In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in Western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-minimal art practices, which extend or reflect on minimalism's original objectives. Minimalism's key objectives were to strip away conventional characterizations of art through bringing the importance of the object or the experience a viewer has for the object with minimal mediation from the artist.Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt and Frank Stella.
In philosophy, Occam's razor is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony. Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is frequently cited as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", although Occam never used these exact words. Popularly, the principle is sometimes paraphrased as "The simplest explanation is usually the best one."
Technophobia, also known as technofear, is the fear or dislike of, or discomfort with, advanced technology or complex devices, especially personal computers, smartphones, and tablet computers. Although there are numerous interpretations of technophobia, they become more complex as technology continues to evolve. The term is generally used in the sense of an irrational fear, but others contend fears are justified. It is the opposite of technophilia.
In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either the view that mental phenomena are non-physical, or that the mind and body are distinct and separable. Thus, it encompasses a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, as well as between subject and object, and is contrasted with other positions, such as physicalism and enactivism, in the mind–body problem.
Simple living refers to practices that promote simplicity in one's lifestyle. Common practices of simple living include reducing the number of possessions one owns, depending less on technology and services, and spending less money. In addition to such external changes, simple living also reflects a person's mindset and values. Simple living practices can be seen in history, religion, art, and economics.
The Unix philosophy, originated by Ken Thompson, is a set of cultural norms and philosophical approaches to minimalist, modular software development. It is based on the experience of leading developers of the Unix operating system. Early Unix developers were important in bringing the concepts of modularity and reusability into software engineering practice, spawning a "software tools" movement. Over time, the leading developers of Unix established a set of cultural norms for developing software; these norms became as important and influential as the technology of Unix itself, and have been termed the "Unix philosophy."
Simplicity is the state or quality of being simple. Something easy to understand or explain seems simple, in contrast to something complicated. Alternatively, as Herbert A. Simon suggests, something is simple or complex depending on the way we choose to describe it. In some uses, the label "simplicity" can imply beauty, purity, or clarity. In other cases, the term may suggest a lack of nuance or complexity relative to what is required.
Walden is an 1854 book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and—to some degree—a manual for self-reliance.
LGBTQ slang, LGBTQ speak, queer slang, or gay slang is a set of English slang lexicon used predominantly among LGBTQ+ people. It has been used in various languages since the early 20th century as a means by which members of the LGBTQ+ community identify themselves and speak in code with brevity and speed to others.
Toothing was originally a hoax claim that Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones or PDAs were being used to arrange random sexual encounters, perpetrated as a prank on the media who reported it. The hoax was created by Ste Curran, then Editor at Large at the gaming magazine Edge, and ex-journalist Simon Byron. They based it on the two concepts, namely dogging and bluejacking, that were popular at the time. The creators started a forum in March 2004 where they wrote fake news articles about toothing with other members and then sent them off to well-known Internet-based news services. The point of the hoax was to "highlight how journalists are happy to believe something is true without necessarily checking the facts". Dozens of news organizations, including BBC News, Wired News, and The Independent thought the toothing story was real and printed it. On April 4, 2005, Curran and Byron admitted that the whole thing was a hoax. There have, however, been real Bluetooth dating devices since.
In physics and cosmology, the mathematical universe hypothesis (MUH), also known as the ultimate ensemble theory, is a speculative "theory of everything" (TOE) proposed by cosmologist Max Tegmark. According to the hypothesis, the universe is a mathematical object in and of itself. Tegmark extends this idea to hypothesize that all mathematical objects exist, which he describes as a form of Platonism or Modal realism.
Organizational architecture, also known as organizational design, is a field concerned with the creation of roles, processes, and formal reporting relationships in an organization. It refers to architecture metaphorically, as a structure which fleshes out the organizations. The various features of a business's organizational architecture has to be internally consistent in strategy, architecture and competitive environment.
The Lockheed J37 was one of the first turbojet engines designed in the United States. It was not considered very important when its development was first begun in the 1930s, and it was allowed to languish. By the time it was developed enough for production use, other engines, some British-derived, had surpassed it in performance. The design was later converted to a turboprop, the T35 and still later sold to Wright Aeronautical, where it saw some interest for use on what would become the B-52 Stratofortress, before that design moved to jet power. The J37 and T35 were built to the extent of a number of testbed examples but never entered production.
Models of scientific inquiry have two functions: first, to provide a descriptive account of how scientific inquiry is carried out in practice, and second, to provide an explanatory account of why scientific inquiry succeeds as well as it appears to do in arriving at genuine knowledge. The philosopher Wesley C. Salmon described scientific inquiry:
The search for scientific knowledge ends far back into antiquity. At some point in the past, at least by the time of Aristotle, philosophers recognized that a fundamental distinction should be drawn between two kinds of scientific knowledge—roughly, knowledge that and knowledge why. It is one thing to know that each planet periodically reverses the direction of its motion with respect to the background of fixed stars; it is quite a different matter to know why. Knowledge of the former type is descriptive; knowledge of the latter type is explanatory. It is explanatory knowledge that provides scientific understanding of the world.
The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit is a counter-argument to modern versions of the argument from design for the existence of God. It was introduced by Richard Dawkins in chapter 4 of his 2006 book The God Delusion, "Why there almost certainly is no God".
Overengineering, or over-engineering, is the act of designing a product or providing a solution to a problem that is complicated in a way that provides no value or could have been designed to be simpler. It has been employed intentionally in situations where an exceptionally wide margin of error is desired, but is otherwise considered an error of design due to the disproportionate time and resources needed to manufacture and maintain such products, as well as the introduction of unneeded single points of failure. As a design philosophy, it is a violation of the practice of value engineering and the minimalist ethos of "less is more" or "worse is better", as well as the related KISS principle.
In programming, the rule of least power is a design principle that "suggests choosing the least powerful [computer] language suitable for a given purpose". Stated alternatively, given a choice among computer languages, classes of which range from descriptive to procedural, the less procedural, more descriptive the language one chooses, the more one can do with the data stored in that language.
Botball is an educational robotics program that focuses on engaging middle and high school aged students in team-oriented robotics competitions. Thousands of children and young adults participate in the Botball program. It has been active since 1998 and features a robotics curriculum which focuses on designing, building and programming a pair of autonomous robots. Teams use a standardized kit of materials, document the process and then compete in a tournament in which the challenges change annually. All materials in the kits are exactly the same for every team around the world, so there are no unfair advantages. Botball teams are mostly based in the United States with over 300 teams and local tournaments in more than a dozen regions. In recent years it also holds an annual Global Conference on Educational Robotics (GCER), with an international tournament that attracts teams all over the country as well as from Mexico, Austria, China, Uganda, Poland, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, and many others.
K.I.S.S. is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Mya. First released in Japan on April 20, 2011, it is her second studio album to be produced through Japanese record company Manhattan Recordings and her own label Planet 9. Although the record is a traditional R&B and pop album, Mya incorporated elements of multiple different genres after travelling to Jamaica as well as collaborating with Japanese musicians.
Is There a God? is a 1996 book by British philosopher of religion Richard Swinburne, claiming the existence of the Abrahamic God. The argument rests on an updated version of natural theology with biological evolution and Big Bang theory using scientific inference. In 2010, a revised version of the original book was released under the same title.
