ARCHIVE: IDEAS POSTED SINCE JANUARY 3, 2014
Caveat: Inevitably, given the ever evolving state of the Internet, some of the links on past postings may be outdated.
Note: These 2014 entries are in reverse chronological order; most recent at top.
2014-07-11—READING AND REASONS
Most of what we think we know (not counting memories or experience) is not learned in school. A large percentage of that ‘knowledge’ is obtained from reading, which is why reading is such an essential skill. One reasonable way of sorting reading is fiction, non-fiction, and opinion. The one thing essential to all categories is the quality of the writing. Of course, there is so much that is well written, it is helpful to read what is recommended by those whose taste you respect. (Personal disclosure: I love these writers.)
FICTION
It is easy to sort books into this category, unlike the other two categories. James Lee Burke is an excellent writer of ‘detective’ fiction that includes such a rich and accurate description of the New Orleans area that isn’t fictional.
NON-FICTION
Included here would be all books intended to be instructional such as travel information books, cookbooks, and self-help or “how-to” books. It also would include books about some topic such as science, history, or biography. Stefan Zweig is a writer most often associated with his insightful biographies of Mary Queen of Scotland, Freud, Balzac,Casanova, Stendhal, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche—although his fiction is again getting the attention it deserves.
PERSONAL
This category would include opinion pieces such as editorials, autobiographies, reviews, and most blogs. Christopher Hitchens is one wonderful contrarian and polymath that is a delight to read, even if you don’t agree with all his opinions.
2014-07-04—THE MOTHER OF INVENTION
It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. Prisoners’ ingenuity is good supporting evidence of that assertion.
2014-06-27—HUGE AND INTERESTING
Artists are no longer having their creativity constrained by conventions regarding scale and media. Anything goes! The only criterion is aesthetic value. Here are some ‘hugely’ successful creations in a variety of surprising media.
ODD MEDIA, INCLUDING BARNACLE COVERED PEOPLE
ART YOU CAN’T HANG ON YOUR WALL
Ranting is a normal response to perceived injustices, significant or trivial. Usually we don’t enjoy listening to other people rant, but sometimes the rant is so creative and witty that it is a work of art. Here are three examples.
RICK MERCER
Vaccination
JOHN OLIVER
“Net Neutrality”
GEORGE CARLIN
The whole enchilada
2014-06-06—IGNORANCE AND STUPIDITY
Almost everyone agrees on the value of education—and disagrees about how it should be defined. And almost everyone has an idea how to improve it, but the range of ideas is immense. Some of the proposed ideas are themselves evidence of a lack of education or—frankly—lack of intelligence. The following clearly are not.
WHAT GOOD IS EDUCATION, ANYWAY?
Among the stupid ideas about education is that its primary purpose is to make you wealthier or give you the practical skills to become wealthier. (Unfortunately and ironically most universities use this claim to recruit students.) Here is a charming rebuttal of that idea. One doesn’t read Shakespeare or learn chemistry just to become an English prof or a chemist.
DON’T BLAME THE SYSTEM!
Education is ultimately the individual’s responsibility. Sometimes formal educational systems offer the opportunity for it. Sometimes they really don’t. But even more often, people don’t take that opportunity even if they attend educational institutions—or bother to take advantage of the many informal opportunities. We make excuses for ignorance, but not stupidity. Well, for most people in the developed world, ignorance is chosen—and a sign of stupidity. Here are some resources for those who are smart enough not to choose to be ignorant.
“THE LETTER THAT SAVED MY LIFE”
Here the accomplished Stephen Fry describes how he took an educational opportunity and how it saved him from a disastrous life.
Attractive images of food are often call “food porn”. The label is apt because, like traditional porn, part of their appeal is to one of our basic drives. And the most effective porn of both types is dependent on aesthetic quality, which in both cases involves some artifice: the reality rarely lives up to the image.
MAKING IT LOOK ATTRACTIVE
The secret of creating attractive porn is not your own pleasure, but the effect on the viewer: “…you need to prepare the food to look its best, not taste its best.”
IT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO BE REAL
Here are some literally (and literary) fictitious meals.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND FOOD PORN
Some research has really basic rewards.
Many people wish art would get real again. It is true that one—but just one—function of paintings until the invention of photography was the realistic depiction of people, places, and events. When photography made that easier, artists focused more on other concerns than how much their work resembled what you would see in a photograph. Yet many people seem insensitive to anything other than ‘realism’, and express their appreciation by admiring the difficulty, special skills and time required to accomplish realism in a painting or sculpture. Of course, aesthetic judgments shouldn’t be solely based on that, but those factors can still be appreciated if the work has more value than simple ‘realism’. Here are some beautiful examples of just that.
