danielhorowitz - The Emergent Fool

Complex Adaptive Systems: Resilience, Ro...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Uncategorized on 06 8th, 2010 | View Comments

Annual 2010 AAAI CAS Symposium: November 11-13, Arlington, VA, USA Covering Natural, Physical, and Social sciences, the symposium should be a good opportunity for interdisciplinary learning and sharing of ideas. One week left to submit a...

Welcome, Max Marmer...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Uncategorized on 05 7th, 2010 | View Comments

Max is a budding superstar with a considerable amount of knowledge and insight to share. We are all fortunate to have him contributing to The Emergent Fool. Welcome...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Causality, Cognition, Complexity, Energy, Interconnectedness on 04 8th, 2010 | View Comments

http://www.vimeo.com/4359545 Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Global Consciousness...

The Truth About Generic Drugs...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Complexity, Economics, Health, Non-linearity, Science on 12 23rd, 2009 | View Comments

The truth is out there. Finally. The NYTimes has a piece on the problems and differences between generic and brand name drugs. Think they are the same? Think again. The article is excellent and I recommend everyone read it. As usual, I will quote liberally, with some of my own commentary. But there is a...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Cooperation, Economics, Incentives on 06 23rd, 2009 | View Comments

Who wants to pay for email? You just might. Many people have suggested that adding a nominal cost to e-mail would serve to fight spam by rendering it largely unprofitable. With Centmail, some Yahoo researchers propose adding a penny postage stamp to each e-mail, representing a penny donation to charity....

Posted by danielhorowitz in Common Knowledge, Crowdsourcing, Economics, Markets, Mutual Knowledge, Science, Technology, Uncategorized on 06 3rd, 2009 | View Comments

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the future prospects of Facebook and Twitter. Some of us even feel strongly enough to want to bet on it. Unfortunately, the companies are privately held, and unavailable to be bet on in the traditional way, via the stock market. It is not just household names like...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Asymmetry, Cancer, Happiness, Health, Psychology, Science on 05 21st, 2009 | View Comments

1. Smile. 2. Spend time with friends, or even try and make a new one. 3. Help another person. Donate a small amount of money, that has nominal value to you, but significant value to someone else. (Kiva, Vittana Foundation.) 4. Quit Smoking. It might be even worse for you today. 5. Stop worrying about...

Is the 'War on Drugs' Ending?...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Education, Government, Language, Society on 05 20th, 2009 | View Comments

A few short months ago, Hillary Clinton declared an end to the “war on terror.” Now, it appears as though the “war on drugs” is ending as well, or is it? ...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Asymmetry, Competition, Economics, Government, Health on 05 15th, 2009 | View Comments

As part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, NIH is awarding $200 million in “Challenge Grants.” But, according to Science Magazine, these grants are far more competitive than initially intended: A frantic grant-writing effort that has consumed biomedical research scientists this...

Game Theory and Military Planning...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Common Knowledge, Competition, Cooperation, Evolution, Games, Incentives, Mutual Knowledge, Poker, Psychology, Science, Social Networks, Society, Socio-technical systems, Stability, Technology on 05 3rd, 2009 | View Comments

In “Game Theory: Can a Round of Poker Solve Afghanistan’s Problems?” Major Richard J.H. Gash creates a simple two player game to show how game theory can be used to influence military planning. Gash’s game involves two villages in Afghanistan with the choice to either support the...

Cancer "Progress" Report...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Alternative Institutions, Cancer, Cooperation, Epistemology, Evolution, Health, Interconnectedness, Medical Breakthroughs, Science, Self-Fullfilling Prophecy on 04 27th, 2009 | View Comments

Despite hundreds of billions of dollars appropriated for cancer research, as well as the efforts of thousands of the world’s best minds, progress in preventing or curing cancer has been almost non-existent. I find this unacceptable. We should be doing better. We need to be doing better. So what’s...

Posted by danielhorowitz in Culture, Psychology, Science on 04 23rd, 2009 | View Comments

Many users, and friends of users of marijuana report experiencing a “contact high.” That is, they purport to experience some of the effects of marijuana simply by being in contact with or around those using marijuana. Virtually all users wrongly attribute this experience to the inhalation of...