Great inventions #1 -the fireplace

And I don't mean fire, mind you, but literally the fireplace. And please spare me the gospel about how it was the discovery of fire that really started out technology. Fire might have started technology, but I contend fireplaces started civilization!

 

Applied cognitive science

I'm not sure one can find anything more pressing than to help educate children all around the world -that is of course, once their basic health is guaranteed. We shouldn't leave this to religion, as is too often the case, and we should do it with the full knowledge our modern times have to offer. That means exploiting cognitive science.

The big picture!

The universe could have been quite boring..




fortunately it seems its weirdness will always exceed our wildest expectations.
(via Backreaction)

Why I shouldn't like Marseille

- The city's loud and dirty (well what do you expect, it's a port)
- You can spend ages trying to find a place with both an internet connection and a plug
- It is full of excited youngsters dressed in cheap sportswear with the OM colours (local football club)

and yet..

The inner language

Cognitive science is a pretty large field, but three questions have been driving a lot of the research effort, almost from the start.


What is language ?


First notice that it is a two-faced coin, there’s external language and internal language. Everybody knows what external language is : it is that particular set of sounds and signs whose shapes and sequences convey some conventional meaning. This convention is formalized into rules, exceptions and templates, and examplified in googles of more or less beautiful instances in everyday life.

What do barnacles, toxoplasmosis and rabies have in common?

These are all hijacking machines.

So instead of digging its own hole in the sand and lay down its eggs, the female sacculine barnacle finds it much more fun to adhere to a green crab's back,  slowly move on the shell's surface until it finds a joint, and then send its cells invading the body.

Religion hurts more than it heals -let's get rid of it.

It hurts. badly. Kills millions, scares more. It is especially hard on women all other the world, and contaminates children shamelessly from a young age. It has infected more than 3/4 of the world's population. I'm not talking about an organic disease, but about religion. This merciless plague is the love of god. Are you religious? Please read more.