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Reported on http://novysan.com/magic and confirmed here: http://www.media.mit.edu/about/academics/class-schedule
'When Aleister Crowley defined magic as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will,” he might as easily have been describing technology. In fact, “magic” is still the word we use to encompass the wonders of a new technology before it becomes ubiquitous. '
Course Description
"With a focus on the creation of functional prototypes and practicing real magical crafts, this class combines theatrical illusion, game design, sleight of hand, machine learning, camouflage, and neuroscience to explore how ideas from ancient magic and modern stage illusion can inform cutting edge technology. Students will learn techniques to improve the presentation, display, and interface of their projects as well as gaining a deeper understanding of the cultural traditions that shape user expectations of technology. Topics will include: Stage Illusion as Information Display, The Neuroscience of Misdirection, Magical Warfare: Camouflage and Deception, Magic Items and the Internet of Things, Computational Demonology, Ritual Magick as User Experience Design. Guest lecturers and representatives of Member companies will contribute to select project critiques. Requires regular reading, discussion, practicing magic tricks, design exercises, a midterm project and final project."
Uncle Al would have been so proud.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday February 06 2015, @06:45PM
Yeah, you guys are all correct in my book. There's two different sides to herbs, the B.S. and the solid proven science.
I've got an entire cabinet in my kitchen full of nothing but herbal teas. I've got herbs for everything -- energy, sleep aids, stuff to focus, stuff to relax, stuff for acid reflux or upset stomach, stuff for general health...but I'm not getting this information off of Master Chang's Ancient Wisdom Website. I check WebMD, I check the Mayo Clinic, and I check Wikipedia. Often these do provide similar information though -- Wikipedia will say 'it has a lot of caffeine'; the traditional herbalist text might say 'it energizes your spirit'. That's pretty much the same fact in different words. I don't look at herbs in terms of chi and aura and all that garbage; I look at them in terms of compounds that expand or constrict blood vessels, or what vitamins and minerals they contain, or antihistamines or whatever.
Remember that this "ancient wisdom" crap was gathered through a very similar process to modern science. They didn't have the accuracy we do because they don't have the equipment we do. And they made plenty of mistakes. But ultimately they were creating a hypothesis, conducting an experiment, and recording the results. So it's not really surprising that they had many of the same observations we find today. And it's likely we would be making far more scientifically rigorous statements about these plants if it was possible to patent them...you can't really say it's wrong if it hasn't been studied; you can only say it's inconclusive.