27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Arguing with People Online Allows Them to Burn Your Time
But while some amount of bullshit is inevitably forced on you, the bullshit that sneaks into your life by tricking you is no one's fault but your own. And yet the bullshit you choose may be harder to eliminate than the bullshit that's forced on you. Things that lure you into wasting your time on them have to be really good at tricking you. An example that will be familiar to a lot of people is arguing online. When someone contradicts you, they're in a sense attacking you. Sometimes pretty ove...Folksonomies: opportunity cost online debate
Folksonomies: opportunity cost online debate
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notes26 APR 2013 by ideonexus
How Giving Nouns Genders Affects Thought
In Spanish and other Romance languages, nouns are either masculine or feminine. In many other languages, nouns are divided into many more genders ("gender" in this context meaning class or kind). For example, some Australian Aboriginal languages have up to sixteen genders, including classes of hunting weapons, canines, things that are shiny, or, in the phrase made famous by cognitive linguist George Lakoff, "women, fire, and dangerous things."
What it means for a language to have grammatical... 1 notes
notesSpanish, German, French, and Russian languages attribute genders to all nouns, and this has a profound affect on the way the speakers perceive the world.
31 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
The Importance of Reducing Mundane Risks
Life expectancy for a healthy American man of my age is about 90. (That’s not to be confused with American male life expectancy at birth, only about 78.) If I’m to achieve my statistical quota of 15 more years of life, that means about 15 times 365, or 5,475, more showers. But if I were so careless that my risk of slipping in the shower each time were as high as 1 in 1,000, I’d die or become crippled about five times before reaching my life expectancy. I have to reduce my risk of shower...Folksonomies: statistics risk
Folksonomies: statistics risk
1 If the risk of dying by falling in the shower is only 1 in a 1,000, then a shower would kill someone in just a few years. We concern ourselves with risks that are out of our control, but we should be vigilantly mindful of the mundane daily risks we take on a regular basis, like driving our cars, standing on a stepladder, or taking a shower.
10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
The General Oblation Board
“Oh, yes,” said Lyra. “I’m safe from everyone here. Where I used to live, in Oxford, there was all kinds of dangerous things. There was gyptiansthey take kids and sell ‘em to the Turks for slaves. And on Port Meadow at the full moon there’s a werewolf that comes out from the old nunnery at Godstow. I heard him howling once. And there’s the Gobblers….”
“That’s what I mean,” the man said. “That’s what they call the Oblation Board, don’t they?”
Lyra felt Pantala... 1 notes
notesAnd how it relates to the people giving their children to the church to become "oblates."
