10 Virtual conferences in 9 months: Some practical lessons learned
Abstract We organized ten virtual conferences between February and October of 2021. These conferences were very well received, and at each conference, there were participants mentioning that it was the best virtual conference they had ever attended. They asked us to share how we did this. We do not have a secret formula, but we […]
A Coupled Infrastructure Perspective on Cycling
I recently saw the Dutch documentary Why we cycle which provides an integrated perspective of the role of cycling in Dutch society. Not only allow cycling people to go from A to B in a densely populated country like the Netherlands, it also provides other benefits such as cognitive and physical exercise, and stimulate the random encounters […]
Learning how to learn
Just finished a great book by Barbara Oakley on how to learn to learn. As I experience as a professor teaching courses that students consider to be difficult, many students do not know how to study effectively. Just reading books to learn mathematics will not bring you far. Dr. Oakley failed mathematics and science courses when […]
Bridge maintenance as a collective action problem
On July 19th a bridge collapsed on the I-10 that connects Phoenix with Los Angeles. Heavy rain caused flash flooding which eroded the eastbound bridge to give way. As a consequence the I-10, the main highway between Arizona and California was closed for a week and travelers had to drive a few 100 miles extra […]
Who rules the world?
The new book of Paul Steinberg, a professor of Political Science and Environmental Policy at Harvey Mudd College, is entitled Who Rules the Earth? The book is an engaging discussion on how rules rule our lives and the interaction with the environment. Unlike many people may assume rules are constructed because individuals care about a problem […]
Eco: how to save the world?
In my previous post I lamented the lack of resource dynamics in (video) games. Some of you let me know about resource constraints in some games, but many of you recognized the lack of ecological realism. Now a new multi-player game is announced: Eco, which will focus on the fragility of the world we live […]
Resource dynamics in video games
During the recent winter break I got introduced by some younger family members to Clash of Clans and Boom Beach, which are strategy games you can play on your ipad or other devices. You make investment decisions for defense and attack infrastructure as well as infrastructure to extract resources. For example, in Boom Beach (see […]
Archiving practice for model code of agent-based models
There is increasing concern over the repeatability and reproducibility of computational science (see also here, here, here, here and here). If computational scientific enterprises want to be accumulative more transparency is required including the archiving of computer code in public repositories. This also holds for agent-based modeling, an increasingly popular methodology in the social and […]
Open Science; Science for a 21th century experiences roadblocks from 19th century incentive structures
The book Reinventing Discovery by Michael Nielsen is a joy to read. Technological development enables the production of knowledge by a large group of people making small contributions, instead of the isolated inventions in 19th century science. Nielsen discussed examples like the Polymath project where mathematicians – from field medalist to high school students – collaborate […]
The re-emergence of the roving bandit
Mancur Olson introduced the concept of roving and stationary bandits to explain why dictators – stationary bandits – have a self-interest to the society they rule productive to maximize the rent they can collect from the population. This in contrast to roving bandits who have no obligation to provide protection to the population, or keep […]