One of the main sources of excitement at a Summer Olympics is watching sprinters break Olympic and world records. In this respect, the 2016 Rio Games was a bit of a bust. The only such record to be broken was by Wayde van Niekerk of South Africa in the Men's 400m final.
Jevons' Paradox concerns how increases in efficiency can lead to increases—rather than decreases—in consumption of resources. Designers expend a great deal of brainpower and passion on increasing the efficiency of their designs. The goal is often to decrease consumption of a resource, as a way of improving overall sustainability. In brief, the reasoning is that if a given task can be completed with fewer resources, then those resources will be conserved.
The slogan "form follows function" has long been associated with a minimalist view of good design. On the positive side, it has been used to mean that designs should be configured to fulfil their intended goals. On the negative side, it has been used to limit those goals to so-called basic needs only, to the exclusion of social goals.
A recent posting pointed to some lack of clarity about what a computer is. Is a computer anything that carries out automated, logical or arithmetical operations? Or, is it a particular kind of good, e.g., a PC and not an iPad?
What is a computer? Wikipedia currently gives the following definition:
A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitrary set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.
This definition is one that might be expected from a computer scientist. It is very broad and entirely functional, that is, it describes a computer strictly in terms of what it does.
A recent edition of The Economist has two articles that make mention of drones. Semi-autonomous vehicles will certainly change things. But, will they change everything that their promoters claim?
One of the most salient technology-society issues in Olympic sport is that of enhancement. Consider my recent post on gene doping, for example. In general, the question is: When is the use of technology in a sport appropriate or acceptable?
CRISPR refers to short repetitions in DNA, the study of which has produced technology to edit DNA with great precision. The prospect of being able to edit DNA nearly at will has led to a lot of breathless commentary about how we may change the world—for better or worse—through employing it.
A video recently posted on a YouTube channel called "Kurzgesagt" (German for "In a nutshell") falls into this category:
An electronic bike (or "e-bike") is more-or-less what it sounds like: a bike with an electric motor integrated into it. E-bikes have become quite popular in Europe and in China, especially as a substitute for cars for short distance commuting.
I noted in an earlier post that the Rio Olympics marks the first time that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has proactively tested for cheating, specifically for gene doping.
A recent article in New Scientist rehearses some arguments for why gene doping should simply be accepted, rather than banned and policed. I want to briefly go over those arguments here.