Month: March 2011
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Predictably Irrational
A physician’s decision of “hip surgery vs ibuprofen” is a relatively straightforward decision, especially when one can try the ibuprofen then go with hip surgery later. One compares something to another thing. Add a secondary choice like in “hip surgery vs (ibuprofen vs peroxicam)” and people flip into going with hip surgery instead. When I watched…
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Aspiring to a Billion Pageviews
Read this in an article about Reddit, But Reddit.com is still one of the internet’s most popular sites with over a billion pageviews a month. I realize a billion is a big number, but I figured even GeorgiaVIEW could be getting half a billion pageviews a month. January 15th to February 14th (our peak 30…
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Not Egyptian
At a party last night, a woman asked where I am from. I told her my hometown. She said, “No, no, no, where are your parents from.” I thought, “Oh, boy, I know where this is going.” So I told her my father is black and my mother white. She wanted to know what part…
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The Cat Came Back
We had this on VHS back in the day when my little brother was young. It was a collection of shorts. This is the only one which still haunts me… The original song is mentioned on Wikipedia: The Cat Came Back and full lyrics.
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TED Talk: How Kids Teach Themselves
Find it amazing children who have never been exposed English can learn it from a kiosk with just 1980-90s computer games made available to them. That the kids worked in groups appears to enhance the effect was also pretty interesting. One child would operate with 3 advising and all 4 would test the same, so…
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TED Talk: David Brooks: The social animal
Some quotes I liked from this talk. “Emotions are not separate from reason. They are the foundation of reason as they show us what to value.” “The first gift or talent is Mindsight: the ability to enter into other people’s minds and learn what they have to offer…. Babies are born to interpenetrate into Mom’s mind and…
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TED Talk: Deb Roy, The Birth Of a Word
Noticed this one from PurpleCar. (I first noticed it through the TED Facebook page and meant to watch it, but for whatever reason did not bookmark it. So maybe better to say renoticed.) Roy setup cameras in his house to capture everything that happens around his son for the purpose of watching the influence of adults…
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Happy New Year
Today is Naw-Rúz, New Year’s Day on the Bahá’à calendar. For the nineteen days prior, we have been fasting between sunrise and sunset. So parties are pretty common to celebrate surviving this trial. My first Baha’i experience here in Athens was a Naw-Rúz party. A coworker said with all the stuff my group is doing I…
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Odyssey Dawn?
One interpretation of Operation Odyssey Dawn is a ten year struggle to get home. Instead of ten years, I think it refers to a single day. The Odyssey is a Greek epic poem by Homer describing the ten year adventure of the craftiest Greek general attempting to return home from the Trojan War. Odysseus wandered…