Language NSFW, but had to share this. I could listen to Scots talk all dae. Many thanks to Boing Boing for bringing the treasure.
Monthly Archives: December 2011
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The True Hive Mind – How Honeybee Colonies Think
by David Dobbs •
I’m enjoying reviewing my Kindle reading highlights with the “Daily Review” feature, which lets you flick through highlights and notes you’ve made in Kindle books. Amid the LeCarre and Malcolm and Updike and Patti Smith and a way-too-big pile of books on genetics, I find this from Thomas Seeley’s Honeybee Democracy: We will see that…
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Money Doesn’t Own the Market on Happiness
by David Dobbs •
Via the ever-surprising Marbury (aka Ian Leslie): Correlation between the Dow Jones and Happiness: Note that when the index dropped unexpectedly, so did people’s happiness – but once they adjusted to the new reality, happiness levels went straight back up. More happiness correlates here. Some of the other correlates Leslie links to are snappy: People who…
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My Top 5 (or 10) Longreads of 2011
by David Dobbs •
The wonderful site Longreads is collecting “5 Favorite Longreads” from a variety of writers, editors, and other folks. They were kind enough to ask me for mine. They appear at Longreads — and for faithful readers here, below as well. Do check out the other lists at Longreads as well. __ Truly we live, as Steve…
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Why Musical Genius Requires Apple Pie (A response to Roger Ebert)
by David Dobbs •
In a typically graceful post, Roger Ebert wonders how prodigious genius, particularly in math, chess, or music, rises so early from the brain: It may be that among the countless cells in our brains a process of arrangement and simplification goes on, by which these cells find more and more satisfactory ways to–Communicate? Align? Organize?…
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Power Chords, Bobby McFerrin Style
by David Dobbs •
The world’s just bringing me too much good stuff right now. Here Bobby McFerrin, responding to a comment about expectations in music, gets a crowd at the World Music Festival to essentially read music. Beautiful. Thanks and big fat kiss to Jennifer Ouellette for relaying this via G+. K gotta get backtowork bye. See Also: “It's…
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Astronaut Plays Baseball by Himself in Space
by David Dobbs •
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How Box Scores Are Like Gene Sequences: The Geek Path from Baseball to Bio
by David Dobbs •
How is a box score like a genome sequence? This starts a wee slow, but go with it: Noted computational biologists James Fraser (UCSF) and Michael Eisen (Berkeley) explain how obsessions with baseball stats led them — and can lead others — to be data-heavy biologists. First lesson, for example: Predictions are stronger based on (open)…
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Slut Genes, Rats, 16th Notes, and Writing: Neuron Culture’s November Hits
by David Dobbs •
Neuron Culture’s hits in November Enough With the ‘Slut Gene’ Already: Behaviors Ain’t Traits By failing to distinguish traits from behaviors, we court confusion over how evolution works — and how underlying traits can mix with experience or other traits to lead to a huge variety of behavior. Yet countless stories about behavioral genetics make just…