Adriano

Completely mind-blowing... Wolfram presents highlights from his big fat NKS book: starts very simple with cellular automata, but eventually rule 110 becomes a universal computation machine which can emulate Ricci tensor from relativity and Feynman diagrams in quantum physics. Imagine an experiment where the universe is a Turing machine. The discussion of his Principle of Computation Equivalence is important for the limits of current science and the foundations of mathematics. Computational irreversibility shows how nature is undecidable in Godel's sense, and thus is unpredictable... we can only observe how complex things will evolve :-) - Adriano

See the beautiful tattoo visualization via Monica Quast, who is a Ph.D. student at the University of Campinas, Brazil, working on bivalve phylogeography. The organisms depicted are (going clockwise): a cyanobacterium, a foraminiferan, 3 diatoms, an oak leaf and acorn, a Spirogyra cell, a red cage fungus, a stauromedusa, a nautilus, a tardigrade, an ophiuroid, and a badger. \\ At first biologists could draw only small trees, typically with a dozen branches at most. They were held back by the fact that a group of species may possibly be related in many different ways. If a biologist adds more species to a group, the possibilities explode. For 80 species, there are more trees than there are atoms in the known universe. Simply comparing every single tree would be impossible. Fortunately, mathematicians developed statistical methods for searching quickly through potential trees to find the ones that do the best job of explaining all the evidence. - Adriano

"We have been working on a project called Normandy which is a feedly clone of the Google Reader API – running on Google App Engine. When Google Reader shuts down, feedly will seamlessly transition to the Normandy back end. So if you are a Google Reader user and using feedly, you are covered: the transition will be seamless. If you are a Google Reader, give feedly a try before July 1st, and you will be able to migrate seamlesly for: iOS, Android, Chrome, and Safari." \\ Also recommend BACKING UP Reader data via http://www.dataliberation.org/google... which will create a zip file containing subscriptions.xml and useful json files. \\ Alternative services: http://www.zdnet.com/goodbye... - Adriano

28 June 2013: Feedly now does *not* depend on its browser extension. Thus it performs much better on the desktop Chrome browser than on Firefox, due to faster V8 javascript processing. (Runs on IE and Opera, too, but no comment there from me :-) Firefox will stall on Feedly, requiring a restart of the browser (click off the Feedly tab in the restore menu). \\ Feedly app for Android works wonderfully (don't use the Chrome browser in Android). Sync between devices is fine. There is a direct option to save articles into Pocket using the Android app (see settings). - Adriano

Why news is to the mind, what sugar is to the body... MUST READ, concentrate if you must :-) then diet. I'm starting today. Dobelli's paper articulates how I've been feeling lately (bloated), especially with yummy Android apps like Flipboard, Pulse, Currents, and Bloomberg. His arguments are reasonable and perceptive. \\ The German version is here: http://dobelli.com/... includes FAQS in English. - Adriano

So true... This is why lately I went back to the old habit of reading more books rather than newspapers. - Amira

another must read: https://medium.com/i-m-h-o... by Stef Lewandowski. - Adriano

"Alpha males almost invariably acquire authority by killing their enemies—think of the generals that Americans have elevated to the presidency. The general's ability to order people around is, paradoxically, a first step "in the direction of law." Yanomamö men fought over women and that this male conflict was not only the fundamental cause of war in simple societies but "the most important single force in shaping the evolution of political society in our species." [T]hese people are not "pure" or "pristine"; they are dispossessed. Their existence in small bands is reflective not of humankind's ancient past but of a shattered society that has preserved its liberty by retreat." - Adriano

I should kill my enemies… - Amit Patel

python maintenance by Guido - newtover

photo probably taken before his Dropbox t-shirt days :-) - Adriano

"As the youngest curator to direct the Venice Biennale in more than a hundred years, Gioni will test his gritty-yet-glamorous approach to modern art when the prestigious fair opens this summer. His International Exhibition, titled "The Encyclopedic Palace," takes its name from a project by 20th-century outsider artist Marino Auriti, an eccentric self-taught architect and philosopher manqué who devoted years of his life to the construction of a gigantic skyscraper-temple that would house the combined wisdom of the human race." - Adriano

"Two days after the long lost bones of Richard III were found in a parking lot, 528 years after his death, we can take a look at a 3D-printed reproduction of his face. The project, funded by the Richard III Society, was led by Caroline Wilkinson, Professor of Craniofacial Identification at the University of Dundee. She used 3D scanning and printing, with a technique called stereolithography, to reconstruct Richard III's head, based on his actual remains. An artist, guided by Wilkinson, then painted the colorless head and added glass eyes, a wig, a hat and the appropriate clothes. Richard III has always been one of the most mysterious and vilified kings in British history. Historically, he's always been portrayed as a malformed, hideous person. This 3D-printed replica of his face seems to contradict at least the claims about his appearance." - Adriano

