I read Waldrop at the beginning of my infatuation and would read him again.
Wolfram were absolutely mindblowing. I keep wanting to turn it into a
principle, I found Goodwin's Leopard's Spots an interesting MOdel.
previously been totally hooked on linear models. so it sort of requires
truly profit by being exposed to it.
some of the wonders produced by careful linear thinking. A couple of us
were talking about writing one, while I was out there. I have have a few
not sufficiently detail oriented to pull it off by myself. See note on
Bull shit, below.
concerned. In most people's mouths, the distinction refers mostly to the
difference between clear thinking and mindless obscurantist groupspeak.
a speaker .for whom the truth is not a salient concern.
the ZoZobra project. Come on, you guys. If you expect us to be your
friends in dispair, you have also to let us in on your triumphs.
Nicholas S. Thompson
> [Original Message]
> From: <
[hidden email]>
> To: <
[hidden email]>
> Date: 9/11/2005 10:00:12 AM
> Subject: Friam Digest, Vol 27, Issue 9
>
> Send Friam mailing list submissions to
>
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>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
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> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Reader2: social BOOKmarking (Charles Gieseler)
> 2. Intro Books for Bright People (Owen Densmore)
> 3. Sterling, Distraction (Owen Densmore)
> 4. Re: Intro Books for Bright People (Tom Carter)
> 5. Re: Intro Books for Bright People (Michael Agar)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 12:09:57 -0600
> From: Charles Gieseler <
[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Reader2: social BOOKmarking
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <
[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <
[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hi Everybody,
>
> I ran across something this week that might interest those who are fans
> of del.icio.us <
http://del.icio.us> and avid readers. It's called
> Reader^2 (reader2.com <
http://reader2.com>). It's a social book list
> service that does for books what del.icio.us does for bookmarks. From
> the site:
>
> This site allows you to
> * Keep list of books you read and/or recommend
> * Find new books to read in the categories of your interest
> * Export your latest read books or recommended books to your site or
> blog
> * Track after your friends reading lists (via RSS)
>
> I believe it is linked with Amazon's database which allows you to easily
> query information for books and add them to your list. When you add
> books you mark them in one of 8 different categories. You can also
> indicate whether you recommend, dislike, are reading, or want to read a
> particular books. Like bookmarks in del.icio.us, you can add custom tags
> to books on your list to aid in search and categorization. There are
> also various ways to search for books among all users. This looks like a
> useful tool to share and find books.
>
> They also have a sister site called MyProgs (myprogs.net
> <
http://myprogs.net/>) which allows people to maintain social lists of
> the software they use. I haven't looked at it much yet, but it may be
> another place to find good open source software.
>
> Cheers,
> Charlie Gieseler
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL:
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 20:07:23 -0600
> From: Owen Densmore <
[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Intro Books for Bright People
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Friam <
[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <
[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> Once again I've been asked by a very lively and bright person to
> suggest readings on Complexity. And I find it pretty hard to do.
>
> If the topic were Chaos instead, it'd be a snap: James Gleick's book
> and one or another of the really great math books showing how to
> quantify and manage chaos would be pretty clear choices.
>
> But complexity is all over the place. Holland's books are not all
> that gripping. The Waldrop history of SFI is probably reasonable
> although dated. Stu's "At Home in the Universe" is wonderful for us
> but a bit hard going for beginners, and not particularly general. I
> mean, how do you shove modern graph theory, local knowledge systems,
> ABM, emergence, adaption, equilibrium, and so on into a couple of
> books!?
>
> Stephen pointed out a great site of Cosma Shalizi's reviews:
>
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/> .. and particular on Complexity etc:
>
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/subjects/self-
> organization.html
> .. while discussing Philip Ball's The Self-Made Tapestry. Cosma
> would consider it a good starting point apparently. And if you've
> met him, that is great praise indeed!
>
> Any and all suggestions appreciated!
>
> -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore -
http://backspaces.net -
http://redfish.com - http://
> friam.org
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 20:09:24 -0600
> From: Owen Densmore <
[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Sterling, Distraction
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Friam <
[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <
[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> Carl introduced me to Bruce Sterling's great book Distraction a while
> back.
>
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/distraction/> Holy cow, Cosma likes it!
>
> -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore -
http://backspaces.net -
http://redfish.com - http://
> friam.org
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 01:52:08 -0700
> From: Tom Carter <
[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Intro Books for Bright People
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <
[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <
[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> Owen -
>
> Yeah, I just had to deal with this problem -- I ended up choosing
> for my Nonlinear Systems and Chaos class:
>
> Texts: The required texts for the class are:
>
> Chaos: Making a New Science, James Gleick
>
> Mathematics and the Unexpected, Ivar Ekeland
>
> The Computational Beauty of Nature, Gary Flake
>
> It will be interesting to see how it goes . . .