MORE EVOCATIVE THAN A SNAPSHOT
These are impressive for more reasons than their realism, although admittedly that is amazing.
SIZE MATTERS
One important component of any artwork is scale. A miniature is perceived differently than a large canvas.
MORE REAL THAN REALITY
Here are some impressive examples of realist painting and a good, brief explanation of the nature of realism.
2014-05-16—THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
The idea that “money is the root of all evil” is oft repeated, so why then do most people spend their lives pursuing it? Of course, nothing is the root of all evil. And as for major causes of evil, there are more likely suspects, such as ideology and religion. What is important about money is how it is spent.
THE GOOD
Harris Rosen is an inspiring example of how successful entrepreneurship can serve the common good.
THE BAD
On the other hand, the infamous Koch brothers are an example of how money can be used to fund the most evil of causes.
THE UGLY
And even if wealth isn’t used to directly support evil doings, it’s very depressing that in a world with so much poverty it is so often wasted on expensive, ostentatious and ugly possessions.
2014-05-09—THE SECOND PRINT REVOLUTION
The world was revolutionized in the Fifteenth Century when Johannes Gutenberg invented printing. Words and images no longer had to be laboriously reproduced by hand. Although initially this had to be done by extremely expensive printers, now millions of people have very affordable, personal desktop printers. Then in 1986 Chuck Hull invented a printer that could reproduce more than mere 2-D images. These 3-D printers have started a second print revolution, and already relatively inexpensive ones are living with their parents on people’s desktops.
POTENTIAL OF 3-D PRINTING
“The future is now.”
PRINTING BODY PARTS
Want a new kidney? The doctor can print one for you.
PRINTING HOUSES
Design your own house and have it printed for you—inexpensively.
2014-05-02—THE HAZARDS OF FADS AND FASHIONS
It is unpleasant to contemplate the idea that whatever becomes fashionable greatly influences our biases, even if we claim it doesn’t. We especially don’t like to admit this about those interests that are dear to our hearts. Unfortunately, this unacknowledged influence can have deleterious effects.
SCIENCE
Science is not immune to infection by fashion. Neuroscience is justifiably of great interest to those who are passionate about science, for it’s one of the fields advancing at an exponential rate. And within that field, brain imaging is a powerful new tool, and research using it very popular. Combine that with the virtually universal interest in child welfare, and you have a good example of the hazards of fashion.
ART
We naturally tend to think our own art preferences are objective. This is evidenced by the common misconception that art is “in the eye of the beholder”. Performance art is relatively new and fashionable, and it tends to attract a lot of attention. Those who are passionate about art are quick to assume any critics of it are philistines, because philistines always reject anything they don’t behold in their myopic eyes as art. But just because philistines will dismiss a Monet landscape as a murky smudge, doesn’t mean that a lot of Impressionist style landscapes aren’t actually just murky smudges.
POLITICS
Political views have a particularly egregious effect on judgment. We may claim to be non-partisan, but we tend to automatically endorse all the policies and opinions of a political group we favour. For example, it is simply a fact that the majority of educated and intelligent people would describe themselves as liberals. And many will then slide down the slippery slope of endorsing the party line on everything. Presumably, we all care about our environment, but those that call themselves ‘environmentalists’ too often can’t objectively evaluate criticisms or alternatives to the party line.
“Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true!” seems to be sound advice, and maybe even reason to believe that “May all your wishes come true!” is actually a curse.
IS MISFORTUNE REALLY GOOD FORTUNE?
Imagine something terrible happening to you. Can you imagine that it wouldn’t make you unhappier?
IS GOOD FORTUNE REALLY GOOD FORTUNE?
Who doesn’t wish to be rich?
GOOD FORTUNE IS NEVER UNADULTERATED
Just consider the guy with the ostrich.
2014-04-18—THEME: THE POWER OF MUSIC
Music is certainly one of the oldest arts, probably even predating the earliest cave paintings. It certainly is the most ubiquitous in modern life and probably the most powerful of the arts, with a virtually universal effect on people of all ages.
MUSIC AND OUR BRAINS
Here is a powerful video about the healing power of music.
MUSIC AND OUR BODIES
Seven ways we use music to enhance our bodies.
MUSIC AND OUR SOCIETY
About how music defines and shapes a culture.
