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...
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12 DEC 2017 by ideonexus

 Formalized Thinking is Non-Intuitive for Humans

Ancient scribes learned not merely to read and write, but also to use catalogues, dictionaries, calendars, forms and tables. They studied and internalised techniques of cataloguing, retrieving and processing information very di
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09 SEP 2016 by ideonexus

 What if Conservative Media is Insulated from Electoral Lo...

Ziegler said he wanted to see the entire system torpedoed and rebuilt. “I think the conservative media is the worst thing that has ever happened to the Republican Party on a national level,” he opined. “Take a look at — now this is not Rush's fault. But if you look at the presidential elections before Rush Limbaugh became nationally syndicated, I believe Republicans won five out of six,” he said. “After Rush Limbaugh became truly nationally syndicated ... if you start in 1996 a...
Folksonomies: media confirmation bias
Folksonomies: media confirmation bias
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11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 Chemicals "Copulate"

From this time everything was copulated. Acetic, formic, butyric, margaric, &c., acids, alkaloids, ethers, amides, anilides, all became copulated bodies. So that to make acetanilide, for example, they no longer employed acetic acid and aniline, but they re-copulated a copulated oxalic acid with a copulated ammonia. I am inventing nothing—altering nothing. Is it my fault if, when writing history, I appear to be composing a romance?
Folksonomies: history chemistry
Folksonomies: history chemistry
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Making it sound natural, so the chemist describes his work as composing a romance for the elements' natural affinity for one another.

28 MAR 2012 by ideonexus

 Santa Clause and God

It’s hard to even consider the possibility that Santa isn’t real. Everyone seems to believe he is. As a kid, I heard his name in songs and stories and saw him in movies with very high production values. My mom and dad seemed to believe, batted down my doubts, told me he wanted me to be good and that he always knew if I wasn’t. And what wonderful gifts I received! Except when they were crappy, which I always figured was my fault somehow. All in all, despite the multiple incredible improb...
Folksonomies: parenting atheism god
Folksonomies: parenting atheism god
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One is a myth meant to expire, the other is a myth meant to last a lifetime.

21 MAY 2011 by ideonexus

 Stool Toilets Promote Hemoroids

Animals in second-stage labor, then, act, look, and breathe as though they are having a bowel movement. So what should your wife do after her cervix is completely open and the baby begins to slip through? She should do the same thing. Now, here again, we run into the minor structural differences between humans and animals. They are minor but important. You will have made a careful study of how your wife conducts herself in sleep for management of the first-stage labor. Must you now make a sim...
Folksonomies: biology
Folksonomies: biology
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The natural position for a bowel movement is to squat.