The Kekulé Problem: where did language come from?
Language can be used to sum up some point at which one has arrived—a sort of milepost—so as to gain a fresh starting point. But if you believe that you actually use language in the solving of problems I wish that you would write to me and tell me how you go about it.
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Universe 25, 1968–1973
Writing in a report summary in 1979, Calhoun noted that “no single area of intellectual effort can exert a greater influence on human welfare than that contributing to better design of the built environment.”
Universe 25: The Mouse “Utopia” Experiment That Turned Into An Apocalypse
[…] the experiment design has been criticized for creating not an overpopulation problem, but rather a scenario where the more aggressive mice were able to control the territory and isolate everyone else. Much like with food production in the real world, it’s possible that the problem wasn’t of adequate resources, but how those resources are controlled.
Mouse Heaven or Mouse Hell?
Ultimately Calhoun’s work functions like a Rorschach blot—people see what they want to see. It’s worth remembering that not all lab experiments, especially contrived ones such as Universe 25, apply to the real world. In which case, perhaps the best lesson to learn here is a meta-lesson: that drawing lessons itself can be a dangerous thing.
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
[An actual Christmas post]
In Defense of Ebenezer Scrooge
To the Dickens with Dickens.
Monday, December 25, 2023
[why am i posting Serious Stuff at 7:25 am on Xmas Day? well i could explain why i’m up, and it isn’t because i’m excited about my presents. maybe i can explain why i have nothing better to do, even. but for now, i just was surfing a bit, while waiting for the oven to heat for some fresh bread for holiday dinner at a friend’s place, and wanted to note this article (as a former applied scientist, bogusness in science is still of interest), and as always, whenever something is too edgy for Facebook i stick it here. make myself feel like i’m doing something about it.]
Blots on a Field?
“You can cheat to get a paper. You can cheat to get a degree. You can cheat to get a grant. You can’t cheat to cure a disease,” he says. “Biology doesn’t care.”
Million Dollar Murray by Malcolm Gladwell
Solving problems that have power-law distributions doesn’t just violate our moral intuitions; it violates our political intuitions as well. It’s hard not to conclude, in the end, that the reason we treated the homeless as one hopeless undifferentiated group for so long is not simply that we didn’t know better. It’s that we didn’t want to know better. It was easier the old way.
Friday, November 10, 2023
Are We Finally Ready to See Neutral Milk Hotel for What It Really Was?
Many of that period’s acclaimed songwriters professed to be allergic to the concept of fame. Mangum just meant it.