Author Archives: brendano

I love dinosaur comics. What a quicker way to learn philosophy than reading all those books. For example: Now I have an opinion on verificationism! I like the yellow dinosaur better. Scientific empiricism is great, dithering about strict notions of … Continue reading →

There’s a company, Emotiv, that’s building an EEG interface for the game systems. Any company with a science-fiction-y vision statement sounds like a good time to me: Communication between man and machine has always been limited to conscious interaction, with … Continue reading →

I got nervous and panicky just reading about this game. I wonder if I could con some people into playing it. Economics professors have a standard game they use to demonstrate how apparently rational decisions can create a disastrous result. … Continue reading →

Standard problem: humans lived like crap for thousands and thousands of years, then suddenly some two hundred years ago dramatic industrialization and economic growth happened, though unevenly even through today. Here’s an interesting proposal to explain all this. Gregory Clark … Continue reading →

From an NYT Magazine article this Sunday, paraphrasing Isaiah Berlin: The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said that the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true. Politicians live … Continue reading →

Nice little NYT article on Martin Nowak, of evolution-of-cooperation fame. He’s the directory of Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics which looks neat. I love the the Price Equation. Sweet.

This is fascinating — In China, you can get fined if you make a map of China without Taiwan or other disputed territories. Reminds me of being confused trying to find the primary airline of China. Based of vague recollections … Continue reading →

This is pretty funny, an old cartoon reprinted on Language Log.