I spent most of the night working on the works of Thomas Reid for @boffosockobooks. #philosophy
"Hiring and interviewing are much more akin to literary criticism or philosophy than they are to math.” https:/
Review of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth https:/
Over the past four years I've read several books, similar in concept to this one, including many by Bart Ehrman who possibly has the largest number of texts in the area including: [book:Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth|11543839], [book:Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them|6101996], [book:From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity|2397133][book:The New Testament|260609], and a good portion of [book:The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption & Restoration|240196].
Of the group, which has a lot of overlap in general thesis and examples, this is by far the best in terms of presentation of a story and all the details. Aslan's writing is interesting, evocative, well-researched, and intrinsically entertaining. As a product, in part, of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, I'm loathe to acknowledge a graduate of Iowa's wriiting program, but Aslan certainly does great credit to his alma mater. He does a relatively good job of describing his own background for those interested in his viewpoint from a historical perspective. He also does an excellent job of pointing out what his own opinions are as well as highlighting where his though differs from that of other scholars in the field and where theirs differs from each other.
While this is most assuredly a popular-press title and aimed at a far broader audience (like many of Ehrman's works) than the more specialized scholarly treatises he references, I have to take Aslan (or far more likely his editors) to task for the poor presentation/layout of the notes provided in the back. The book would appear to be relatively well footnoted with exception to the fact that the footnotes don't appear within the text, nor do they appear even at the bottom of the pages. Even worse, the 50+ pages of excellent (and actually read-worthy) notes in the end are sorted by chapter and have no indicators to the portions of the main text to which they directly relate, which make them terrifically painful for other scholars to contemplate using in any functional way. Hopefully future editions will at least include numbered indicators in the main text that tie to the notes in the back. While this is aimed toward the masses, it's really a shame that the presentation of the notes within the book wasn't handled a bit better. At least the biblical references were included within the primary text - and these in themselves do a great job of indicating the synoptic nature of the New Testament gospels.
One thing that Aslan includes that I haven't seen thus far in much of my reading is a fantastic overview of first century Palestine from a sociological and political perspective to help put the balance of the story into context. All of the major players seem to be well represented and given reasonable weight. If only more histories could be written in this way, perhaps the world would read non-fiction for entertainment rather than the litany of romance, thrillers, sci-fi/fantasy, and general fiction that dominates the best-seller lists. His overview is not only interesting in and of itself, it takes up almost the first third of the text and continues on as necessary through the remainder of the text to provide continued context.
In summation, the book was well-researched, entertainingly presented and phenomenally interesting, even to someone who's read the majority of the details in the recent past. I would highly recommend this to anyone and everyone (regardless of their religious leanings), particularly as the subject concerns two of the most influential figures in all of western history/philosophy. Aslan presents some excellent facts, ideas, and thoughts that are assuredly not known by a majority of people, who really should be aware of them.
I've followed this process from before it's administrative beginning. It's nice to see that we've got a philosophy for what academic freedom is, though I honesty fail to see how it differs from a basic definition of what academic freedom means in the last century, so congratulations to the dozens of people who spent countless hours rewriting a basic definition. We've done the academic equivalent of writing the words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident" while failing to create any actual rules or guidelines by which the administration can hold the faculty, staff, or students accountable or which actually serve to protect the faculty, staff, or students from overstepping of authority by the university.
Where is the following "Constitution"? Where is the process for "Amendments"? Is the University actually granting any real rights here, and how are they to actually be protected? Surely we've evolved past the level of even the rights available during the Carolingian Renaissance and the early days of the birth of the universitas?
In particular, I find it disconcerting to see even the scant guidelines that existed in the intermediate draft that was sent for approval before it got to the board level have been removed. For example, statements like:
"When one is speaking on matters of public interest, it should be made clear that personal views do not represent those of the institution." or
"Professors who express their personal views on a contested issue must make it clear that students may disagree with those views without penalty."
no longer appear in the statement at all.
