apple Watch a try.
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Recommendation: The Art of Manliness Podcast

2019-10-19

An (so far) interesting podcast addressing a lot of different topics.
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Software change infos/version history based on user behavior

2019-10-19

Changes in software are a frequent occurrence. They might be less sucky if information about them take the individual user behavior into account.

Image: Change log of DEVONthink.
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What’s in a name?

2019-10-18

One of the easiest and ugliest tricks movements do is to give themselves positively sounding names, like …4future.
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Recommendation: Steven Pinker: “An Unnecessary Defense of Reason and a Necessary Defense of the University’s Role in Advancing It”

2019-10-16

Steven Pinker's Keynote talk at the 2nd Heterodox Academy Annual Conference in June 2019 is well worth listening to.

Image: Half Hour of Heterodoxy Logo
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Climate Change Activism

2019-10-15

Some thoughts on Fridays4Future, Students4Future, and Scientist4Future -- and strikes at schools and universities.

Image: Pale Blue Dot.
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Call of Cthulhu Character Sheet Passport (PDF)

2019-10-05

Seems like I forgot to upload the passport-like character sheet I did create a while ago for a Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game session. Well, here it is.
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Why not treat a learning AI like you would treat a dog?

2019-10-05

Who is responsible if you have an AI system (e.g., a robot) that learns after you buy it -- when it does something wrong. Perhaps treating such a system like you would treat a dog would be a way to deal with it.

Image: «Supergirl»
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False Dichotomies (Presentation Slides, German)

2019-10-04

Slides (in German) about false dichotomies (a rhetorical fallacy), expanded to cover false moral dichotomies (going back to Haidt and referring Boghossian's and Lindsay's book «How to have impossible conversations»).
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This is a private blog showing my opinions. If you have an issue with what I write here, either don’t read it or talk to me directly. Don’t waste your time — or mine — dragging my employer into matters where they hold no authority.

The institution I work for, or rather the people officially representing it, have already distanced themselves from this blog. I find this unnecessary, as I’ve clearly stated in the «About this Blog» section that this is a personal blog.

Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for those who lack the backbone to address their concerns directly and instead resort to passive-aggressive tattling to others. Such behavior strikes me as not only cowardly, but also spineless, gutless, and wholly unprincipled. Moreover, these efforts are as pathetic as they are futile.

That said, I might listen if you present compelling arguments and evidence, as constructive feedback is always welcome. Who knows? We might even both gain something valuable from the interaction.

A comment for those seeking to use this site for personal gain: Given the increase in requests, let me be clear. I write on this blog because I want to. It’s my hobby, my playground. Sometimes people point me to interesting products/services and I write about them. But any request regarding ads or sponsored placements ends up the trash without a reply. And if you think something would be of interest, differentiate yourself from the spammers by referring to a posting — in an intelligent way. (I get enough auto-generated mails to identify them immediately.)

BTW, posts can get updated after I published them if I spot spelling errors (not a native speaker) or think a different wording might improve precision and clarity.

This blog is not focused on a single topic, or method. As long as it is relevant to improving creativity (or allowing it in the first place), it's fair game.
Some postings on this blog deal with freedom, as I think that we need freedom of thought, of speech, of association, etc. pp. to solve mankind's problems. Thus, some postings may seem a bit remote when it comes to organizing creativity. Freedom is, however, the bedrock of creativity.
The heterogeneity of the postings can make reading this blog a bit cumbersome, at least if you are only interested in one topic. You can either use the search function (above), or use the categories or the tags to narrow down the postings you see.

ORGANIZING CREATIVITY

How to generate, capture, and collect ideas to realize creative projects.

Month: October 2019

First Impression of Apple’s Watch Series 5

Software change infos/version history based on user behavior

What’s in a name?

Call of Cthulhu Character Sheet Passport (PDF)

Why not treat a learning AI like you would treat a dog?