Perhaps the biggest sex difference of all is between how men and women interpret research about sex differences. It would be foolish to venture an opinion as to whether that difference of interpretation is primarily because of nature or nurture. We all respond to any new, controversial research with either an approving nod or a sceptical eye, depending on our existing beliefs and biases. This is almost as true of the scientifically literate as of the average Joe—opps—or Jill. It is certainly true of scientific findings on allegedly innate genetic (and assumed hard-wired) differences between men and women. We are male or female, and this is important to our sense of who we are. This is why ‘confirmation bias’ so powerfully shapes our evaluation of such research.
THE TOP TEN
Here are some of the most common current beliefs.
VARIOUS VIEWS
This web page contains links to a variety of articles on the topic.
THE RIFT BETWEEN THE SEXES
The ‘oculus rift’—not occultist rift.
2014-04-04—THE BIG THREE OF NEW TECH
Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg are three geeks that have changed the world. It is difficult to find an unbiased evaluation of them and their companies. Apple fans are not Android fans (although they use Google’s search engine), and Google is at war with Facebook. Facebook is hated by many, but has a billion users. Whatever your bias, it is undeniable that all three men responsible for the revolutionary innovations of their companies are interesting, creative individuals. Here are three videos by or about these guys. (Gates was one of the first and probably most influential modern tech revolutionary, but Microsoft is now ‘ancient’ history.)
We often misinterpret what other people are feeling. Sometimes it is because we are projecting our own feelings onto them, as when you assume someone is as eager to have sex as you are. Sometimes it is because some physical gesture means something very different to you than it does to the person making it. An example is trying to thumb a ride in the Middle East or many places in Africa or South America, where sticking out your thumb is interpreted as meaning “up your ass!” It would be nice if we could always accurately read other people’s emotions. Or would it?
DETECTING LIES
We all lie, and white lies meant to avoid being unflattering are best not detected. But one need not worry yet, for so-called polygraph ‘lie detectors’ are unable to do it reliably, even though, unfortunately, they are still being used only too often.
MAPPING EMOTIONS
Here is a recent example of using detecting physiological changes to determine emotional states that is considerably more successful than the polygraph.
READING FACIAL EXPRESSIONS
Almost everyone has had the experience of being told to smile for a photograph. The truth is it’s impossible to fake a smile, but you can still fool most of the people most of the time. Here is an interesting interactive test of one’s ability to determine if a smile is genuine. The test concludes with an explanation of the clues to doing so consistently.
One characteristic common to both art and science is the question “What if?” In science it tends to be “What if I do this?” In the arts it is “What if this were…?” Scientists answer the question by doing and observing. Artists answer by imagining and inventing. But we all sometimes wonder what if we had made a different decision about something that did or did not turn out well.
WHAT IF YOU HAD TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO WHEN…
Here are some questions about what you would do if you had to make any of these decisions.
WHAT IF THE FUTURE…
Science fiction, like philosophy, specializes in the “what if” questions. (Very occasionally sic-fi speculations about the future actually come to pass. Many concerned people fear that the only thing Orwell was wrong about is the date of his classic 1984!)
WHAT IF SOME UNLIKELY THINGS WERE TRUE?
Ever wonder what if some little thing was different? Here is some guy’s fun with that question.
2014-03-14—UNFREQUENTED TOURIST DESTINATIONS
There is something paradoxical about travel. Tourists travel to visit places very different from those at home, but those places are the destination of most tourists. But tourists don’t like to go to places that are full of tourists! Here are few solutions to that problem.
LIBRARIES
Libraries have a reputation for being stodgy, and besides who wants to spend their time away from home reading? But every major library has a unique collection that you won’t find at home. For example, the Medical Research Library of Brooklyn has a collection of plaster casts of female genitalia. Here is a list of interesting collections at various university libraries.
NEIGHBOURHOODS
Most travel includes urban areas, and most cities have interesting neighbourhoods that are rarely visited by outsiders, or even by most other residents of the city. There are the so-called “bad neighbourhoods”. Many aren’t really dangerous, at least during the daylight hours or in a car. Of course, there are neighbourhoods in many American cities that are as unsafe as third world war zones. Chicago has a lot of great tourist spots, but few tourists get to these four places. (Personal disclosure: I grew up in one of these.)
ACCOMMODATIONS
Often tourists consider their travel accommodations as little more than a place to leave their bags and get some sleep. But some places are of themselves sufficient reason to travel there.
The abyss may be dark and seemingly hostile, but it is full of incredible wonders. And as Robert Ballard points out in his TED talk, we haven’t even begun to explore 2/3rds of our planet just miles away from us.
