:-)

moral absolutes, rationality, self-interest, unconscious brain

collecting together a few videos I've really liked recently where people have a pretty solid argument for something (mostly against religion, tradition, and government)

fun stuff

Ayn Rand: 1959 interview
rational self-interest
i've never read any of her books and i've read some criticism of her, but she's brutal
virtues of selfishness




Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions
really great arguments




David Deutsch: a new way to explain explanation
why it is stupid to believe things that don't have good explanations, and what a good explanation is, that a good explanation can't easily be changed
"the truth consists of hard-to-vary assertions about reality"




David Brooks: the social animal
talkin' bout human nature
"we're developing a revolution in consciousness"
conscious mind versus unconscious mind, emotions are at the center of our thinking—"leading and educating your emotions is one of the chief activities of wisdom"
"reason is often weak; our sentiments are often strong and trustworthy"
"the effectiveness of a group is not determined by IQ, but by communication, how often they take turns talking"
"the unconscious mind hungers for those moments of transcendence... lost in a challenge or task"




Daniel Kahneman: the riddle of experience vs. memory
our 'experiencing self' and our 'remembering self', our storytelling memory

Hyperthymesia

via pietmondriaan

Russell Brand

I kind-of hated Russell Brand, didn't think he was funny at all, but now I think he's awesome. I don't know if I'll look at his comedy differently, though.

time-lapse flight

SF to Paris in Two Minutes from Beep Show on Vimeo.

MANUFACTORIA

Randall Munroe of xkcd mentioned this game on his blog (in an entry about distracting yourself on the internet). It's made by this programmer Nicholas Feinberg, who used to make games on calculators. It makes me feel smarter, but at the same time it makes it abundantly clear that there are things I will probably never understand in an intuitive way, no matter how much I want to, like programming, which this (apparently) is very similar to. The way you're supposed to play it is by understanding the visual logic he's presenting, but if you're not a programmer, you have to go through trial and error with it until your brain melts in the right way and it starts to make a little bit of sense, and you start to go through rounds of trial and error that are more and more relevant.

FUUD

Teaching to the Text Message

via nyt

I’VE been teaching college freshmen to write the five-paragraph essay and its bully of a cousin, the research paper, for years. But these forms invite font-size manipulation, plagiarism and clichés. We need to set our sights not lower, but shorter.

I don’t expect all my graduates to go on to Twitter-based careers, but learning how to write concisely, to express one key detail succinctly and eloquently, is an incredibly useful skill, and more in tune with most students’ daily chatter, as well as the world’s conversation. The photo caption has never been more vital.

So a few years ago, I started slipping my classes short writing assignments alongside the required papers. Once, I asked them, “Come up with two lines of copy to sell something you’re wearing now on eBay.” The mix of commerce and fashion stirred interest, and despite having 30 students in each class, I could give everyone serious individual attention. For another project, I asked them to describe the essence of the chalkboard in one or two sentences. One student wrote, “A chalkboard is a lot like memory: often jumbled, unorganized and sloppy. Even after it’s erased, there are traces of everything that’s been written on it.”

This was great, but I want to go shorter. Like many who teach, I keep thinking the perfect syllabus is a semester away — with just a few tweaks, and maybe a total pedagogical overhaul. My ideal composition class would include assignments like “Write coherent and original comments for five YouTube videos, quickly telling us why surprised kittens or unconventional wedding dances resonate with millions,” and “Write Amazon reviews, including a bit of summary, insight and analysis, for three canonical works we read this semester (points off for gratuitous modern argot and emoticons).”

The longest assignment could be a cover letter, and even that might be streamlined to a networking e-mail. I’d rather my students master skills like these than proper style for citations.

A lot can be said with a little — the mundane and the extraordinary. Philosophers like Confucius (“Learning without thought is labor lost. Thought without learning is perilous.”) and Nietzsche were kings of the aphorism.

And short isn’t necessarily a shortcut. When you have only a sentence or two, there’s nowhere to hide. I’m not suggesting that colleges eliminate long writing projects from English courses, but maybe we should save them for the second semester. Rewarding concision first will encourage students to be economical and innovative with language. Who knows, we might even start to leave behind text messages and comment threads that our civilization can be proud of.

Andy Selsberg, the editor of “Dear Old Love: Anonymous Notes to Former Crushes, Sweethearts, Husbands, Wives and Ones That Got Away,” teaches English at John Jay College.

ClueDB

How to find small objects dropped on the floor: shine a flashlight perpendicular to the floor and look for shadows.

This website is wonderful. So geeky. I love it.

It reminds me of Alton Brown. The way he teaches you how to cook is the way I want to be taught how to do everything. Of course it's not things that really matter that much, but they make your life better and are simple to learn.

Kevin Smith vs Prince

via PSD

Gaiman on Copyright Piracy and the Web

life

Dinosaur Comics

Ryan North has updated Dinosaur Comics five times a week since February of 2003 (something like over 2000 comics). Almost every single comic (there are a few special occasions and guest comics) is the exact same layout with the exact same characters drawn exactly the same. And it is one of the best webcomics I've seen. Also every one has a delightful little tooltip.

Alan W. Pollack's Notes On... Series

Musicologist Alan W. Pollack, now a software engineer, between 1991 and 2000 published on the internet an in-depth musical analysis of each and every Beatles song ever recorded.

for example "Girl"

Reggie Watts

Holy fucking shit. This man has ruined every other comedian for me, especially the ones who play music in their act.

80s HBO

Of course, I was born in 1989, but for some reason I have a pretty good memory of at least a few of these. A very primordial memory.

WELCOME TO XENON

via Reckon