In 1845, the Baptist Preacher John Leland wrote (in case you can’t read the image…): “The government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I content for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have… [Read More]
Martin Luther King: Defending Freedom of Speech – #Quote
From Martin Luther King Jr’s wonderful “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech: If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they haven’t committed themselves to that over there. But… [Read More]
Chrome Screen Tearing on Linux? Enable “Override Software Rendering List”
If you’re on linux and you use chrome AND your screen keeps tearing (for instance when you switch between tabs), then try this. Go to chrome://flags Then enable Override software rendering list. Source: I found this on Ask Ubuntu. I use Fedora and it worked for me. Now go lift something heavy, Nick Horton
Academic Freedom & Integrity – Quote: Alan Bloom
One cannot say that we must defend academic freedom when there are grave doubts about the principles underlying academic freedom…. In order to find out why we have fallen on such hard times, we must recognize that the foundations of the university have become extremely doubtful to the highest intelligences. Our petty tribulations have great… [Read More]
Facts & Literary Gangsters – Gore Vidal #Quote
… facts, both literal and symbolic, are the stuff of art as well as of life…. But today there are few facts in the American novel, if only because the writers do not know much about anything except their own immediate experience, which is apt to be narrow. That’s Gore Vidal in his essay, “Writers… [Read More]
Hawthorne on Melville – Quote
He is a person of very gentlemanly instincts in every respect, save that he is a little heterodox in the matter of clean linen. So says Nathaniel Hawthorne on Herman Melville, who was a friend of his. He continues. He stayed with us from Tuesday till Thursday; and, on the intervening day, we took a… [Read More]
Friends Are Not Bound by Belief, OR, Argument is Good
“A friend is not somebody one trusts to behave in a certain manner… he [she] is somebody who engages the imagination.” That’s Michael Oakeshott, in his essay On being conservative. He is one of my favorite conservative political philosophers. And I try to engage with his ideas often to keep a good solid check on… [Read More]
In the Mountains on a Summer Day – by Li Po (a poem)
Gently I stir a white feather fan, With open shirt sitting in a green wood. I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone; A wind from the pine-trees trickles on my bare head. by Li Po, A.D. 701-762, translated by Arthur Waley. Now go lift something heavy, Nick Horton
Kant & Hobbes on Economics & War
We’ll start with Kant: The spirit of commerce sooner or later takes hold of every people, and it cannot exist side by side with war… Thus states find themselves compelled to promote the noble cause of peace, though not exactly from motives of morality. Kant then comes closer to Hobbes: … from the crooked timber… [Read More]
Objectivity & the External World – Quote of the Day
“The impartiality of nature to our feelings, beliefs, and desires means that the work of testing and developing scientific theories is insensitive to the ideological background of individual scientists. A scientific theory will characteristically attempt to explain some natural phenomena by producing some general formula or theory covering all the phenomena of that particular type…. [Read More]
“I Have a Plan?” – 3 Fallacies with the “What Should We Do?” Question
When asking the question, “What should be do?”, a valid one, and often noble, we should be aware of the following fallacies: “that answers to questions do indeed lead to actions;” “that we are the right ones to take up such actions;” “that action recommendations are the only way to induce progress.” These are quoted… [Read More]
Anatomy of a Stats FAIL #OpenScience
If you can’t see the image, these are the steps you should follow to commit a common FAIL in statistics: Look at data. make a hypothesis based upon what you’ve observed. Run standard statistical tests as if you have chosen your hypothesis independent of the data. Publish your paper without mention of step #2 (i.e.,… [Read More]
Psy-Fi Nightmare? “Why Science is Not Necessarily Self-Correcting” – Research Review
“However, at the end of the day, no matter what changes are made, scientific credibility may not improve unless the pursuit of truth remains our main goal in our work as scientists. This is a most noble mission that needs to be continuously reasserted.” Today’s paper: Ioannidis, John. (2012). Why Science is Not Necessarily Self-Correcting…. [Read More]
Bill Nye on “Race” – Quote of the Day
In the wake of the Paris attack, the attack on Beirut, and the myriad other horrors around the world — not to mention inhuman assholes who hashtag #fuckparis — it’s worth remembering that “race” is a myth, or rather the idea that modern humans come in “races” is a construct that has no scientific basis…. [Read More]
“Gender Differences in Strength” vs Statistics – A Case Study in the Problem of Small Sample Size
The old myth that women are less strong than men is based on something that seems intuitively obvious — in the same way that humans believed that it was obvious that the earth is flat. Most women you know ARE less strong than the men you know! Unfortunately, that isn’t evidence for the conclusion. It’s… [Read More]
Spacemacs: Because Space & Emacs Belong Together – Collection of Resources
I’ve been using Emacs for longer than I’m willing to admit. However, I started using Vim because I wanted to see what the other side was raving about. I discovered that Vim has a much better default user experience. The modal shit and the composition-style of key bindings is, IMO, better than what Emacs uses…. [Read More]
DNF Slow on Fedora? Add Fastestmirror to Your dnf.conf
DNF is a solid advance over Yum. But it’s default behavior may not be what you’re used to. Case in point is that the old yum plugin fastestmirror is now built in to dnf! However, it’s default setting is OFF. So, the first thing I do when I install Fedora is turn it on! First,… [Read More]
7 Key Terms in Statistics (To Keep You Safe at Night)
From the paper I reviewed yesterday by Button, Ioannidis, et al. called “Power failure: why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience.” All direct quotes. Original paper HERE. Effect size An effect size is a standardized measure that quantifies the size of the difference between two groups or the strength of an association between… [Read More]
Statistical Power vs Neuroscience: The Specter of Small Sample Size Strikes Again (Not All Bad News)
“It has been claimed and demonstrated that many (and possibly most) of the conclusions drawn from biomedical research are probably false.” Today’s paper: Button, Ioannidis, et al. (2013). Power failure: why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience. NOTE: a low statistical power means that “the chance of discovering effects that are genuinely true… [Read More]
Quote: James Wilson – on Political Economy & Wretchedness
“Some try to represent political economy as being a dry, cold abstract science, which has no warmth of feeling to spare on suffering humanity. … This is far from the truth; on the contrary, political economy produces feelings so intense for the removal of these evils, that it will not permit us to rest satisfied… [Read More]
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