Study Notes: Aug 30-Sep 12, 2015: "Perfect genetic knowledge"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading in this time: 

• Article, "The V.C.s of B.C.", by Adam Davidson
• Article, "Dark Matter May Be More Complex Than Physicists Thought", by Liz Kruesi
• Article, "Cover of darkness", by Jamie Bartlett
• Article, "Perfect genetic knowledge", by Dawn Field
• Article, "The Limits of Language", by David Auerbach
• Post, "DBT Analysis: Chain Analysis", by Ozy
• Post, "Specific vs. General Foragers & Farmers", by Robin Hanson
• Post, "Identities Are Not Arguments", by Ozy
• Article, "Clothes and daggers", by Rafia Zakaria
• Article, "Think Like A Tree: A New Kind of Eco-Friendly Concrete Inspired By Coral", Shara Tonn
• Article, "How to Write Convincing Death Scenes", by Bianca Nogrady
• Article, "Book Review: Manufacturing Consent", by Scott Alexander

Homework for the future:

• 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.
• Finish the reading for "Notes to: Anarchy: Never Been Tried?"
• Finish the reading for "Notes to 16 Articles on Writing"
• Read Fenrir's Shrine. 
• 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. 
• Also, don't forget to flesh this section out a bit more with goals in general, and maybe include a section on which of those goals were accomplished since the last update.

Study Notes: Apr 19-Jul 25, 2015: "On Measuring Tradeoffs In Effective Altruism", &c

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading in this time: 

• Page, "The Old Ones: The Time Before Sumeria"
• Article, "Ursula K. Le Guin, Fyodor Dovstoevsky, and the Snuggly Comfort of Evil", by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "The most convincing argument for legalizing LSD, shrooms, and other psychedelics", by German Lopez
• Article, "Why Does This Ice Look Exactly Like Hair", by Maddie Stone
• Post, "On Measuring Tradeoffs In Effective Altruism", by Ozy Frantz
• Post, "The General Factor of Correctness", by Scott Alexander
• Article, "The Genesis Engine", by Amy Maxmen
• Post, "Bemundolack wrote..." by Medievalpoc

Other notes: 

• Notes to: 11 Articles on Polyamory
• Notes to: The Great Conversation: Kierkegaard and Marx (& other chapters)
• Notes to "Wrestling with Scriptural Violence: A Primer for Peaceful Followers of Jesus Christ"
• Notes to: Arms and Armor-- Common Misconceptions and Frequently Asked Questions

Also check out: 

• "Conceptions Of Soul In Old-Estonian Religion"
• "The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot"
• "The Campaign Survey"

Homework for the future:

• Go through at least five entries in in my "P Articles" bookmark folder. Let's go with: (1) "Why Germany Has It So Good -- and Why America Is Going Down the Drain"; (2) "I don't agree with your parenting choices. Now let me explain how you should raise your own children."; (3) "Sex & Sexuality in the 19th Century"; (4) "Yes, We Should Clone Neanderthals"; (5) "Russia's Terrifying 'Nuke Trains' Will Be Roving The Rails By 2018"
• 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.
• Go through the various essays at Fenrir's Shrine, because there are a lot and they are interesting. 
• Kitsune, Kumiho, Huli Jing, Fox is also rather big. 
• 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

Notes: "From the Ashes of Angels"

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

Material covered:

"From the Ashes of Angels: The Forbidden Legacy of a Fallen Race" by Andrew Collins

An interesting piece of pseudohistory. Lots of good stuff for worldbuilding. Feels like the base for a Lovecraftian paper. 

• "There is the angel who wrestles all night with Jacob at a place named Penuel, or those which he sees moving up and down a ladder that stretches between heaven and earth. Yet other than these accounts, there are too few examples, and when angels do appear the narrative is often vague and unclear on what exactly is going on. For instance, in the case of both Abraham and Lot the angels in question are described simply as 'men', who sit down to take food like any mortal person." 

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: 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

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.

Study notes: Nov 23-29, 2014: "Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern" and other things

This is commentary. And this is really good. 

What I've been watching and reading this week: 

• Article, "The Seven Types of Short Story Opening, and How to Decide Which is Right for Your Story," by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern," by Nicholas Wade
• Paper, "Buddhist Hard Determinism: No Self, No Free Will, No Responsibility," by Riccardo Repetti
• Article, "Vladimir Putin is Right Out of a Russian Novel," by Linton Weeks
• Letter, "Letter of His Holiness John Paul II to Artists," by Who Do You Think?
• Article, "Neoreactionary Movement," on Rational Wiki
• Article, "Geeks for Monarchy: The Rise of the Neo-Reactionaries," by 
• Article, "Mormon Women, Traditionalists and Feminists: An Evolving Conversation," by Andrea Radke-Moss
• Article, "Mormon Studies in the Classroom: Mormon Women, Patriarchy and Equality," by Andrea Radke-Moss
• Article, "Pragmatism and Progress: An Overview of LDS Sister Missionary Service in the Twentieth Century," by Andrea Radke-Moss
• Article, "Ukraine, Not the Ukraine: The Significance of Three Little Letters," by Katy Steinmetz
• Article, "Ukraine or the Ukraine: Why do some country names have 'the'?," by Tom Geoghegan. 
• Article, "Life Tips You Need to Know," by Likes.com
• Article, "College Life: Tips for Survival," by Hassan Ishtiaq
• Article, "What's so bad about hating the Daleks, anyway?" by Charlie Jane Anders
• Article, "The Economics of Star Trek: The Proto-Post Scarcity Economy," by Rick Webb
• Article, "BYU prof fears Mormon scholars are giving in to secularism," by Peggy Fletcher Stack

WikiLearning #1 (sea organs, &c)

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

This is commentary. And this is really good.

The Sea Organ is an "experimental musical instrument which plays music by way of sea waves and tubes located underneath a set of large marble steps." Built by Nikola Basic "as apart of the project to redesign the new city coast (Nova riva)" of Zadar, Croatia, which had been destroyed during WWII.

The Universal Sacred

It seems to me as I consider it more that it may be very likely that everything is a vessel for the Sacred. One questions how the label matters if it applies to everything, but there are a few other similarly universal labels, like "universe" and "existent," that apply to all existent things. Too, the label is important because it demonstrates our ability to understand a universal aspect.

Trans/Post Terminology: Some Errata

Here's the most pointless post you may encounter for awhile!

"Transhuman" and "Posthuman" are species-chauvinistic terms that ignore the fact that non-homo sapiens species could and almost certainly have reached the same state, and absolutely will in the future. And as you may have guessed from a brief aside in my Pronoun Sets and Present Tense article, I strive to avoid even things as presently irrelevant as species chauvinism (as I say elsewhere, it's silly to avoid changing now when you know that you'll have to change in the future and it's just that your arm isn't being twisted yet).

Pronoun Sets & Present Tense

This post is divided into two sections. Reading the first isn't necessary to understand the second.

Pronoun Sets

I'm sure that all of you are going to accuse me of thinking far too much about stuff that matters far too little, but something that I've wondered about for awhile is which pronoun sets to use by default (if somebody specifies, of course, then anything goes).