As an experiment, here's a thread for people to post about things they care about. Specifically, for things that are possible to contribute to, in some way, and preferably, to invite others to join. Mine is buying and donating highschool textbooks to schools in the 'grey zone' of Ukraine (where the war kinda isn't fought, but few people would be surprised if it started.) I don't deliver them myself, though. What's yours?
So I read Think like a Freak, and then glimpsed through a well-intentioned collection of "Reading Comprehension Tests for Schoolchildren" (in Ukrainian), and I was appalled at how easily the latter book dismissed simple observation of natural experiments that it makes a token effort to describe in favour of drawing...
Would you say the picture below (by A. S. Shevchenko) is almost like an optical illusion? Have you seen any pictures or sights that fooled your brain for a moment but that you wouldn't call optical illusions, and if yes, what is the salient difference?
This post is from the point of view of the middleman standing between the grand future he doesn't understand and the general public whose money he's hunting. We have a certain degree of power over what to offer to the customer, and our biases and pet horses are going to...
As an experiment, here's a thread for people to post about things they care about. Specifically, for things that are possible to contribute to, in some way, and preferably, to invite others to join. Mine is buying and donating highschool textbooks to schools in the 'grey zone' of Ukraine (where...
TL;DR: I ask for help, either entirely theoretical or more concrete, with design of a quick-and dirty independent survey. In particular, I need to know how to estimate the sample size, number of questions and some other things. I expect to see an effect, but 1) a small one, 2)...
I feel so much freer when I don't have to demonstrate that I am happy.
Sometimes, it almost seems like I am truly happy only when I "escape" or "triumph" over something that almost "ate me up": my husband's household, the Department that I had gone to for a PhD thesis... the genuinely nice psychiatrist who soothes my Mother's fears... Like "I am happy when I have proved that I haven't changed, because change is corruption". So yes, [feeling happy] is one of the necessary chores of self-maintenance. I don't get why I should want it more than, say, a chance to sleep in.
OTOH, joy is very different. It kind of just happens, unasked-for.
Would be interesting to read something on dogs' theory of humans' minds. (Like, does a dog estimate a human female is going to feed the baby sooner rather then later and so leaves it alone?)
My husband said "He's not a pseudoscientist! He's just sick!" :)
The wiki article on professor Yuri Teslya, who is the most infamous pseudoscientist in Ukraine right now (in Russian). I haven't found a link in English, so here's the gist of it: prof. Teslya published a Theory of Non-Force Interaction, according to which gravity, for example, doesn't exist - things fall down because they and the Earth exchange information about each other and change their attitudes towards each other accordingly. Being the Head of the Physics Department of KNU, Teslya teaches it to students. Mrs. Irina Yehorchenko, who works in the Institute of Mathematics, called him a pseudoscientist in 2016 speaking at a meeting of Verkhovna Rada on the problems of funding education and science (very publicly). So he is suing her for offence against honour and dignity. People have raised money for her defence, but it won't come as the least bit surprising if she loses the court.
The worst thing about it will be the precedent of deciding science vs. pseudoscience in courts of justice.
alright, then: at what earliest point do people start reading their predictions for another year?
but surely a normal person who makes a list of about 50 items can't update daily? they have stuff to do.
(I think it is going to be useful, but I don't know yet.) I have a problem: lack of body mass, no set lunch break at work and things to do besides dinner that is yet to be made when I get home, which is about 7 pm. It's especially bad during "The Season" (middle August - middle October), the time when many people come to us to buy textbooks and we have time to maybe drink a cup of tea, if we remember to do it during a lull. Sometimes, I even took something with me and just forgot to take it out. Then we get home, eat whatever and go... (read more)
(btw, just thought to ask the people here who have thought about logging their predictions about the year 2018 around the end of December: How do you decide how much time you need before you settle on a prediction? I mean, if making a list on December, 31st is just a common point in time when to state your current state of knowledge, you have 364 days to come to it, but nobody takes so long.)
It is also very annoying that I know damn right what I mean by любой, and so does любой with whom I speak.
Sometimes, it seems to me that English is just too precise. Or maybe it's just me.
In Ukrainian, we have жодний, which means "none of the above" or smth like it... now that's a word worth having!
So I read Think like a Freak, and then glimpsed through a well-intentioned collection of "Reading Comprehension Tests for Schoolchildren" (in Ukrainian), and I was appalled at how easily the latter book dismissed simple observation of natural experiments that it makes a token effort to describe in favour of drawing the moral.
There was the story of "the Mowgli Children", two girls who were kidnapped and raised by wildlife, then found by someone and taken back to live as humans. (So what if it is hardly true. When I Googled "feral children", other stories were too similar to this one in the ways that matter, including this one.) It says they never learned... (read 236 more words →)
Would you say the picture below (by A. S. Shevchenko) is almost like an optical illusion?
Have you seen any pictures or sights that fooled your brain for a moment but that you wouldn't call optical illusions, and if yes, what is the salient difference?
This post is from the point of view of the middleman standing between the grand future he doesn't understand and the general public whose money he's hunting. We have a certain degree of power over what to offer to the customer, and our biases and pet horses are going to contribute a lot to what theoreticians infer about "the actual public"'s tastes. Just how a lot it is, I cannot say, & there's probably tons of literature on this anyway, so take this as a personal anecdote.
Nine months as a teacher of botany (worst gripes here) showed me a glimpse of how teachers/administration view the field they teach. A year in a... (read 905 more words →)
As an experiment, here's a thread for people to post about things they care about. Specifically, for things that are possible to contribute to, in some way, and preferably, to invite others to join.
Mine is buying and donating highschool textbooks to schools in the 'grey zone' of Ukraine (where the war kinda isn't fought, but few people would be surprised if it started.) I don't deliver them myself, though.
What's yours?
TL;DR: I ask for help, either entirely theoretical or more concrete, with design of a quick-and dirty independent survey. In particular, I need to know how to estimate the sample size, number of questions and some other things. I expect to see an effect, but 1) a small one, 2) there are going to be undercurrents & sources of heterogeneity that I cannot right now predict, 3) the whole business is money-constrained, and 4) the relevant (professional) people here have too much skin in the game.
In case this appears too involved for you, please regard it as a purely armchair exercise. Examples of such things done elsewhere are also much appreciated.
Note: sorry... (read 1779 more words →)
Well, in my life I can recall two instances off-hand. There have probably been more of them, but at the very least, they seem to be completely unrelated to attempts to raise well-being levels...