Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Tag: posted 2012

  • The problem with eyewitness testimony

    “The brain abhors a vacuum. Under the best of observation conditions, we only detect encode and store in our brains bits and pieces of an experience.” The brain fills in the rest. We are worse at guessing the details than we usually think. And jurors trust eyewitness testimony more than most other facts. If the video…

  • IFTTT Twitter Triggers

    Because of Twitter’s impending API terms changes (how third parties can access their service), third parties like If-This-Then-That are dropping Twitter. Ugh. I only had two recipes using Twitter. Post any tweets I tag #ln to LinkedIn. I don’t even think I triggered it once. Copy my tweets to Dropbox. I deleted both, but decided I needed…

  • The weird, wonderful world of bioluminescence

    Everything changes when your normal environment is total blackness. If the video below does not work, then try Edith Widder: The weird, wonderful world of bioluminescence.

  • Happy Constitution Day!

    Interesting that we have a Federal holiday for thumbing our noses at England, but the anniversary for founding the government for our country, Constitution Day, goes unmarked with barbeques, fireworks, and intoxication. This year is the 225th one. Not so long ago I read the Federalist Papers. It was an interesting look at how some…

  • Don’t Change

    As a kid, this Tootsie Pop commercial was my favorite. They aired during Saturday morning cartoons. My parents slept in late those mornings, so I had the television to myself. For the decade or so that I watched, it aired at least once an hour. Some times several times an hour. As an adult, this…

  • TED Talk: Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence

    Wow, not sure why I have not posted this one yet. In college, I was one of four students who showed up to the showing of a video of Pinker talking about his book How the Mind Works. It reinforced for me Psychology was a good choice for me. So this talk on decline in…

  • TED Talk: What we learned from 5 million books

    Google Labs’ Ngram Viewer lets us look at the use of phrases over time. For example, my name, Ezra, appears to have been most popular usage peaks back in the 1600s and 1700s, but has been more consistently used since the 1800s. This kind of thing can get me lost for hours at a time.…

  • Collected Quotes July/August 2012

    My main page on quotes is Quotes to Make You Think. Additional ones can be found under the Quotes tag. I read like a wolf eats. I read myself to sleep every night. — Gary Paulsen There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship. — Saint Thomas Aquinas If you surrender completely to the moments…

  • TED Talk: Nina Jablonski breaks the illusion of skin color

    Nina’s book Skin was a great read. It was the first time I understood melanin and vitamin D. And cancer. If the video below does not work, then try Nina Jablonski breaks the illusion of skin color.