@grossdm: "Ironic. Remains of Richard III, who said, "my kingdom for a horse" unearthed at same time kingdom revealed to be eating horse en masse." - Adriano

see http://ff.im/1diifz (FU could stand for Francis Underwood :-) - Adriano

"The impact on Earth from a 3,000-foot-wide asteroid would cause an explosion equivalent to 40,000 megatons of TNT—and would likely end human civilization altogether, regardless of where it hit. The odds that such an asteroid impact would make us the last generation of human civilization are no lower than the odds of an average American dying in an earthquake (about 0.001%). \\ The chance in your lifetime of an asteroid impact with explosive energy of 100 megatons of TNT is about 1%. Such an impact would deliver many times the explosive energy of all the munitions used in World War II, including the atomic bombs." - Adriano

(thought the Lord part of the title added drama... well, Rees is an astronomer royal of the U.K. :-) "The B612 Foundation was established in 2002 and since 2012 has been building the Sentinel Space Telescope to find threatening asteroids before they find us. It is part of the most ambitious and important private space mission in history. The Sentinel telescope will give humanity decades of warning before a future asteroid impact so we can employ space technology to protect the planet." Always plan ahead. - Adriano

This is a video from today... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news... (and here https://www.youtube.com/watch...) meteorite landing in the Urals.. You never know when something will fly out of the sky. ;-) - Amira

See also discussion on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Meteor-... and this latest NASA paper: Yarkovsky-driven impact risk analysis for asteroid (99942) Apophis http://arxiv.org/abs... [Yarkovsky effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...] - Amira

find the one where Monet looks like an Aikido master :-) - Adriano

voir aussi http://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr... - Adriano

In all fairness, here's the counterpoint: "We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness. It may be said of it: "It is bad today and every day it will get worse, until the worst of all happens."" --Arthur Schopenhauer \\ One lives his chosen perspective. - Adriano

never seen this before! thx @maitani \\ "Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time:” There is so much in the novel, it’s possible for two committed Proustians to love it for entirely different reasons. Some like the dinner parties, some the art history, some the jealousy, some the young girls in bloom. The Proust I respond to is the psychological essayist who observes the motives and emotions of his characters with some of the forensic acuity (and dry deadly wit) of the great French moralists like Pascal, La Rochefoucauld and Stendhal." --Alain de Botton - Adriano

Usual Suspects, American Beauty, now add #HouseOfCards for Spacey -- it's superb. Netflix financed and recently released the first season of 13 episodes -- that bet is going to pay off big time: prepare for becoming Lost in Binge Viewing of Streaming Episodes http://ff.im/10C1Sq Second season will be in production mid-spring @BeauWillimon \\ Theme soundtrack by Jeff Beal http://youtu.be/DbWcdaeYrsI - Adriano

only *after* watching the first season, check out the interesting remarks, observations, and discussion at http://www.vulture.com/2013... which includes @BeauWillimon the head writer of HoC. \\ Also TONS of spoilers and fails, 41-min podcast: https://soundcloud.com/slatera... Transcript http://www.slate.com/blogs... - Adriano

"Man Ray designed this chess set in 1920 using found objects from his studio. Most of the pieces are geometric models made for still-life drawing (the king is a pyramid, the queen a cone, the rook a cube, the pawn a sphere). The knight—the finial of a violin—was fashioned from a box of abandoned violin necks. Only a handful were ever produced (the maharajah of Indore commissioned a set made from silver-plated brass). This re-edition is rendered in wood, as Man Ray originally intended, and is based on a set housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." - Adriano

"Always assume that the most cheerful "normal" person may inwardly be fighting immense anxiety and an urge to end it all. Secular prayer for those who desperately need sleep, rest, and calm but have forgotten how to find it. \\ for those terrified of financial humiliation and of losing the love and respect of those they want to protect. \\ for those who adore their children but despair of coping with their demands and uncontrollable ways. \\ for those desperate to make an authentic contribution to society but who agonisingly don't know how. \\ for those who were badly treated and humiliated and who, despite constant effort, can't forget and recover. \\ for those who started marriage with the best intentions but can't be the person they should to make it work. \\ for those gripped by anxieties and phobias that have no basis in reason and yet make an ordinary life hell. \\ for those who long for a true friend, someone with whom it's possible to be totally weak -- and still be loved." - Adriano

"The French essayist Roland Barthes was, and in many ways continues to be, my greatest influence. I responded to his way of approaching very large topics (love, the meaning of literature, photography) in oblique ways, with great formal innovation and originality. His essay on photography, “Camera Lucida,” is a model of what a highly rigorous but personal essay should be like. I couldn’t have written my first book, “On Love,” without reading his “A Lover’s Discourse.” Barthes taught me courage and innovation at the level of form." - Adriano