DEEP SEA CREATURES
It seems sea monsters are real. These are creatures you wouldn’t want to find in your swimming pool, but then they wouldn’t be happy there either.
HISTORY OF EXPLORATION OF THE DEEP
Here is an excellent video on the history of our modest ventures into the deep.
VALUE OF PROBING THE DEPTHS
Here is Robert Ballard’s enthusiastic, whirlwind tour of the wonders of the deep, just so recently discovered.
The Holiday Inn used to have an ad promising “no surprises”, and one has to wonder why they thought that would have any appeal. The joy and pleasure of travel is largely in the surprises, even if some are less than delightful—such as a hotel room you have to cohabit with cockroaches. You would think anyone with any remnants of curiosity left from their childhood would remain fascinated by the idea of traveling to new and different places.
WHO?
Who travels? Often that is determined more by circumstances than desire. But one wonders why those with the resources so often choose not to leave home. Here are interesting data on the number of people in different U.S. states who don’t even have a passport.
WHY?
Why travel? Here is a great essay on what motivates us to leave the comforts of home.
WHERE?
Where travel? Most travellers would like to travel everywhere, but that is not possible. Virtual travel offers a substitution, not equivalent to the real thing, but far better than nothing and allows us to visit places we wouldn’t otherwise. And it is becoming more and more possible with Internet tools such as Google Earth and Google Street View.
Books are unquestionably the most portable of resources for entertainment and enlightenment. And they’ve become even more portable with the introduction of the eBook, which allows you to easily carry a huge library with you. But it’s interesting that we still often attach the personal significance of a book to where we first read it, just as we connect memorable moments in our lives with certain pieces of music. Here are some reading places that are memorable in their own right.
9 UNEXPECTED PLACES TO FIND BOOKS
2014-02-14—ENVIABLE UNCOMMON SENSES
It is easy and natural to assume everyone and every creature perceives the world the same way we do, but of course, this is not true. A lot of apparently inexplicable animal behaviour can only be understood if we realize that they might have senses we can’t imagine—but can sometimes envy.
TEN SUPER-SENSES
We have retained and developed those senses that evolved as useful for our survival, but they are different for other creatures with other needs. Here is a list of some amazing sensory capabilities that serve other members of the animal kingdom. (Any of them are worth following up on for fascinating reading.)
MAGNETIC FIELD DETECTORS AND INTUITIVE TRIGONMETRY
A surprising number of creatures can sense magnetic fields, including ants, bees, sharks, turtles, tuna, salmon, and homing pigeons, as well as many migratory birds. Even dogs, for some unknown reason, often poop in alignment with magnetic north! And many animals seem to be able to do trigonometry intuitively. (No math course and calculator—or huge cerebral cortex—required.) Here is an amazing example of foxes using this special sense and their intuitive grasp of trig to get dinner.
WE CAN’T KNOW WHAT A DOG’S NOSE KNOWS
Snakes have the equivalent of the olfactory epithelium we have in our noses (but tuned for different size molecules) called Jacobsen’s Organ. A snake’s forked tongue collects chemicals from the air and delivers it to this organ, which is located in the roof of its mouth! With it they can detect pheromones (which we can’t) that they use to find potential prey. Dogs have it too (but in their noses), and it partially accounts for their incredible sense of smell, which is estimated to be 10,000 to 100,000 times as powerful as ours.
2014-02-07—EVERYTHING CAN BE FAKED
How do you find reliable evidence of anything at all? Memories are notoriously unreliable, and there is plenty of scientific research showing that eyewitness evidence is not to be trusted. (For example, see the studies by Elizabeth Loftus.) YouTube has thousands of examples of the ease with which audio recordings can be altered. But the evidence we probably were most accustomed to trusting is photographic. But not anymore!
‘REWRITING’ PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY
Altering photographs has a long history of altering history. It’s too bad you can’t really erase some people from history by excising them from pictures.
THE MAGIC OF PHOTOSHOP ART
Photoshop has made alteration of photographs incredibly easy. But it is also a wonderful tool for digital artists, as in this clever idea.
WHEN ALTERATION FAILS
Sometimes, however, the alterations are done so clumsily as to be amusing.
Social psychologists have a bad rep, which is sometimes justified. This is the field to look into if you want to find research with dubious ethics. Part of the problem is that their scientifically rigorous experiments often have to involve deceiving their human subjects. When that deception involves any even potential harm to the subjects, one enters the gray area between ethical and unethical research. Nevertheless, the findings of social psychologists often have immediate relevance to understanding why we too often behave so badly. Caveat: the Asch and Milgram studies have been justly criticized for not being truly representative of typical human behaviour.
