- Untitled | the space between the rain – drops.
Read this for background information/context. Keep scrolling; the history will help you understand the story + the author’s intention, if any.
- Citogenesis | xkcd
A riff on the old adage about how lies become the truth if you repeat them often enough.
- Nice guys can finish first | Harvard Gazette
“Intriguingly, the study also uncovered a correction mechanism inherent to social groups. Those who were initially noncooperative, Rand said, were found to be twice as likely to become cooperative after being shunned, suggesting that being cut off from the group acts as a sort of internal discipline, ensuring that cooperation remains high within a social network”.
- they came like locusts… | Abstruse Goose
Re-framing the issue of consuming meat – although one can also re-frame the concept of the vegan/vegetarian diet by doing something similar but replacing the protagonist with a carrot instead.
- “Promised Land” by Christoph Niemann | The New Yorker on Tumblr
On a similar note: re-framing the immigration issue.
Category - Shared Items
- $trategic KPI + %Synergy% = Love | PLS REVERT, TKS
You must be a civil servant – or at least have had some contact with the civil service – to appreciate this fully.
- That Top 1% Thing | The Scott Adams Blog
“Some say the government is the problem. But I think it is more accurate to say the government is failing to offer a solution. And that’s because the government has also evolved more slowly than the world in general… . What we need is a form of government that is more nimble, and designed from scratch to support the economy”.
- How to Be Sure Your Waiter Brings You Decaf (And Thwart Tiger Attacks Too!) | Freakonomics
I’m more interested in the “tiger attacks” portion of this post; I’m wondering if painting a human face on the back of my motorcycle helmet might help thwart road bullies in the form of drivers!
- Vitalics | This Rocketship Will Crash
“What is your most remarkable characteristic?”“Each moment, I try to orchestrate my own self destruction, but I cannot engineer the proper variables and so I am unable to actualize my own desires. I wait – impotent, cold, and quivering – for a steadier hand to destroy me.”
Artificial intelligence becomes real in a new story by Miracle Jones.
- A Plea for the Horizontally Organized | Structured Procrastination
Glad to know I’m not the only horizontal organiser around!
- Here be monsters | Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science
Another compelling s/f short story published in Nature.
- In Defense of Reading | bread crumbs and candy cottage
Why read? Because “[e]veryone can hold a gun, but not everyone can lead a revolution”.If you’re interested, you can read a compendium of posts which the same author has written on “The Importance of Reading”.
- New York Times Shifts its Framing of the Arrests at Occupy Wall Street | Sociological Images
“This is a great example of how important language is in framing events… . It’s also a great example of the power of certain individuals and institutions to shape how the rest of us understand reality”. - How to Know What to Look For | Penelope Trunk Blog
To summarise (and please correct me if I’m wrong): don’t look for what you think you want; look for what you need.
- How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done | The Chronicle of Higher Education
“…begin by establishing a hierarchy of the tasks you have to do, in order of importance from the most urgent to the least important. Even though the most-important tasks are on top, you have worthwhile tasks to perform lower on the list. Doing those tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher on the list”.— Hence, the awesomeness of listography.com. In any case, read the article with some degree of scepticism.