MoMA show < 15 April 2013 http://www.moma.org/inventi... \\ See also http://infosthetics.com/archive... E.g. here's the graph for Paul Klee http://infosthetics.com/archive... - Adriano

Ten great questions about the unknowns, worthy of your perusal. They should be posted over at Quora :-) though in the meantime check out the CogSci "blog" https://cogsci.quora.com - Adriano

You're also very welcome to this 'blog' http://cognitive_science.quora.com/ :-) - Amira

And just as I predicted... on Quora for 2013: https://www.quora.com/Neurosc... - Adriano

"I'm trying to undo a mistake I made some years ago, and rethink the idea that the way to understand the mind is to take it apart into simpler minds and then take those apart into still simpler minds until you get down to minds that can be replaced by a machine. This is called homuncular functionalism, because you take the whole person. You break the whole person down into two or three or four or seven sub persons that are basically agents. They're homunculi, and this looks like a regress, but it's only a finite regress, because you take each of those in turn and you break it down into a group of stupider, more specialized homunculi, and you keep going until you arrive at parts that you can replace with a machine..." - Adriano

"Free access to Wittgenstein primary sources, including the Bergen Facsimile Edition (BFE) and the Bergen Text Edition (BTE) of 5000 pages of Wittgenstein's Nachlass. You are welcome to add your own Wittgenstein primary source, be it an already published or a new edition, or a translation." e.g. manuscript, Notes for Logic (facsimile above). - Adriano

Recommended... brings together snippets from CogSci to real life :-) "Harvard psychologist and author of _Stumbling on Happiness_, Prof. Daniel Gilbert, talks with experts about the latest science on what makes us “tick” and how we can find support for the emotional issues we all face. Each episode weaves together the compelling personal stories of ordinary people and the latest scientific research along with revealing comments from celebrities." PBS http://www.pbs.org/thisemo... - Adriano

Here is an alternative playlist on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch... :-) - Amira

"Horace: "Begin, be bold and venture to be wise," -- advice that certainly applies to the enterprise of writing but also works for the pleasurable task of choosing an epigraph. \\ Balzac: "Behind every great fortune is a crime." Is the epigraph unforgettable because it is so pithy and sinister? Or because juxtaposed with the novel it introduces, Mario Puzo's "The Godfather" (1969), the statement somehow becomes more true? Brevity amplifies truth and seals it in our memories." - Adriano

"Day-Lewis said that he felt a “great sadness” when the movie was done and that he still feels connected to it. “I’m woefully one-track-minded,” he said. “Without sounding unhinged, I know I’m not Abraham Lincoln. I’m aware of that. But the truth is the entire game is about creating an illusion, and for whatever reason, and mad as it may sound, some part of me can allow myself to believe for a period for time without questioning, and that’s the trick.” He laughed." - Adriano

just injecting some humor into the prediction market http://ff.im/PRP5n When is the Lincoln film with Daniel Day Lewis coming out? :-) - Adriano

"[Bezos] doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today. He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a well formed point of view, but it means you should consider your point of view as temporary. \\ What trait signified someone who was wrong a lot of the time? Someone obsessed with details that only support one point of view. If someone can’t climb out of the details, and see the bigger picture from multiple angles, they’re often wrong most of the time." - Adriano

http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos... ;-) - Amira

Eye-opener! publication bias practically constitutes research fraud... "When a new drug gets tested, the results of the trials should be published for the rest of the medical world -- except much of the time, negative or inconclusive findings go unreported, leaving doctors and researchers in the dark. In this impassioned talk, Ben Goldacre explains why these unreported instances of negative data are especially misleading and dangerous." - Adriano

"In 563 AD, a deadly tsunami on Lake Geneva poured over the city walls. Originating from a rock fall where the River Rhône enters at the opposite end of the lake to Geneva, the tsunami destroyed surrounding villages, people and livestock, according to two known historical accounts. Researchers now report the first geological evidence from the lake to support these ancient accounts. The findings suggest that the region would be wise to evaluate the risk today, with more than one million inhabitants living on the lake's shores, including 200,000 people in Geneva alone." http://dx.doi.org/10... - Adriano

kudos to Pablo Baqués. - Adriano

"I’m Anna. I studied Sociology & Anthropology in school. I did a stint in the Peace Corps, and now I spend too much time online. Bienvenidos a mi blog. Sometimes I post my thoughts in words, but mostly I post pics from flickr--graff, street art, architecture, cupcakes, decay, New York City, abandoned buildings, beautiful landscape, cute animals, and anything else that catches my eye." \\ At FF https://friendfeed.com/annahar... - Adriano