Election Update
The Presidential Candidates Ranked By Their Usefulness In A Bar Fight by Ali Davis was amusing.
Mostly about us
“Ethics” is advertising – the article leisurely goes through some good ideas. Here are some summed up thoughts: 1) Signaling; important for the survival of organisms is communication about the qualities of an individual organism to others; all of the characteristics and behaviors of organisms transmit this information through various symbols; humans are no exception and our idiosyncratic behaviors both knowingly and unknowingly share information about who we are. 2) Taking a view of common behaviors through the lens of signalling we can understand that religion is an efficient symbol of ethics, philosophy, and virtues. We can also see that the point of advertising is not to persuade you to buy an object, but convince you that an object is a symbol of a certain wealth, philosophy, and personality. 3) The symbolism of various objects, ideas, and behaviors as signals changes over time, with occasionally dramatic societal consequences. 4) What something means is more important than what it is.
Computer Show – computing from the 1980s, today
Look at Me – we all have stories
Katrina Refrigerators – a cool wiki article
esa california
Apollo Missions – engenders a feeling of propinquity
Big 5 personality test – if you want another
George Boole Google logo – hopefully google will continue to become more abstract
Key and Peele
Key and Peele for now no longer have a show, but they remain a must see in my youtube arsenal.
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First humans will be organized and connected by software. Then that software will do the same for machines.
Dinner Time
The question is whether civilization as we know it can survive a transformation from values laid down by a few (the elite) to a global auction offering different and often conflicting values and perceptions. With luck a kind of benign global civilization may emerge. The alternative is conflicts born out of values justifying violence and armed conflicts against those who think otherwise — the easy way.
A New Dark Age by Joergen Oerstroem Moeller
Guide to Dim Sum and Guide to Dumplings – hungering and informative
The Egg by Andy Weir – too chummy, but fine
Name of the Year – curated amazing names, including background on where each one came from. Some samples: Moses Regular, Win Thin, Joko Widodo, Dr. Wallop Promthong, Infinite Grover
Cloud Chamber – watch uranium decay in real time
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – update
Andy Gilmore – update
Mephistopheles
The Katering Show is fun and different
The Wizard of Oz experiment.
Why there are 28 days in February (amazing how much amazing is all around us but we see past).
Firewatch has been smoldering for some time and hopefully will create a unique atmosphere. The concept art is beautiful. The idea of working as a fire lookout is lovely and unfortunately, at this point, an anachronism.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
– Lady Windermere syndrome