Category: learning
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Gödel, Escher, Bach
On a large number of ‘best of’ or ‘books that changed my life’ lists I always spot Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB), the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas Hofstadter. When my copy arrived at my door recently I was taken aback by this tome and realised that it was going to be a dense read that…
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Code: Quantity vs. Quality
Coding Horror on coding quantity vs. quality. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories. […] Stop theorizing. Write…
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Manufacturing Consent With Fallacies
Scientific American’s Getting Duped: How the Media Messes With Your Mind educates us on two important fallacies used to undermine arguments. Statements made in the media can surreptitiously plant distortions in the minds of millions. Learning to recognize two commonly used fallacies can help you separate fact from fiction. […] One common method of spinning…
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The Flynn Effect and Our Declining IQs
The Flynn Effect is the gradual rise of the average IQ over generations, and the reason why IQ tests are periodically renormalised to reset the average to 100: an average IQ in our generation equals a higher than average IQ a generation or two beforehand. Or does it? According to new research it appears that…
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Common Errors in English
Mixed-up, mangled expressions; foreign-language faux pas; confused and confusing terms; commonly mispronounced words – they’re all explained in Common Errors in English by Paul Brians. The concept of language errors is a fuzzy one. I’ll leave to linguists the technical definitions. Here we’re concerned only with deviations from the standard use of English as judged…
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The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
William Deresiewicz on the foibles of the Ivy League elite: Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers. […] With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children…
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Mental Math and Memory Techniques at the Mentat Wiki
In the novel Dune, ‘Mentats’ are humans trained to mimic computers: human minds developed to staggering heights of cognitive and analytical ability. With this in mind, you may be able to guess what’s in store at the Mentat Wiki, which calls itself “a collaborative environment for exploring ways to become a better thinker”: ‘Mental Math’…
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A Guide for Learning Foreign Languages (Resources)
Latin was probably the single most useful subject I was taught in school. I despised it at the time, but now I have come to realise its importance and many applications–the greatest of which is how it has helped me learn other languages. In learning languages (although none to fluency… yet) I have found the…
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Quantum Physics Made (Relatively) Easy
Quantum Physics Made Relatively Easy: In 1999, legendary theoretical physicist Hans Bethe delivered three lectures on quantum theory to his neighbors at the Kendal of Ithaca retirement community (near Cornell University). Given by Professor Bethe at age 93, the lectures are presented here as QuickTime videos synchronized with slides of his talking points and archival…