Study Notes: December 21-27, 2014: "The Book No One Read"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Article, "The Book No One Read: Why Stanislaw Lem's futurism deserves attention" by Lee Billings
• Essay, "Study of Leviticus 18-20 'Abomination'" by Dave Cornwell
• Post, "Surviving in an Alien Environment: Human + Christ as Medieval Natural-born Cyborg" by Ruth Evans
• Essay, "The Sword of Laban as a Symbol of Divine Authority and Kingship" by Brett L. Holbrook
• Article, "The Horizontal and Vertical Axes of Storytelling" by James George
• Article, "The Remarkable Queerness of Shinji Ikari" by Sam Keeper
• Article, "Tony Stark in the Integrated Circuit: The Iron Man films and Cyborg Feminism" by Sam Keeper
• Article, "Stark Modernism: Fine Art and Iron Man" by Sam Keeper
• Article, "The Thingiverse-- Model Reuse in the 3D Printing Community" by Jarkko Moilanen
• Article, "The Practical Guide to the Future of Medicine" by Dr. Bertalen Mesko
• Article, "Controlling Genes With Your Thoughts" by ETH Science Writer
• Article, "The Fermi Paradox, Self-Replicating Probes, and the Interstellar Transportation Bandwidth" by Keith B. Wiley
• Article, "The Stars Are Wrong: Why Cthulhu Needs To Go Away" by Sam Keeper
• Article, "AnimalTech-- Wearable Technology for Fido" by Clara Mancini

The Art Gallery: "Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)"

Alright. I'm going to start this out by saying that I'm not really sure where I'm going to be going with this. I would like for this to be a kind of "these are the stories that are coming out of these pictures" thing, but I'm not sure if that's what it's going to be. If it can manage to be that then I'll transfer it over to White Marble Block. Otherwise it'll stay here as... I don't know. As a thing. 

Study Notes: Dec 14-20, 2014: "The Evolution of Names and Personal Identifiers"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "The Evolution of Names and Personal Identifiers" by Eric Hellman
• Essay, "At One with Nature: An Ecocritical Study of the Nature Motif in Three Swedish Horror Writers" by Lars Martinsson
• Article, "Five Bold Predictions for the Future of Humanity" by Balam T. Salem
• Article, "Twenty Top Predictions for Life 100 Years From Now" by Ian Pearsson
• Article, "Is Vat-Grown Meat Kosher? We Asked a Rabbi" by Tim Barribeau
• Article, "The Next Big Disruption: Three Major Shifts That Will Influence the Future Global Economy" by Terry Young
• Article, "11 Predictions on the future of social media" by Mary Catherine Wellons
• Article, "The Transhumanist Bodhisattvas," by Butsugen Chigen
• Article, "Turn Your Inkjet Printer into a Chemistry Lab" by Mark Lorch
• Article, "PAN'S LABYRINTH-- Interview with Guillermo Del Toro," by Michael Guillen
• Post, "Will Rituals Return?" by Robin Hanson
• Article, "Today's Apps Are Turning Us Into Sociopaths" by Evan Selinger
• Article, "Anti-aging Oxymorons and Anti-oxy-morons" by Josh Mitteldorf
• Article, "Robotics Update" by Len Rosen
• Article, "Is It Better Never To Have Been Born? (anti-natalism)" by John G. Messerly
• Article, "Lithium for Life Extension?" by Josh Mitteldorf
• Article, "Designer Viruses Could be the New Antibiotics" by Luc Henry
• Article, "The Future of Lunar Archeology" [sic?] by Dr. Beth O'Leary
• Article, "Aging Brains Aren't Necessarily Declining Brains" by Angela Gutchess

Study Notes: Dec 7-13, 2014: "How Steampunk Screws with Victorian Gender Norms"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Article, "Queer Cogs: Steampunk, Gender Identity, and Sexuality," by Lisa Hager
• Thread, "What's the difference between aesthetic/sensual attraction and sexual attraction?" on Asexuality.org
• Article, "How Steampunk Screws with Victorian Gender Norms," by Molly Westerman
• Essay, "Blooms of Banjeli," by Eugenia W. Herbert and Candice Goucher
• Article, "Monopoly is Theft," by Christopher Ketcham

WikiLearning #9 (folklore)

Things I've learned from Wikipedia, and sometimes other places.

This is commentary. And this is really good.

