Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 May 15

= May 15 =

Penny Farthing
How do you get on one of those things? There's a brief mention of it in the article, but I still can't imagine it. KägeTorä - (影虎) ( もしもし！ ) 10:22, 15 May 2016 (UTC)


 * You Tube has plenty of videos showing exactly how it is done - this is as good as any. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Ocy0SPgcM 81.132.106.10 (talk) 11:01, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Cheers. As I suspected, it doesn't look incredibly safe. I don't think I'll be trying one anytime soon. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 11:14, 15 May 2016 (UTC)


 * That's why the replacement was called the safety bicycle. Rojomoke (talk) 16:37, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * A penny-farthing is the main graphic emblem of the logo of the city of Davis, California, whose slogan is "Most bicycle friendly town in the world". Cullen328  Let's discuss it  18:41, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * It was also an emblem in The Prisoner, but in that case it was meant as merely "an ironic symbol of progress". (See here.)  --69.159.60.83 (talk) 20:59, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Integrating intuition into software
I was intrigued by this part of a Forbes article that discouraged companies from dismissing the most experienced employees.

"How do you quantify the old-timer who knows that a certain machine overheats easily, or knows which drill bit is going to work best in a given strata? In the 1990s, there was an effort to incorporate such knowledge into software, specifically artificial intelligence, but this proved a bust as employees could not always explain the intuition that they had gained from years of experience." 

Does anyone know if there is more literature explaining why intuition from experience in a technical field like petroleum engineering can't be successfully incorporated into software? Or maybe the author's claim is inaccurate.

Muzzleflash (talk) 17:16, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Or maybe the employees held back information in order to ensure the machine would fail and they wouldn't lose their jobs. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:10, 15 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, there's a reason why the refer to people as doing things "mechanically". If you are going to be fired once you train your replacement, there's no incentive to other than go through the motions. μηδείς (talk) 18:51, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This is why companies in those circumstances offer generous severance packages. Otherwise, the "knowledge transfer" process would be fraught with sabotage. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:00, 15 May 2016 (UTC)


 * It's a huge field of study, in software design, in management studies and academia. See, for instance Tacit knowledge and Knowledge management. There's a wealth of literature. The article author's claim is not inaccurate. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:10, 15 May 2016 (UTC)


 * It doesn't surprise me, based on what we know about how the brain works. Our conscious thoughts are only the "tip of the iceberg" with much more going on, which we aren't aware of, beneath the surface.  For example, if you find somebody attractive, can you explain precisely why, to such a degree that a computer could analyze an image and tell who you would find attractive ?  (There have been studies, and things like a symmetrical face are seen as attractive, but people rarely mention that when asked.) StuRat (talk) 22:30, 15 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I came here ready to give a link to tacit knowledge, only to see that Tagishsimon had gotten in ahead of me. That article, plus Michael Polanyi, should be helpful.  If you're interested in finding more, go to WorldCat and look at items from the Polanyi article's "Bibliography" section; the subject headings for a work should make it clear whether a book's about this subject or about a completely different topic.  WorldCat will then make it easy for you to find where you can borrow a copy of the book in question.  Nyttend (talk) 03:08, 16 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book titled Blink which may be relevant to helping the OP get some background research to answer their question. -- Jayron 32 16:32, 17 May 2016 (UTC)