Entries from January 2010

You’ll Believe a Puffin Can Fly

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 31, 2010 at 4:06pm   User  by Psybertron

Excellent pictures.

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More Stories

Comments   2   Date Arrow  January 31, 2010 at 4:07am   User  by Psybertron

Still working my way through Boyd’s On the Origin of Stories. http://www.psybertron.org/?p=3172 http://www.psybertron.org/?p=3149 http://www.psybertron.org/?p=3145 After Book I, on the evolution of play, art and fiction as part of the evolution of human cognitive capabilities and behaviour, Book II, as advertised, switches to two specific works of fiction, to illustrate how the evolutionary theories are applicable [...]

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Building Bridges

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 29, 2010 at 2:52am   User  by Psybertron

Noticed a paradox before in Thoreau’s descriptions of building a railroad with bridges … to get places … which I mentioned in this piece on The Devil Wears Prada “Everybody Wants to Get Ahead” Came to mind again when I saw this story “to get rich quick, build roads fast” story of road-building opening up [...]

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Budget Airline Travel

Comments   1   Date Arrow  January 27, 2010 at 9:54am   User  by Psybertron

Apparently 80% of airliner manufacturer order books now depend on the budget airline business. Scary. I still do a lot of business and domestic air-travel compared to my pledge to reduce it to a minimum, and that will probably continue well into 2010, depending how working life pans out. Sigh. But it is a long [...]

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Juxtaposition & Surprise

Comments   1   Date Arrow  January 24, 2010 at 8:08am   User  by Psybertron

At this rate, I could blog as many words on The Origin Of Stories as Brian Boyd writes. “Attention” is as important as anything in communication and social behaviours, so not surprisingly we are well attuned to movement, particularly unexpected movement in life events, especially faces, or courses of events in any kind of narrative. [...]

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Anybody Listening ?

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 24, 2010 at 6:10am   User  by Psybertron

“If it was possible to carry our messages to you by words we wouldn’t have carried them to you by planes.” Osama to Obama Wouldn’t have. Interesting. Better late than never I guess.

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Avatar – A One-Dimensional Story

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 23, 2010 at 2:24pm   User  by Psybertron

The good news is that Reading beat Burnley 1:0 today. The bad news is that Avatar has to be the biggest pile of one-dimensional crap ever. What, a thousand people in the credits maybe ? And they couldn’t afford to pay anyone to write a story or a script even ? What an unimaginative waste [...]

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Origin Of Stories – Initial Review

Comments   5   Date Arrow  January 23, 2010 at 9:48am   User  by Psybertron

Brian Boyd On The Origin Of Stories is a comprehensively researched and referenced story of the evolution of the human mind, psychology and behaviour, involving the evolution of art (representative and not) and stories (true and not) as part of that process, rather than some incidental “cheesecake for the mind” bi-product. Pinker, the originator of that [...]

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The Origin Of Stories – Meta-Review

Comments   1   Date Arrow  January 23, 2010 at 7:57am   User  by Psybertron

Before I review reading the content of Brian Boyd On the Origin Of Stories, a few words on the style and structure of the book itself. There are 540 pages of which 130 are notes, bibliography and index. The 410 pages of text contain only index numbers for the notes, individual references to some of [...]

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Reading Update

Comments   1   Date Arrow  January 23, 2010 at 7:22am   User  by Psybertron

A lot of reading recently. I finished and blogged some views of Chris Hitchens - God Is Not Great. [Here][Here][Here] I’m currently very much enjoying Brian Boyd - On the Origin Of Stories. Will blog some initial review in a moment. I also have to read …. Denis Dutton - The Art Instinct, wich refers to the above [...]

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Lost in Translation

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 22, 2010 at 7:21am   User  by Psybertron

Good to see the restoration of balance of Muslim history in the evolution of ideas has reached even The Science Museum.

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Progress

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 22, 2010 at 7:16am   User  by Psybertron

Well I never knew that (that such inscribed biblical references existed on US weapons). Talk about onward christian soldiers ! Good news that the management spotted it and has taken the small action needed.

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Things Are Not What They Seem

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 21, 2010 at 3:22am   User  by Psybertron

Another collection of stunning “nature” photographs – all subject to much artistic treatment, but nevertheless …. stunning and creative. I’ve posted a few of these before – I guess they are attractive – but the reason I posted this one is that I had just noticed this news story today. (Can’t find the post where [...]

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Limits to Mind

Comments   2   Date Arrow  January 21, 2010 at 3:16am   User  by Psybertron

No idea of the provenance of this stuff, but looks like a useful summary of cognitive defects. “Escalation of Commitment” is one I recognize Knowing when to give up.

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Limits to Science

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 21, 2010 at 2:58am   User  by Psybertron

Seeing the world as symbolic representations of objects doesn’t always work.

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Head Fake

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 20, 2010 at 10:02am   User  by Psybertron

As a parent I have more than a passing interest in this talk. This “famous” last lecture of Randy Pausch in 2007 has been cited as “inspirational” by many. I beg to differ. Yes, you have to be impressed with a man in the last months of terminal cancer being this upbeat and positive to [...]

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Difficult Call

Comments   4   Date Arrow  January 18, 2010 at 7:13am   User  by Psybertron

The company says it was a difficult decision, but is this “sickening” or just a piece of “life-goes-on” normality ?

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Paddling Logs

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 17, 2010 at 7:59am   User  by Psybertron

Already the 3rd week of 2010 and I’ve still read only a smattering of the responses to the 2010 Edge Question “How has the internet changed the way you think ?” This George Dyson response is a good one. We used to be kayak builders, collecting all available fragments of information to assemble the framework [...]

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The State of Anfield

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 14, 2010 at 7:03am   User  by Psybertron

Reading did do really well, some great team defending such that Liverpool had few actual chances. But, something’s not right at Liverpool FC. One unfortunate injury time goal each way, but a cracker from Gunnarsson and Long in extra time. For Liverpool, another season with no trophy, and Rafa under further pressure. Interesting that both [...]

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“Thousands” Dead

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 13, 2010 at 8:15am   User  by Psybertron

Wow, this looks like a major trajedy in Haiti.

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Strange

Comments   0   Date Arrow  January 13, 2010 at 8:11am   User  by Psybertron

Only yesterday I read this same story in Hitchen’s God Is Not Great from 2006.

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