Author Archives: brendano

It’s sweeping the internet — I wrote a little plugin for the firefox/internet explorer search box, so when you search it randomly picks one of several search engines. You get to see what’s out there (you mean there’s something besides … Continue reading →

I must be too cynical. I thought I didn’t like Philip Zimbardo‘s theatrics, but regardless I really appreciated this NYT interview with him on the universal capacity for evil.(S.P.E. is the Stanford Prison Experiment, whose pictures here are from that … Continue reading →

I saw Seth Roberts briefly speak today (at an odd event) about self-experimentation. He tried drinking flavorless sugar water and it led him to lose lots of weight. He also did a great variety of other self-experiments over more than … Continue reading →

I think I believe one of these things, but I’m not quite sure. Statistics is just like logic, except with uncertainty. This would be true if statistics is Bayesian statistics and you buy the Bayesian inductive logic story — add … Continue reading →

I was planning to write some WordNet lookup code tonight. But instead I’ve learned of too many intersecting things. First, there are a zillion things to do this weekend (hooray flavorpill): Picasso and American Art exhibit continuing at SFMOMA. I … Continue reading →

Don’t have time to read much right now, but received word about a neat-looking paper: Uncomputability: The Problem of Induction Internalized by Kevin Kelly. Kevin Kelly’s website has an awesome statement that mirrors thoughts I’ve been having for the last … Continue reading →

…9th largest by the metric of annual casualties (60,000 over three years). Funny how actual facts make current events clearer. Jim Fearon explains much more in his excellent FA article Why the U.S. Can’t Win Iraq’s Civil War.

Either God is tricky, or maybe probability is. Pascal’s Wager: Say there’s only a small chance God exists. If you are an atheist but God does actually exist, He will send you to hell for eternity. This is infinitely bad. … Continue reading →

The Colbert Report website is promising Steve Pinker this upcoming week. This could be great, or atrocious. I bet it won’t be as good as the somewhat-legendary Ali G interview of Noam Chomsky, reproduced below.