It's lovely that we have this new "document", but when the rubber actually meets the road, what will we do? Will we trip, stumble, and fall down as we have occasionally in the past? Where are those general guidelines? No one will care what we've said in this document, but they will surely judge us more harshly in the realm of public opinion based on the future actions of the administration and this is where the real work will have to begin.
Ron Daniels has been doing some generally good things in guiding the direction of the university community, but it seems odd that, as one of the first presidents of the institution with an academic background in law and what I know to be his philosophy in social equity, that we've heard nothing of next steps. I hope that with books entitled "Rule of Law Reform and Development: Charting the Fragile Path of Progress" and "Responsibility and Responsiveness," that we will see much more.
Some of my additional thoughts on the practicality of these matters can be found at: "Reframing What Academic Freedom Means in the Digital Age" [http:/
#AcademicFreedom #JohnsHopkins
Johns Hopkins adopts statement on academic freedom principles, philosophy http:/
Paul, thanks for the provocative piece, though the state of the art is certain much further along that your piece intimates. For the general reader, I would suggest reading MIT professor Cesar Hidalgo's recent book Why Information Grows (MIT Press, 2015) for some general structure and philosophy.
One of the best definitions and frameworks I've seen thus far has to be that of Christoph Adami. To start, and depending on your level of sophistication, take a look at his recent arXiv paper (Information-theoretic considerations concerning the origin of life - http:/
For further references, I maintain a nice list of resources at Information Theory and Biology Resources [http:/
For those who like to watch video material, I'll refer them to some videos from the NIMBioS Workshop on Information and Entropy in Biological Systems [http:/
My @Quora answer to Is there a quick way to republish Twitter updates onto a blog? http:/
There are a small variety of answers here some of which (including Ashton Kutcher's suggestion of the formerly awesome ping.fm) are already defunct in less than a year or two, which indicates the fickle and rapidly changing nature of the internet.
I'll start by not accepting the premise of the question, but modifying the conceptualization to something more interesting and robust. Since there are hundreds upon hundreds of defunct web services many of which have died with little to no advance warning and which more often than not were information silos that didn't allow their users to export their data (see: site-deaths - IndieWebCamp [http:/
"Is there a quick way to cross-publish or syndicate my content to Twitter?"
The hidden sentiment of the original question: "how can I easily keep my own data in the eventuality that Twitter disappears?" is really the root of the problem and is one which the IndieWeb movement has been diligently working on for several years. I'll let them speak for themselves:
Your content is yours
When you post something on the web, it should belong to you, not a corporation. Too many companies have gone out of business and lost all of their users’ data. By joining the IndieWeb, your content stays yours and in your control.
You are better connected
Your articles and status messages can go to all services, not just one, allowing you to engage with everyone. Even replies and likes on other services can come back to your sites o they’re all in one place.
You are in control
You can post anything you want, in any format you want, with no one monitoring you. In addition, you share simple readable links such as Page on example.com. These links arepermanent and will always work.
-- Source: IndieWebCamp [http:/
The general philosophy is that it is easy enough to own your own site, own your own data, and then syndicate it out to any of the variety of content silos that exist (while sucking additionally created follow-on data, such as comments, likes, etc. back into your own site), so that you can simultaneously take advantage of the network effects of these silos while still owning everything and not chancing that it will disappear without warning. I'd highly recommend surfing around the IndieWebCamp site for a bit, but I imagine that most will find it actually describes the way many wished the internet worked.