DOES MONEY MAKE YOU MEAN?
Disturbing empirical evidence that it at least inclines one that way.
WOULD YOU TORTURE PEOPLE IF TOLD TO DO SO BY AN AUTHORITY?
A famous experiment that suggests too many of us would—in some situations.
WOULD YOU IGNORE YOUR SENSES IF THE MAJORITY SAID YOU WERE WRONG
Another famous experiment that reveals many of us are pathetic conformists, again at least in some situations.
It could be said that everyone has ADD (attention deficit disorder), because we all sometimes fail to focus and keep our attention on what matters or what we intend. For example, most memory problems have nothing to do with memory itself, but rather with not really attending to what we intend to remember. Our memory system is efficiently tuned to only bother storing that to which we are giving our undivided attention. But paying appropriate attention often isn’t easy, as these videos demonstrate.
THE ART OF PICKING POCKETS
You would think that knowing you are in the presence of a pickpocket would focus your attention on his actions, but which actions? He knows how to direct your attention. If can catch this guy in the act even while watching this video, you are exceptional.
SOME SERIOUS MONKEY BUSINESS
Watch these videos for further demonstrations of the flaws in our attention abilities.
BRAIN MAGIC
Real magic is based on how our brains work—or don’t and then deceive us. Here is a famous video example of that by a master illusionist.
2014-01-17—UTILIZING INTERNET CROWDS
What is called ‘crowdsourcing’ is an amazing idea, and an important application in a world now so incredibly connected through the Internet. There has always been power in numbers, but at no time before the Internet has there existed such an effective and extensive resource to gather together enough numbers to accomplish something of importance. (Not referenced here, but also of great importance, are other applications such as online petitions and charity donation websites.)
CITIZENS AS SCIENTISTS
Science has more and more become a collaborative enterprise. From the overwhelming task of just harvesting data to the more active participation of contributing ideas and possible solutions to a theoretical problem, crowd sourcing scientific research not only advances science but also directly engages people in this most significant of human endeavours: understanding and appreciating our world. Here is a website with links to various citizen-as-scientist projects.
CONSUMERS AS VENTURE CAPITALISTS
These are sites set up to solicit financial support for creative endeavours and entrepreneurial ideas. Artists and entrepreneurs usually have a hard time finding individuals or organizations to cough up the necessary dough to start up their projects. Kick-starter is probably the best known of these alternative routes to finding funding.
MOBS AS ENTERTAINERS
The phenomenon of the ‘flash mob’ has attenuated the usually pejorative connotation of ‘mob’. YouTube has many popular videos of these very friendly mobs; one famous and inspirational one (easy to find and worth it) is that of a mob of professional musicians emerging from a crowd of pedestrians on the streets of a town in Spain to enrich their day with Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy”. Of course, these were professional musicians and this was carefully planned, but there are plenty of examples of flash mobs spontaneously organized to bring ordinary people together simply to amuse themselves and their unsuspecting witnesses—who may just join in.
2014-01-10—THEME: PUBLIC TRANSPORT INNOVATION
In this age of traffic congestion and parking problems, ideas are needed for making public transportation more attractive.
SUBWAYS
Subways don’t have to be ugly, damp and dingy tunnels through the earth. They can be art galleries—or even be works of art themselves.
TAXIS
Anyone who has waited interminably for a cab to show up, or been unable to even contact a dispatcher, knows there must be a better solution.
BUSES
If you’ve ever had to take an overnight bus, you know that trying to sleep on it is even worse than trying to sleep on a plane. Here’s an idea for a better bus for overnight or late night runs.
2014-01-03—THEME: SCIENTIFIC SCARE WORDS
Science frightens many people. This may be partially because of the fear of the unknown, for people aren’t being educated in the fundamentals of science. Furthermore, power is inherently frightening, and demonstrations of the power of science include some horrific applications, such as nuclear weapons. And so certain misunderstood words associated with every field of science now have acquired a pejorative connotation. These words are rhetorically useful to those who wish to sway our emotions and sell us some product or recruit us to some fashionable cause.
BIOLOGY:
“UNNATURAL”
“Vaccination
is unnatural. Genetic modification is unnatural. Modern medicine is unnatural.”
The fact is nature is “red in tooth and claw”. Predation, disease, and death,
these are natural—but not to be preferred.
“It’s full of chemicals!” Well, so is every single thing in the whole universe.
PHYSICS:
“NUCLEAR”
Nuclear
simply means relating to the nucleus of an atom. But for many people it is
taken as an adjective describing extreme danger.