I have this. So much fun :)

Monkeyspheres

Interesting article over at Cracked about how we have difficulty seeing people as people when they are out of our ingroup. It's a possible explanation for stereotyping, and has made me more reflective of my own biases.

Makes you think.

This is fun.

This is genius. Take away the make-up, take away the clothes, take away the socially-acceptable mannerisms, and the same person is someone completely different.

Think about that. People surround themselves with stuff and smells and sights and sounds and other people to insulate themselves and protect themselves and make themselves look attractive. Do they even know what they are anymore under all those layers?

I've come to think of the sense of attractiveness as passing all of the criteria we have in our heads for what an attractive thing is. Nice clothes? Check. Confident demeanor? Check.

Remember that it's all illusions.

Two objects cost 1.10 - one costs 1 more than the other. How much is the cheaper object?

Did you answer 0.10? It's instinctive for many people to answer that way - but that would mean the more expensive object is 1.10, and that means we've gone over the stated total cost. Simple algebra would tell us the correct answer is 0.05.

It's an easy question, but it's hard in the sense that we don't stop to think about it more. We're trapped in the mode of thinking where we favor knee-jerk reactions. It would be fine if our instincts were something like what Aristotle wrote about as correct beliefs - we don't know why it's correct, we just gravitate to the answer. But in real life those correct beliefs have to be tempered with experience; experience is what gives you fingertip feel - fingerspitzengefühl - or the correct beliefs in the first place. Experience also tells you when to stop rushing into something and take your time to suss the answer out.

This is by far not an easy thing; too often we find that these two systems of the brain are at cross-purposes in certain situations. On the one hand, punching him in the face would feel so good; on the other, I'd be sacrificing my livelihood. Decisions, decisions...

Magic and other stuff

I've played it for some time now, so perusing Magic: the Gathering articles occasionally is something I tend to do even if at this point I no longer have anyone to play with. Right now I'm enjoying these three articles - on sideboards, mana curves, and optimal aggro decks.

I'm also recently getting into Team Fortress 2. I'm looking to Zeigon and  MrPaladin's YouTube channels for guidance. I'm gravitating toward the Spy class for some reason; I think it has a very exciting playstyle.

With work I have been recently introduced to the idea of Flat UI design. I'm playing with it on my current project, and I am looking to designmodo this time. What's interesting is that web designers use a lot of image editing. I'm thinking I need to start learning GIMP and Inkscape. This might be related somehow, I don't know; but it seems like it will lead to something promising. 

I'm really getting into UI and one good reference I found is Your Visual Blueprint for Designing Rich Web Pages and Applications. There's also this article on UI design patterns I'll be referring to a lot in future, so I'm posting it here.

Javascript is also something that's becoming an interest of mine, so I found myself this here reading list.

On the subject of cooking meanwhile, here's two things I'm meaning to try in the kitchen: a pasta with no-cook tomato sauce, and delicious veggie burgers.

Lastly, for something completely different: the loneliness of tennis players, mentioned as part of an analysis of the similarities between them and boxers.

The effect of dietary capsaicin on the intestinal linings of mice

As a fellow who loves spicy food, I wholeheartedly love the fact that my addiction has healthy side-effects. This is an interesting finding (article here).

Growing our own wings

I'm obsessed with the comic series Global Frequency. I remember a character mentioning about being blocked by government institutions acting like gatekeepers to where they wanted to go. He said that they'll grow their own wings, as in they'll take care of themselves instead of being enslaved by others and suffering the externalities caused by the latter's callous decisions.

In light of what's happening with the FBI and the CDC right now, with the global repercussions of this I think people need to seriously start considering to grow a pair of their own. So long as the members do not become circlejerkers I'm sure they can accomplish a lot more than the politicos would give them credit. Remember that it's in the authority figure's best interest to keep you dependent because that's his livelihood we're talking about here. A lot of them don't have skin in the game, which is why they don't even bother sometimes.

There's a lot of good in the world being done by ordinary people with skin in the game - here's one more in a line of other's I'll be talking about in future: the Delancey Street Foundation.