Now that we've got the background philosophy of the question sorted out, let's take a look at the semantics of the solution. The question is essentially asking about the IndieWeb concept of Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (aka POSSE [http:/
This seems like an extension of Colin McNamara's post a while back, which Eric Waldstein is quietly referencing by copying the two of us: https:/
I'm also reminded of some of the simple examples that Warren Weaver and John Robinson Pierce presented shortly after the publication of Claude Shannnon's seminal work "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" which, because it underpins ALL of the modern day communications revolution (digital communication, computers, satellites, cell phones, etc.) since the 1940's, is often cited (along with religious texts like the Bible, the Koran, etc.) as one of humanity's most influential written works. [http:/
Shannon had previously taken George Boole's new "algebra" from the late 1800's (now known as Boolean Algebra, which underpins most of modern logic) and applied it to electronic circuits. Though somewhat technical most advanced high school algebra students should be able to read and understand most of Claude Shannon's MIT master's thesis, which itself is often cited as one of the most influential theses ever written. [http:/
In any case, Pierce in particular does some simple exercises relating to language in his book "An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise" [http:/
This also to some extent, underpins our ability to look at the following paragraph and understand what it says. All the letters have been jumbled (mixed). Only the first and last letter of ecah word is in the right place:
I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.
Pierce's book, while it does have some small amount of math, should be generally readable by most high school students. He also provides a simple model of language in his chapter "A Mathematical Model" which many may find interesting, or be able to pull some interesting examples out of. This particular book is also an excellent example of the intertwining of the ideas of physics, mathematics, engineering, psychology, thermodynamics as well as the ideas of emergence, convergence, and allows for the increased complexity and collective learning that underpins the philosophy of Big History.
I'm on page 25 of 256 of Why Information Grows
I love that his definitions of information, knowledge, and knowhow are more concrete than most(all?) authors. He gives W. Weaver a bit too much priority in Shannon's work; also doesn't mention the original title of Shannon's Bell Labs paper or its significance. I love his concrete examples of the Bugati, Rubic's cube, and DNA. His philosophy seems to fit in with my own so far; can't wait to get to the economics.
I like what you've done with the final product and have always thought about doing something similar myself, particularly after I saw what Martin Fenner (https:/
Another thing I've been playing around with lately has been some tools/toys at http:/
A large part of their philosophy is to own one's own data and then syndicate it out to other social media/external site, but some of their infrastructure allows one to easily make posts on one's own page which then act as replies on another's site. This is particularly interesting from the viewpoint of teaching wherein students and professors can interact with each other, but still have/own all of their individual work. (Incidentally, it also makes for using one's own site as a commonplace book of sorts, which I often find valuable.)
As an exmple, you'll notice on the post on my blog http:/
I find it hard to believe, particularly if you're in financial need, that you'd have a full ride at UT and not have been offered anything at JHU, so double check with the JHU office of financial aid first to see what, if anything, you'd be offered.
More than anything I'd recommend at least visiting both campuses in person and taking a tour and speaking to some students and professors. Asking a question here like you have with only the three data points (two schools and one financial aid package) is not nearly enough to go on for anyone to presume to help you make one of the most influential decisions you're going to make in your life - particularly when the advice is likely to be a terrifically biased and spurious and you're unlikely to delve into the nature of the responses you're getting.
In some sense, you're comparing apples and oranges. A couple of questions you should ask, however, above and beyond the simple ranking portion of the question which most are focusing on in their answers (while the remainder seem to be a bit more biased based on their personal experiences) include:
What are the campus environments like?
How big are the schools and what kind of attention and resources will I have access to?
How big are the cities they're in and what do they offer as part of the undergraduate experience?
What happens after one or two years if you decide to change your major?
Other than the end result of the degree, what do you want out of a college experience?
Are you looking for more diversity or less in terms of culture, religion, etc.?
What are your other interests outside of academics and are those interests actively represented or possible at the school you want to attend? (As an example, are you a musician and want to take classes or have practice time at a college's sister conservatory - perhaps you could get a dual degree? or are there a variety of other music outlets available like bands, symphonies, orchestras, music groups, etc.?)
UT is a humongous place, while Hopkins is significantly smaller, so at UT you're much more likely to be treated like just another number, even within the electrical engineering department. At Hopkins your classes are guaranteed to be much smaller and more intimate which gives you far more access to your professors - particularly when you may need recommendations down the road.
