Posts Tagged: communications

  • Robert N. Proctor agnotology is “how ignorance has been understood, created, and ignored, linking these ideas also to allied creations of secrecy, uncertainty, confusion, silence, absence, and impotence—especially as these pertain to scientific activities”

    Agnotology—choosing ignorance

    Agnotology is a new area of science that studies culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. In the modern world of misinformation and mistruths it is an important addition to scientific discipline. The meaning of agnotology The neologism (new word) was coined by Robert N. Proctor, a Stanford […]

  • A dole bludger is defined politely as an unemployed person who has no intention of seeking a job and survives on government-funded unemployment benefits.

    Budget time for dole bludgers

    Every year around the release of the Australian budget I think back to when I was a young man trying to find a job.  There was always a debate around budget time about the amount of money that should be spent on unemployment benefits. Getting unemployment benefits The social-minded would argue that it was too difficult […]

  • Sherlock Holmes sits in a chair behind him is a wall of heiroglyphics-representing our word of the week cipher.

    Ciphers and codes—zeros and naughts

    Is there a difference between cipher and code? I have always considered cipher and code to be synonymous—meaning a message translated into symbols to hide its meaning (indeed this is how a lot of dictionaries define them). But consider Morse Code—it was designed not to be secret but to be easier to transmit and receive […]