Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. Spoon Boy, The Matrix (1999) This is still one of my favorite scenes in a movie. What is the nature of reality…
While I like video games and found Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter an entertaining ride, I am skeptical when people describe video games in all glowing terms. Like everything, they improve specific skills. Also people are attracted to games in which they have specific skills.…
I agree all too often we think of our interactions with others as competition (a zero sum game where other’s loss is our gain). Instead, our fortunes are correlated with others, aka in non-zero sum game, so cooperation is the effective strategy (like Tit For Tat). Because non-zero is becoming more an more the norm, working effectively…
A few of you may know my accent is completely abnormal for the region where I was raised. In some ways it sounds midwestern or even Canadian. Apparently children also identify affiliation by accents like they do gender and skin color. So I had TWO strikes against me? My parents seem the likely culprits for my…
Some quotes from the Overcoming Bias blog from the book Hard Facts. (I’ve cleaned up some spelling errors.) Merit pay for teachers is an idea that is almost 100 years old and has been subject to much research. In one study conducted in 1918, “48 percent of U.S. school districts sampled used compensation systems that…
The placebo effect is perhaps my favorite. That the more “authentic” a pill appears to be, the more effective the placebo effect is my favorite quality about it.
Whenever I read on the concerns of biracial adoption, I think of the high school classmate who said it was immoral for me to exist. His point was blacks and whites should not have children, therefore someone like, a product of miscegenation was the result of an immoral act. Perhaps that is a step up…
A friend pointed out this TED Talk by Bill Gates. Specifically he pointed out a group photograph of people serving at the Baha’i World Center is used in the talk to represent the people of the world. You can find it at 4 minutes 36 seconds.
Perfect Fit Originally uploaded by Ezra S F One of the gems from the photos I took in Haifa. Having not taken my dSLR, I am rather pleased with the photos I managed to take on this trip with a little digital point-n-click. Guess that shows: 1) How beautiful were the surroundings, 2) Equipment only…