Statistically, if you're planning on going to graduate school, you'll have far more resources for doing research as an undergraduate at Hopkins, which will give you more preparation and a stronger case when you apply. Hopkins excels in undergraduate research experience in part because of its philosophy but also because it gets almost twice the government funding than even the next closest competitor. Additional resources like the proximity of the Applied Physics Lab and the Space Telescope Science Institute (which managed projects like the Hubble Telescope) will give you additional opportunities related to your field while you're in school.
If you do want to play the simple ranking game, keep in mind that only about a third of your course work as an undergraduate will be in the EE department. How highly ranked are all the other programs and departments like mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, English, and others from which the remainder of your coursework will come? Again, what will things look like if you decide to change major part way through?
[Disclosure: I'm an alum of Johns Hopkins class of 1996 with degrees in both biomedical engineering and electrical engineering. I've been both very active on the Hopkins Society of Engineering Alumni board as well as the board that oversees the University's larger Alumni Association. I'm happy to give you more information about Hopkins, and can be easily found via a variety of social media outlets.]
This brings up, not surpisingly, an old trope in mathematics: "what use is abstract mathematics?" Some of the philosophy is disccussed well in Michael Harris's new book Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation [http:/
Often courses like analysis and topology seem awfully abstract, but become much more useful when combined with other topics like linear algebra and group theory to build up other abstract topics like Lie groups and Lie algebras which have more specific problem applications. A few years ago I was shocked to see a Birkhauser/Springer text entitled Stochastic Models, Information Theory, and Lie Groups [http:/
I might suggest you sit back and enjoy the abstract portions of the ride for a bit while keeping your eyes out for applied areas for application. You'll find enough applied math as you go along. In general, you may find that many applied areas will become more comprehensible to you because you better understand the abstract math which underpins them.
One bright light at the end of the tunnel for analysis is that it builds up things for measure theory which underpins probability theory.
For resources, you might find Francis Su's (he's the current president of the MAA) online lectures to be interesting/useful. They can be found via http:/
There are also a wealth of materials via India's IIT http:/
I'll turn this question around to suggest that instead of taking notes from your math/physics textbooks, that you're FAR better off PUTTING notes INTO them! Those margins are meant for writing down the parts of problems and examples that the author implicitly leaves out.
One typically wouldn't take notes from a Spanish, French, or Latin textbook would they? Like most languages, mathematics should be read and written to practice it (and maybe even spoken).
Knowing math or physics is best demonstrated by actually doing problems - and the majority of the time, this is what is going to be on the test too, so just pick up a pencil or pen and start working out the answers.
These subjects aren't like history, philosophy, or psychology with multiple choice or essay type questions that might benefit from note-taking, so just jump right in. Give the book a short read and start plugging away at problems.
If you have problems getting started, take a look at some of the examples provided by the author (or in other books), cover up the answer, and try to recreate the solution.
Drafting off of the Quora question "Why aren't math textbooks more straightforward?" (https:/
This sounds a tad like the debate in early Greek philosophy between the relativists (pre-Socratics) and the Platonists.
I'm curious what your calculation would look like to prove that they either contain the same information or that Mount Fuji contains more?
One of the subtleties of Shannon's original paper on information theory is in the second paragraph where he explicitly states that he's leaving out the semantic processing of the message by the receiver and just concentrating on the sending and receipt of the signal. (Put another way we can play the game telephone and you can hear and repeat the exact words I say, but concepts like <i>double entendre</i> and nuance may prevent you from understanding exactly what I meant to say. Shannon is leaving the second problem understanding out of the picture and solely working on the question of did you hear the words I actually said.) The way you're framing your question, it would appear that you're only focusing on the interpretation of the information after it's been received, in which case Shannon's information doesn't really have anything to say.
Now, to take a look at it from a purely mathematical standpoint within a Shannon framework, once could count the totality of the number of atoms and their states in Fuji and compare it to that of Rushmore and the one with more information is simply going to be the larger one.
If we're looking at photos of the two, then the one with more information is going to be the one that doesn't compress down as much under whatever compression algorithm we might choose. (ie, it won't have anything to do with the "information" contained in the faces and whose faces they are, which again is a semantic issue and not a mathematical one.)