Several news sources are publishing the news that mathematician Benoit B. Mandelbrot has passed away. As Nassim Taleb calls him: A Greek among Romans. Although I’ve never understood, and probably never will understand, the mathematical consequences of Mandelbrot’s work — I owe many exciting hours to him. My first programming experience consisted of (blindly) copying fractal-generating BASIC code from books I had borrowed from the public library.
I would start the little program on my 386 before going to school, and when I arrived home in the afternoon I would turn-on my monitor and there it would appear: a Mandelbrot-fractal. Sheer delight.
Today I came across a short demo-video of something called virtual assistants. While the term often refers to (human) assistants supporting other people by virtual means. This type of virtual assistant is completely virtual. In short it is a short of interactive FAQ armed with a plethora algorithms (machine learning, language processing) to be able to respond with a correct answer or an appropriate action.
As a designer however I wonder if this type of tool is solving the right problem. If somebody for example is unable to find a certain product on your website, isn’t this because you haven’t designed your website well enough?
I didn’t understand the function and importance of the exponential function before this video, but after having watched this video I will remember it. So should you probably.
If you are interested in economy and the current crisis I can recommend reading articles by Lord Skidelsky. I’ve found two video’s in which he briefly explains his vision on the current crisis and the required actions.
Personally I find the current economical situation highly fascinating. Not only because it has such a huge influence on society. Basically the top of the financial world holds the rest of the world in deadlock. But it seems primary economical models are rapidly deterioration (capitalism/free market), and economical experts are contradicting each other. However since our current economy is so complex and opaque, it is an almost impossible task to really understand what is going on.
