Discussion: View Thread

Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

-Samuel Johnson

From: Charles Wankel <wankelc@VERIZON.NET>
Subject: MIT Climate Change Collaboratorium
To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Date: Saturday, 5 December, 2009, 5:05

IMD-Ler

 

I have received the following interesting request from Luca Iandoli iandoli@unina.it">iandoli@unina.it :

 

I have worked at MIT for awhile on the development of a mass collaboration tool called Climate Change Collaboratorium. The tool has just been released publicly and through it one can vote for the plans for greenhouse gases emissions reduction that will be on the table at the Copenhagen conference. Anybody can join, vote for a plan and even create a new one. I would appreciate management education colleagues to help this worthy endeavor. (See how below).

Luca

 

MIT Climate Change Collaboratorium

 

What agreement would you like to see in Copenhagen?

Vote for the proposal you think is best or create a better one yourself at http://www.climatecollaboratorium.org . Until December 11, people from all over the world are invited to this site to develop and vote on proposals that describe the agreement they hope will be negotiated in Copenhagen. The results will be delivered to the UNFCCC. Visit the Climate Collaboratorium and let your voice be heard!

 

Global climate change is perhaps the most pressing and important problem currently facing humanity. The goal of this MIT research project is to address this important challenge through the creation of a new class of web-mediated discussion and decision making forums, called the "Collaboratorium". The system use an innovative combination of internet-mediated interaction, collectively generated idea repositories, computer simulation, and explicit representation of argumentation to help large, diverse, and geographically-dispersed groups systematically explore, evaluate, and come to decisions concerning systemic challenges.

 

Find more at http://cci.mit.edu/research/climate.html

 

Pi would be much easier to handle if it were a rational number. They said, "Since the rule in present use [presumably pi equals 3.14159...] fails to work ..., it should be discarded as wholly wanting and misleading in the practical applications." Instead, the interested public in Indiana could take their pick among the following formulae:

(1) The ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference is 5/4 to 4. In other words, pi equals 16/5 or 3.2

(2) The area of a circle equals the area of a square whose side is 1/4 the circumference of the circle. Working this out algebraically, we see that pi must be equal to 4.

(3) The ratio of the length of a 90 degree arc to the length of a segment connecting the arc's two endpoints is 8 to 7. This gives us pi equal to the square root of 2 x 16/7, or about 3.23.

There may have been other values for pi as well; typical of politicians' bills, it was so confusingly written that it was impossible to tell exactly what Goodwin was attempting to do. Mathematician David Singmaster says he found six different values in the bill, plus three more in Goodwin's other writings and comments, for a total of nine.

Bill #246 was initially, and appropriately, sent to the Committee on Swamp Lands. The committee deliberated gravely on the question, decided it was not the appropriate body to consider such a measure and turned it over to the Committee on Education. The latter committee gave the bill a "pass" recommendation and sent it on to the full House, which approved it unanimously, 67 to 0. Maybe they didn't have time to read it.

In the state Senate, the bill was referred to the Committee on Temperance. We may suspect that the Indiana legislature might not be taking this seriously. It passed first reading, but that's as far as it got. According to The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers, the bill "was held up before a second reading due to the intervention of C.A. Waldo, a professor of mathematics at Purdue University who happened to be passing through." Waldo, describing the experience later, wrote, "A member [of the legislature] then showed the writer [i.e., Waldo] a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks, remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know."

The bill was postponed indefinitely and died a quiet death. According to a local newspaper, however, "Although the bill was not acted on favorably no one who spoke against it intimated that there was anything wrong with the theories it advances. All of the Senators who spoke on the bill admitted that they were ignorant of the merits of the proposition. It was simply regarded as not being a subject for legislation."

-Samuel Johnson

From: Bird, Allan <abird@UMSL.EDU>
Subject: Re: MIT Climate Change Collaboratorium
To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Date: Sunday, 6 December, 2009, 3:39

Romie:

I think you are wrong on your understanding of what this is.  Without consensus there can be no scientific progress -  at least that's how it was explained to me by a member of the Church of Global Warming.  You can anticipate future voting sites to help establish consensus around other pseudo scientific movements in order to help them establish their bona fides.  Think how much more progress Gilbreth and Taylor could have made in their Industrial Efficiency movement if they had been able to bring their ideas to a global vote.  Public policies predicated on consensus around foundational principles such as Murphy's Law, the Peter Principle and the Dilbert Principle will be set up for consensus voting in 2010.  It's good to see science becoming more democratic and not relying on a slavish faithfulness to objectivity, integrity, honesty and transparency.  That perspective is woefully pre post-modern.

allan

-----Original Message-----
From: International Management Discussion List on behalf of Romie Littrell
Sent: Fri 12/4/2009 11:28 PM
To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU">IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: MIT Climate Change Collaboratorium

Given the self serving cheating by the climate change "academics", this is kind of like voting for someone who isn't running, don't you think.
Regards,
Romie Littrell

Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.-Samuel Johnson
Romie F. Littrell, BA, MBA,PhD, FIAIR, An fánaí fiáin 
AUT Business School N.Z., romie.littrell@aut.ac.nz">romie.littrell@aut.ac.nz
http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
Facilitator, Leadership & Management in Sub-Sahara Africa Conferences
Contents copyright Romie F. Littrell

--- On Sat, 5/12/09, Charles Wankel <wankelc@VERIZON.NET">wankelc@VERIZON.NET> wrote:

From: Charles Wankel <wankelc@VERIZON.NET">wankelc@VERIZON.NET>
Subject: MIT Climate Change Collaboratorium
To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU">IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Date: Saturday, 5 December, 2009, 5:05












IMD-Ler


 

I have received the following interesting request from
Luca Iandoli iandoli@unina.it">iandoli@unina.it :

 

I have worked at MIT for awhile on the development of a
mass collaboration tool called Climate Change Collaboratorium. The tool has
just been released publicly and through it one can vote for the plans for
greenhouse gases emissions reduction that will be on the table at the
Copenhagen conference. Anybody can join, vote for a plan and even create a new
one. I would appreciate management education colleagues to help this worthy
endeavor. (See how below).

Luca

 

MIT Climate Change Collaboratorium

 

What agreement would you like to see in Copenhagen? 

Vote for the proposal you think is best or create a
better one yourself at http://www.climatecollaboratorium.org
. Until December 11, people from all over the world are invited to this site to
develop and vote on proposals that describe the agreement they hope will be
negotiated in Copenhagen. The results will be delivered to the UNFCCC. Visit
the Climate Collaboratorium and let your voice be heard!

 

Global climate change is perhaps the most pressing and
important problem currently facing humanity. The goal of this MIT research
project is to address this important challenge through the creation of a new
class of web-mediated discussion and decision making forums, called the
"Collaboratorium". The system use an innovative combination of
internet-mediated interaction, collectively generated idea repositories,
computer simulation, and explicit representation of argumentation to help large,
diverse, and geographically-dispersed groups systematically explore, evaluate,
and come to decisions concerning systemic challenges.

 

Find more at http://cci.mit.edu/research/climate.html