>
> tom
>
>
> On Sep 10, 2005, at 7:07 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
>
> > Once again I've been asked by a very lively and bright person to
> > suggest readings on Complexity. And I find it pretty hard to do.
> >
> > If the topic were Chaos instead, it'd be a snap: James Gleick's
> > book and one or another of the really great math books showing how
> > to quantify and manage chaos would be pretty clear choices.
> >
> > But complexity is all over the place. Holland's books are not all
> > that gripping. The Waldrop history of SFI is probably reasonable
> > although dated. Stu's "At Home in the Universe" is wonderful for
> > us but a bit hard going for beginners, and not particularly
> > general. I mean, how do you shove modern graph theory, local
> > knowledge systems, ABM, emergence, adaption, equilibrium, and so on
> > into a couple of books!?
> >
> > Stephen pointed out a great site of Cosma Shalizi's reviews:
> >
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/> > .. and particular on Complexity etc:
> >
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/subjects/self-
> > organization.html
> > .. while discussing Philip Ball's The Self-Made Tapestry. Cosma
> > would consider it a good starting point apparently. And if you've
> > met him, that is great praise indeed!
> >
> > Any and all suggestions appreciated!
> >
> > -- Owen
> >
> > Owen Densmore -
http://backspaces.net -
http://redfish.com - http://
> > friam.org
> >
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> >
http://www.friam.org> >
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 09:50:09 -0400
> From: "Michael Agar" <
[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Intro Books for Bright People
> To: <
[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <
[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> Yeah, same deal, I give intro complexity talks and keep experimenting
> with what to use.
>
> Few years back when Rob Axtell spoke to a group in DC he asked them to
> read an Atlantic Monthly article, Seeing Around Corners,
>
http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/rauch/20020401.pdf. Worked
> pretty well.
>
> I use that and will add the Sci American article, July 2005, by Kohler,
> Gummerman and Reynolds, Simulating Ancient Societies, on the Anasazi
> work, readable and interesting.
>
> I still like Waldrop's book, dated (but then so is Gleick and, at this
> point, so is complexity), because he's a good writer, weaves together
> ideas, people and institutions, shows what well known problems motivated
> complexity, and he leans towards the biosocial rather than the physics.
>
> Then there's many things available depending on the audience. For
> instance, for an ethno crowd Elizabeth Woods' book on the insurgency in
> El Salvador is good as is Steve Lansing's review article in the Annual
> Reviews of Anthro. For a health care crowd writings by people like
> Reuben McDaniels and Ben Crabtree are interesting.
>
> My next gig is an education crowd, so one thing I found are two chapters
> on that topic in Yaneer Bar-Yam's book Making Things Work.
>
> Lot of material out there to suit the background knowledge of a
> newcomer. Trick is to figure out why your audience is interested (or why
> you want to get them interested), then figure out where they are to
> locate their zone of proximal development, as Vygotsky called it, and
> then find the right material or right words to stretch their horizon and
> yours as well. Cross between teaching and intercultural communication.
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> >>>
[hidden email] 09/10/05 10:07 PM >>>
> Once again I've been asked by a very lively and bright person to
> suggest readings on Complexity. And I find it pretty hard to do.
>
> If the topic were Chaos instead, it'd be a snap: James Gleick's book
> and one or another of the really great math books showing how to
> quantify and manage chaos would be pretty clear choices.
>
> But complexity is all over the place. Holland's books are not all
> that gripping. The Waldrop history of SFI is probably reasonable
> although dated. Stu's "At Home in the Universe" is wonderful for us
> but a bit hard going for beginners, and not particularly general. I
> mean, how do you shove modern graph theory, local knowledge systems,
> ABM, emergence, adaption, equilibrium, and so on into a couple of
> books!?
>
> Stephen pointed out a great site of Cosma Shalizi's reviews:
>
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/> .. and particular on Complexity etc:
>
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/subjects/self-
> organization.html
> .. while discussing Philip Ball's The Self-Made Tapestry. Cosma
> would consider it a good starting point apparently. And if you've
> met him, that is great praise indeed!
>
> Any and all suggestions appreciated!
>
> -- Owen
>
> Owen Densmore -
http://backspaces.net -
http://redfish.com - http://
> friam.org
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
>
http://www.friam.org>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Friam mailing list
>
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>
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>
> End of Friam Digest, Vol 27, Issue 9
> ************************************