Clusterflockstock 1.9
If you’d asked me a week ago what color Andrew’s eyes are, I couldn’t have told you. Now I’ll never forget.
Read more
quote out of context
“The military mission of Dutch U.N. soldiers at Srebrenica has been exhaustively studied and evaluated, nationally and internationally,” Jones-Bos said. “There is nothing in these reports that suggests any relationship between gays serving in the military and the mass murder of Bosnian Muslims.”
dear clusterflock
Is it only the internal compass that points true north?
quote out of context
Our results raise the possibility that spontaneous string pulling in New Caledonian crows may not be based on insight but on operant conditioning mediated by a perceptual-motor feedback cycle.
this unique 18-minute genre has its own requirements
From a Wired article on how to ace a TED Talk:
“I’m surprised to see that half the people here know my career in some detail and the other half don’t know who I am,” he says.
Science is fine, but not when it messes with our illusions.
If she had included solar power and African child warriors, it would have been so perfect a TED talk that there would have been no need for others.
Wolfram wraps his talk by saying that when it comes to trying to boil down the universe to a simple algorithm, “it’s almost embarrassing not to at least try.”
“Just because someone has an ego,” he says, citing a writer whose name I can’t read from my scribbled notes, “doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
How’s That?
I’ve got to wonder where they find these respondents.
(via)
May 4
The new Broken Social Scene drops.
the opposite may also be true
A short talk on different ways of seeing.
(via marginal revolution)
“I’ll go through it with you line by line.”
I just keep on liking this guy.
Thanks, Shannon!
It’s Hard Out Here Being a Pimp
Each man was wearing blue denim pants, a blue work shirt, a light fluorescent green vest, a tool belt, and carrying white, construction-style hard hat, when they allegedly asked a staffer to show them to the telephone closet.
Update:
[It's a] very weird story that probably needs a lot of context and a lot of looking into, which is what we’re going to do here. I just wanted to get it on the record with it right now.
I beg to differ
“We need to use the human brain — which is the best technology of them all,” he said.
Tyler Cowen, on advice
3.
There are many exacting scholars who should be locked in a room, asked for advice of various kinds, and forced to speak into a tape recorder with no edits allowed. The advice-giving mode mobilizes insights which otherwise remain dormant, perhaps for fear of falsification or ridicule or of actually influencing people. All of the transcripts should be put on The Advice Website, with an open comments section, to limit the actual influence of the advice. Some famous people would be revealed as foolish in critical regards. The contents would be most interesting as non-advice and the site would carry a government warning that the advice is not to be taken seriously.
Hare Brain Tortoise Mind, Guy Claxton
The nineteenth-century French physician Claparede, for example, concealed a pin between his fingers when he was introduced to one of these amnesic patients, giving him a prick as they shook hands. On leaving the room and reappearing a few minutes later, Claparede was, as expected, treated by the patient as if they had never met before — yet the patient was curiously reluctant to shake his hand. When queried about this antisocial behaviour, he rather vaguely explained that ‘you never know with doctors; sometimes they play tricks on you’.
A book on the dynamics of the conscious and subconscious mind.
stupid quotes of the decade
People all over the world recognize me as a spiritual leader.
Cadillac Jesus
“Mary and Joseph took a Cadillac to get to Bethlehem because the finest transportation of their day was a donkey,” says Anderson. “Poor people ate their donkey. Only the wealthy used it as transportation.”
Rain Man RIP
Kim Peek, the inspiration for the Rain Man character, died this week of a heart attack.
In his later years, Peek was classified as a “mega-savant” who was a genius in about 15 different subjects, from history and literature and geography to numbers, sports, music and dates.
Rent
The only review of Rent you’re ever going to need to read, and I promise you, it is worth the two minutes spent reading it.
I’ve never seen the play, but it has the same lyrics and songs as the movie, so it is now on my shit list too. In fact, RENT is the only thing on my shit list. I created my shit list tonight, because of RENT.
The last paragraph is just how I want my movie reviews, from now on. A final burst of energy that makes it about more than what was obvious.
Edward Cullen is Adam-God
John Granger makes a compelling case for why Twilight isn’t just mindless fluff.*
In a nutshell, Bella is Eve and Edward is the Adam-God of Mormon theology. Their “Fall”—when Bella/Eve/Man chooses the apple from the tray of Edward/Adam/God, although rife with dangers and difficulties, is the beginning of a spiritual transformation culminated by an alchemical wedding with the God-Man. The story is a romantic allegory depicting the roles and responsibilities of the divine and human lovers, but it has the specifically Mormon hermetic twist that sex within marriage is the endgame and the only means to personal salvation and immortal life.
The article is actually quite fascinating, I’ve read it twice. Bonus points: send it to your Christian sister who doesn’t want her kids to read those sexy vampire books.
(*You might find it hard to read if you struggle with concentrating on black text on a white background sans photographs and ads.)
It took me a while to figure it out
Michael and Sarah have the same last name.
all marriage illegal in Texas
“This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”
Chart Showing the Aggregate Number of Idiots and the Proportion of Males and Females, White or Colored, Native or Foreign, at the Ninth Census 1870; also the increase since 1860.
Excerpted from the Statistical atlas of the United States based on the results of the ninth census 1870 with contributions from many eminent men of science and several departments of the government Comp. under the authority of Congress by Francis A. Walker, M. A., superintendent of the ninth census.
(by way of Eminent Man of Science and Art Graham Parker; entire census report at loc.gov)
quote out of context
and so gull-baiting has become a hot game among the dolphins.
What is intelligence?
From the Singularity Summit 2009:
Many people asked what I thought about this talk after, because they knew that I have given a lot of consideration to the reality that most of the human race are morons. My basic attitude is that even if a lot of the trait-value difference is due to gene-environment correlation, what are you going to do about it? We don’t live in Stalin’s USSR. Also, Dickens reported that he had unpublished data which suggested that there was a 0.70 correlation between economic growth (GDP) and increase in the Flynn Effect.
Also:
The Fallibility and Improvability of the Human Mind – Gary Marcus: Focused on memory, and suggested that since the mind is imperfectly engineered there’s plenty of room for design improvements.
Duh.
Tweetle Dumb
I live in the city of stupid.
Seriously
How many times would you zipper yourself before you stopped going commando?