"Old-Time Religion" entry in the Encyclopedia of Appalachia

"Stereotypes of mountain religion that came to the fore during the 1960s had been created over a century and a half through outside observations of religious practices in Appalachia, mostly by home missionaries or people seeking exotic experiences or local color."

WikiLearning #8 (the Mafia)

Things I've learned from Wikipedia, and sometimes other places.

This is commentary. And this is really good.

"We know from Gay Talese's book Honor Thy Father that being a professional mobster isn't all sunshine and roses. More often it's the boredom of stuffy rooms and a bad diet of carry-out food, punctuated by brief, terrible bursts of violence." Roger Ebert.

WikiLearning #7 (lumberjacks)

Things I've learned from Wikipedia, and sometimes other places.

This is commentary. And this is really good.

"Lumberjacks" entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia

"It was only around the turn of the 18th century, however, that the professional logger-- or lumberjack-- was born... It grew to be the backbone of the region's [eastern Canada] industrial economy, and focused on harvesting white pine. From roughly 1800 to 1840, production was centred on cutting and hewing square timber for the British market. Then this industry underwent a reorientation, whereby the pine logs were increasingly sawn into planks for sale largly in the United States. It was estimated that during the 19th century, which was the heydey of the white pine era, half the males in Canada were employed as lumberjacks. By the turn of the 20th century, the receding stands of mature white pine in the East was sending that part of the industry into decline while lumber production-- based largely on harvesting Douglas fir-- was accelerating in British Columbia."

WikiLearning #6 (various cultures)

Things I've learned from Wikipedia, and sometimes other places.

This is commentary. And this is really good.

High-altitude peoples are probably descended from people that originally moved higher-up for only short periods at a time before eventually settling there.

Tibetan people have lungs that "synthesize larger amounts of... nitric oxide" and may also have larger blood vessels.

LDS History in Context of the Strauss-Howe Generational Cycle

In 1991, William Strauss and Neil Howe proposed a system of generational cycles, each cycle having four distinct stages that lasted twenty years give-or-take. Each generational stage took its nature by reacting to the generations that preceded it, most especially by reacting to faults in the generation that directly raised it (these reactions, of course, produce other faults that cause a similar reaction in the generation to follow). All countries go through this cycle, but Strauss and Howe were specifically interested in America's.

Study Notes: Nov 30-Dec 6, 2014: "Zombies, Vampires, Democrats, and Republicans"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "Correlation of the Week: Zombies, Vampires, Democrats, and Republicans," by Marc West
• Post, "An Introduction to a Non-Violent Reading of The Book of Mormon," by Joshua Madson
• Post, "The Constitution: The God That Failed (To Liberate Us From Big Government)," by Bill Buppert
• Article, "A Muslim RuPaul at the Dawn of Islam: Tuwais and the Mukhannathun," by Maryam
• Post, "Why I Am Not an Anarchist," by Matt Zwolinksi
• Post, "(the) Gambia, (the) Lebanon, etc.," by M. Lynne Murphy
• Paper, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later," by Philip K. Dick
• Article, "Graphene Could Lead to Better Bullet-Proof Vests and Hydrogen Fuel Cells," by Justine Alford
• Article, "Ravens have Social Abilities Previously Only Seen in Humans," by Declan Perry
• Article, "Anarchism, not Anomism," by Skyler Collins
• Post, "In Favor of Niceness, Community, and Civilization," by Scott Alexander
• Video, "The surprising decline in violence," by Steven Pinker

Notes: "Norse Mythology for Smart People"

Notes for "Norse Mythology for Smart People," a website written by Dan McCoy."

This is commentary. And this is really good.

I'm not going to record every detail, just the really snappy awesome bits that Wikipedia never taught me. Some sections (Tales, Book Reviews, My Book, The 5 Best Books on Celtic Mythology, News/Updates, The 10 Best Norse Mythology Books) are not recorded here.

WikiLearning #5 (Diners, &c)

Things I've learned from Wikipedia, and sometimes other places.

This is commentary. And this is really good.

Some bits on "Cuisines in America":

"There is so much sugar in the recipes of many, if not most, dishes here in the States that foreigners not accustomed to it are said to find our food disconcertingly sweet. Note that this can be inverted in the case of starches. The American palate expects bread (that isn't specifically a sweet bread such as cinnamon rolls), to be more 'yeasty' in flavor, and potato-based dishes to be starchy-salty. This can be disconcerting to a visitor to, for instance, China, where bread tends toward sweet, as do potato chips."