The Halftalk Post
mutterings on what's going on in the world...
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Moral foundations and political differences
My comments and links to the lecture are here
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Common regrets in 30s, 40s,....
http://spp.sagepub.com/co
Here's the main finding, outlined by Vaughan Bell over on the Mind Hacks blog:
http://mindhacks.com/2011
complete post is HERE in Society & Psychology subblog)
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Atheism 2.0
I've often felt that even if one doesn't accept the mysterious supernatural tenets of religions, they are such developed and functional institutions that there is a lot to be reclaimed from then. Not only because religions have arisen and persisted because they tap into important elements of our nature, feelings of community and awe etc., but also because they have perfected many techniques that means they can harnass significant power to have an effect (albeit for bad as well as good) on the world. As this lecture discusses, this is in stark contrast to their generally individual and uncoordinated secular counterparts (artists, philosophers, even film makers) who also try to provide comment and guidance about 'higher' things, but often with much less effect. As de Botton says, there is a lot secular society can learn, and religion is too important to be left to the religious...
Friday, January 13, 2012
An informed conscience? there can be an app for that..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/12/boycott-sopa-app-informed-consumer-citizen
Though I agree that ideally an open source route is preferable, since otherwise comanies might be unfairly targetted. Some feedback (and improvement) mechanism is needed, and also safeguards against manipulation by competitors. But great idea...
Sunday, January 8, 2012
work less, so can live more, and more can live
http://halftalk-society.blogspot.com/2012/01/work-less-so-can-live-more-and-more-can.html
Monday, January 2, 2012
the silver lining of the brain....
http://halftalk-society.blogspot.com/2012/01/every-neural-pathway-has-its-silver.html
links above not working (again)
in case takes a while to be fixed, the links are :
Society & Psychology http://halftalk-society.blogspot.com/
Current Affairs http://halftalk-current.blogspot.com/
Readings & Listenings http://halftalk-readings.blogspot.com
Random Thoughts http://halftalk-random.blogspot.com/
In the News http://halftalk-news.blogspot.com/
TV tips http://halftalk-tv.blogspot.com/
US 2012 Republican Primaries http://halftalk-us2012primaries.blogspot.com/
US 2012 Presidential Election http://halftalk-us2012election.blogspot.com/
Friday, December 30, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
don't regret regret
Thursday, December 15, 2011
BBC's tips topped
It's an odd eccentricity of BBC radio 4's Today programme that they still give out racing tips. Especially since it's quite a high brow show, I've often wondered why they do it, and what sort of credentials they have, so was interesting to hear that one listener had been logging and checking their tips for the last year. And their success rate? 20% , or 100 winners out of ~500 tips.
Not exactly amazing, but seems when compared to other sources (eg tips on newspapers) this seems about average. The test seems to be how much of one's stake is retained cumulatively, and their 88% is in the middle of the 86-93% range for such tipsters.
So not a lot of reason to use them it seems! If had bet one euro on each horse, would be down €67 by end of the year. Though again about average so,as they said, their slogan could be ‘bet with us - you won’t lose too much!!!'
Also liked the idea of logging john humphrey’s (known as the beeb's political attack dog) questions for the next year – and more importantly – how many of them get an answer!
the US leaves Iraq, and many wasted possibilites behind
- 46 years of global cancer research (at current levels)..
- 3 entire Space Shuttle programs...
- 28 Apollo programs...
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
no news is really good news, or at least better than FOX news
my full post on the topic is here
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
out of the blue or in the pink
Some comments and article links are in this new post in the Society & Psychology section
Sunday, December 11, 2011
On writing a notebook....
Came across a nice wrote of Joan Didion's, from her essay On Writing A Notebook : "Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point...our notebooks give us away, for however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implaceable 'I."
Remember what it was to be me - Ilike that! Captures nicely the desire not just to share but also to somehow preserve the things that impress and enthuse us.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
links above not working
in case takes a while to be fixed, the links are :
Society & Psychology http://halftalk-society.blogspot.com/
Current Affairs http://halftalk-current.blogspot.com/
Readings & Listenings http://halftalk-readings.blogspot.com
Random Thoughts http://halftalk-random.blogspot.com/
In the News http://halftalk-news.blogspot.com/
TV tips http://halftalk-tv.blogspot.com/
When people are paid by results their attitudes change
See full post HERE
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
The swype is mightier than the sword
Due to a broken shoulder I'm down to one working hand at the moment and as a result have been writing a lot on my phone using swype. Apart from finding it actually easier and more efficient than trying to stab away on a laptop, once again I find myself thinking about the method itself, and whether there might be a qualitative difference in using it.
With typing, the word is pumped out almost as a unit, via an automatic burst of key strokes which are almost in parallel, and there is little thought or feeling of the individual letters that constitute it (which might explain my tendency in emails to mix up similarly sounding words, like "are", "our" and "or"). But when writing with a pen, or swype, one must deliberately spell out the word, letter by letter, and this must involve slightly different thinking? If only because one must wait until each word has fully resolved itself, and made that bit more of an impression, before one can fully turn one's attention to the next. Maybe it is even similar to the difference between the old way in which reading was taught, with the focus on the full word as a whole, and the new phonics method of teaching, which is supposed to be more effective. The fact that the two styles of instruction differ in effectiveness indicates a difference in mental processing, between gulping the word down as a block, and slowly sipping it in in chunks.
My full article on the subject is HERE
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
To err is human, to ignore errors is political
the full article is (here) and some comments of mine are in a separate post in the current affairs section here
Failure of economics? Economists to the rescue!
See this latest post in the current affairs section for some thoughts and articles on the subject.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
quote to quote...
A nice encapsulation of the idea that at the end of the day it is what we do that matters, and how everything else could be viewed as ultimately intangible and unreal; and, if consider the notion that we lead our lives in pursuit of something more than mere pleasure, but to have a purpose, maybe it could be extended to "the point is not to understand the world, or even to enjoy it, but to change it" .
Though maybe related is Woody Allen's quote, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my works; I want to achieve immortality through not dying". Indeed!
What also comes to mind are the following lines from Larkin's "Churchgoing" (the full poem, one of my favourites, is here)
Maybe the driven are simply delusional, and it is better to sit back and enjoy things after all. Mill might have thought "it is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied", but maybe he overestimated humans, and underestimated pigs.
Still, something reassuring in having simply wanting to enjoy life as a plan B, a worst case goal if all else fails :-)
Friday, November 4, 2011
Cutting Edge : anonymous accountability?
This week's Cutting Edge documentary (about the battle between owners and reviewers on Trip Advisor) raises I think some interesting points about the new culture of online commentary. In particular I think there is potential for a new mechanism (of usernames/websites/customs) to be developed to allow 'anonymous accountability' in online identies.
My thoughts on the matter are posted here.