http://ranprieur.com/#9a417fe513f58988c3b5b1e84cfc57397194a79b 2021-11-10T22:20:59Z Ran Prieur http://ranprieur.com/ ranprieur@gmail.com http://ranprieur.com/#55a14ba7766b8d5dd03f50c9fa158848857aeca6 2021-11-10T22:20:59Z November 10. Just submitted to Weird Collapse, Imagination isn't the icing on the cake of human cognition. It's the cake: "The more we understand about the minds of other animals, and the more we try (and fail) to build machines that can 'think' like us, the clearer it becomes that imagination is a candidate for our most valuable and most distinctive attribute."

Maybe humanity's great mistake is trying to make our dreams physically real. Consider all the imagination that went into a place like Disneyland, and then the nightmare of the place itself -- never mind all the dystopian constructions that are supposed to be practical. I'm thinking the best human society is the one that gives the most citizens the most hours of unfettered useless dreaming.

Loosely related, an interesting piece about insincere imagination: If You Have Writer's Block, Maybe You Should Stop Lying.

]]> http://ranprieur.com/#66cb355eeb05eae59611f54820982cbe4723ccf4 2021-11-08T20:00:27Z November 8. Still on semi-vacation from blogging. Here's one negative link: Examining interactions between narcissistic leaders and anxious followers on Twitter using a machine learning approach

And one positive: Scotland wants to rewild its famous wilderness

]]> http://ranprieur.com/#7734284631343f565b8063622be0902eea2019cb 2021-11-05T17:30:14Z November 5. Music for the weekend. At the end of last year, I said that the best song of 2020 is surely something I haven't heard yet. I still think that's the case, but among the songs I have heard, this is my new favorite: Pozi - Whitewashing. Pozi is an English post-punk trio with no guitars, only drums, bass, and violin. Their newest EP doesn't have anything as catchy as Whitewashing, but I love its sonic complexity.

]]> http://ranprieur.com/#148775b2d3d9999e0f560fd8441af165da585ba9 2021-11-03T15:10:40Z November 3. No ideas this week, so more links, starting with two about user-friendly devices: the PinePhone and the Framework Laptop.

A reader sends this page about the The Catacombs of Solaris. "The goal of this game is to find your favourite room in the catacombs. It's a perspective maze that plays with your perception of 3D space on a 2D screen."

Moving from tech to ecology, this is a summary of an interesting paper: Foraging humans, mammals and birds who live in the same place behave similarly.

And Genetic Goldmine in Earth's Harshest Desert Could Be The Key to Feeding The Future. The idea is, as a lot of the planet turns into a desert, we could stick desert genes in food plants so they'll still grow.

]]> http://ranprieur.com/#a94fcdbb7873b8d80f86b3081d02889cf7e8c515 2021-11-01T13:50:49Z November 1. I have a new rule, that if I post a negative link, I have to balance it with a positive link. So, negative: a Hacker News thread about how U.S. house prices are rising exponentially faster than income, with lots of smart discussion about why that's happening and how we could do the economy better.

Positive: a long Reddit thread, What does America get right?

Negative: The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Leaf Blowers. Even if we fix the toxic emissions with electric leaf blowers, they're still used to move leaves off lawns, when it would be ecologically better to let them stay.

Positive, or at least it will make you feel better: Therapists, what is something people tell you that they are ashamed of but is actually normal?

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