Study Notes: Mar 15-Apr 11, 2015: "The Culture of Violence in Joseph Smith's Mormonism" &c

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Article, "How To Turn Real Science Into Great Science Fiction" by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "Why Did The Doctor Start Eating Meat Again On Doctor Who?" by Charlie Jane Anders
• Post, "The Visual Intelligence of Pacific Rim" by Sam Keeper

Homework for the future:

• Go through at least five entries in in my "P Articles" bookmark folder. Let's go with: (1) "The 'Monkey Master' Fable"; (2) "Economics of Star Trek"; (3) "Technologies of Abundance and the Fairytale of Jobs"; (4) "Hope For A Lumpy Filter"; (5) "What Wide Origins You Have, Little Red Riding Hood!"
• Read the posts linked to by "Responses to the Anti-Reactionary FAQ.". Eventually. 
• Still on the to-do list: studying the Austrian School of Economics.
• Also need to do some reading on polyamory. 
• Also on the to-do list: All of those themes that I decide I want to play with, and cool bits that attract me, and things like that? Let's get systematic about that, put them into a single document (might be public, might not) and work with at least one of them every week. Systematic. Systematic. I do it best when I do it systematically. 

Study Notes: Mar 8-14, 2015: "How long until North Korea collapses?" &c

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "A Non-Biblical Dating for the Jaredite Migration" by Daymon Smith
• Paper, "Prophets, Kings, and Swords: The Sword of Laban and Its Possible Pre-Laban Origin" by Daniel N. Rolph
• Article, "Here's One Genre That Could Replace Post-Apocalyptic Stories" by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "Noah's Ark is a Sustainable Floating City for a Post-Apocalyptic World" by Bridget Meinhold
• Article, "How long until North Korea collapses? Eleven defector perspectives" by Chad O'Carroll
• Post, "You Don't Have to Read That Text Tonight" by Sam Keeper
• Post, "The Girls Who Walk Away From Kyubee" by Sam Keeper

Homework for the future:

• Go through at least five entries in in my "P Articles" bookmark folder. Let's go with: (1) "The Culture of Violence in Joseph Smith's Mormonism"; (2) "Study Theology, Even If You Don't Believe in God"; (3) "The 'Best Arguments for God's Existence' Are Actually Terrible"; (4) "How To Turn Real Science Into Great Science Fiction"; (5) "Why Did The Doctor Start Eating Meat Again On Doctor Who?"
• Read the posts linked to by "Responses to the Anti-Reactionary FAQ.". Eventually. 
• Still on the to-do list: studying the Austrian School of Economics.
• Also need to do some reading on polyamory. 
• Also on the to-do list: All of those themes that I decide I want to play with, and cool bits that attract me, and things like that? Let's get systematic about that, put them into a single document (might be public, might not) and work with at least one of them every week. Systematic. Systematic. I do it best when I do it systematically. 

Study Notes: Feb 22-Mar 7, 2015: "How Deaf People Think" &c

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "Horror, the Grotesque, and the Macabre: A Christian Appraisal" by SDG
• Article, "How Deaf People Think" by Daven Hiskey
• Article, "Multilinguals Have Multiple Personalities" by Alice Robb
• Article, "Raising Backyard Chickens for Dummies" by Jason Price
• Post, "Multiple Systems FAQ" (& other pp) by Living Plural (Blog)
• Post, "Hermione Granger Versus the Methods of Rationality" by Sam Keeper
• Post, "Hunger Metagames" by Sam Keeper

Study Notes: Feb 15-21, 2015: "Weirdest Solutions to the Fermi Paradox", &c

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "Into the (Mind of the) Dalek" by David Selby
• Post, "Good Works?" by Eric Peters
• Thread, "Definitions Master List" on Asexuality.org
• Article, "11 of the Weirdest Solutions to the Fermi Paradox" by George Dvorsky
• Post, "Our Love is Synthesis: Marx, Muse, and 'Madness'" by Sam Keeper
• Post, "A Company of Heroes: Pacific Rim, Iron Man, Cloud Atlas, and the Power of Ensemble Casts" by Sam Keeper

Study Notes: Feb 8-14, 2015: "Religion in the Age of Cyborgs", &c

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "Religion in the Age of Cyborgs" by Egil Asprem
• Post, "Making Sense of the Tenth Doctor's Regeneration" by Morgan Gudgin
• Post, "A Study of Regeneration: The Mind Problem" by Andrew Bohman
• Post, "The Children of the Night, What Music They Make: Horror in Music" by Sam Keeper 
• Post, "The World is a Cruel Place: Theme in Attack on Titan" by Sam Keeper

Study notes: Jan 25-31, 2015: "Technical debt," &C

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Post, "Technical debt and the making of payments on it" by Denise Paolucci
• Article, "Friedrich Nietzsche on Why a Fulfilling Life Requires Embracing Rather than Running from Difficulty" by Maria Popova
• Article, "Nietzsche, the Overhuman and the Posthuman: A Reply to Stefan Sorgner" by Michael Hauskeller
• Post, "Liberal from a Distance: DC's ARROW and Faux Leftism (Part One)" and "(Part Two)" by Sam Keeper
• Post, "Fluttershyness is Nice" by Sam Keeper
• Paper, "The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution" by Michael R. Ash

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

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