Use Native Architecture

Read the whole thing at Overcoming Bias.

Some key parts:

Some things the brain can do quickly and intuitively, and some things the brain has to emulate using many more of the brain's native operations. Sometimes thinking in metaphors is a good idea, if you're human.

In particular, visualizing things is part of the brain's native architecture, but abstract symbolic manipulation has to be learned. Thus, visualizing mathematics is usually a good idea.

When was the last time you made a sign error?

When was the last time you visualized something upside-down by mistake?

and

The principle of "use the native architecture" extends beyond visualizing mathematics. Back in my senior year of high school, Eliezer once mentioned to me that Chinese speakers were able to memorize longer strings of digits because each digit is a single syllable in Chinese. As a computer programmer, it occurred to me that there was nothing stopping me from picking another encoding - and I have perfect pitch, so I picked musical notes. Middle C is 1, the D above that is 2, and so on up the scale; 0 is the B below Middle C.

Thus, when my psychology teacher put up a string of twenty digits on the board and asked us to memorize them, I was able to do it. In fact, I still know that string of digits, as well as several phone numbers I used this trick on (though I stopped bothering once I got a programmable cellphone).

I have to wonder if this is the real reason how some people manage to do amazingly fast arithmetic - using some sort of native computation, be it calculating emotional states, doing color or pitch transforms, spacial positioning or something else.

First Facial Transplant

Hat Tip: Slashdot

First face transplant including facial bones.

I'm happy for the people involved that modern medicine has advanced to this point, but I can't help but remember 1/2 of all creepy science fiction plots. In 20-30 years, this could have very interesting results.

Wherein hilarity ensues

Hat Tip: pmarca:

A new, amazingly funny take on some of the current economic woes.

I can't think of a better movie to use as source material, and I haven't even seen it.

Reasons I don't fear developing on App Engine

It has been suggested to me that I shouldn't develop on app engine because it will be difficult to move to another system if someone wants to buy something I make. There is now a good response:

10gen

Right now, 10gen doesn't support python, but I have no doubt that they will in the future. Even now, though, the cost of porting from python to javascript or ruby is quite small. The ability to download the platform source is also a huge bonus for those who value that sort of peace of mind.

64 bit Google Gears

"You can always tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs."

Yay!

This is totally unofficial, but I've installed it and it works with Google Reader and Google Docs.

The message that introduces it is here.

The actual xpis are here:

0.5.11
0.5.7

(old site here).

On this same topic, it looks like there is some pressure by integrators (especially Linux) for Google to come out with an official, supported 64 bit package. Since the patch looks quite simple, it might not be too long until that happens.

Update: Get 64 bit Google Gears for Linux Here

To install, just download the latest file to your hard drive, open firefox and point the browser to the location of the file on your hard drive (if you are confused, just enter file:/// into your address bar, then navigate to the downloaded file).

Update 2: Reader Ivan pointed me to a newer (0.5.7) unofficial version of google gears for Linux. I have updated the links on this post to point to the new source.

Update 3: It seems that there is a newer, better, still unofficial version out yet again. 0.5.11 is hot off the... text-processor? Many thanks to Niels for cooking it up.

99 Lisp Problems

99 Lisp Problems

Looks like something to do after I get finished with SICP.

Analogy of the month

Comic from xkcd:

A Few Good Quotes

Training is a tax you pay for a lousy hiring environment

marketing is a tax you pay for being unremarkable

Obviously, someone gets it.

PS: If someone can get me a copy of "the little orange book" that would be stupendously awesome.

Mo Commodities, Mo Problems

Interesting piece at Unenumerated talking about the creation of commodity backed currency.

We may be seeing only the first stages of a switch from floating currencies, which may be proving to be unworkable, to commodity-backed currencies. Floating currencies were and are a great historical experiment, and there is no guarantee that such experiments will work out in the long run. By serving monetary functions such as stores of value and hedges against currency-denominated debt, commodity index ETFs and ETNs are starting to serve as monetary substitutes. But the benefits so far have been limited to investors and other big players. Those saving for retirement or who will have to pay for their child's education are benefitting from the use of commodity long positions to stablize pension and endowment funds against falling currencies and protect them against future inflation. But we still have to take our wages in floating currencies, hold our checking and savings accounts in floating currencies, and pay or be paid our debts in floating currencies. Can commodity money move from Wall Street to Main Street

This sounds like a good idea to me. More transparency should result in a much more sound fiscal system over the long term. On the down side, there is a higher risk of visible volatility due to the impossiblity of a central bank and the unification of the whole world behind one currency (regional currencies are good at readjusting sticky prices like wages).

There is just one problem: Gresham's Law. The government has one great weapon against sound money - it can accept only fiat money at tax time.

My guess is that the world will start to move to a two tiered currency system, with commodity backed currency used by institutions and for long-term investment, and fiat currency used for short term value storage and transactions.

Who you gonna call? World's Policeman?

I just read Russia Invades Georgia, Internet Yawns at Adventures in Capitalism, wherein Chris makes some excellent points.

I didn't actually know much about the war, but a quick look at Gary Brecher's column, yields South Ossetia, the War of My Dreams.

Brecher makes a particular good point here:

This time, the Russians came through. For lots of reasons, starting with the fact that Bush is weak and they know it; that the US is all tied up in that crap Iraq war and can’t do shit

It's been in the back of my mind for a while, but this is the first evidence that I have that someone important (geo-politically) is taking advantage of the US's predicament to expand militarily. Medium-term, I don't see the US losing out no matter what happens, simply because the US has a much, much better tank trap than England in WWII.

That being said, if the US doesn't have the muscle to be an effective world wide policeman anymore, I'd be scared living in Western Europe. From what I can tell, there isn't a competent military in the EU put together - that's not to say that there aren't good units, but the back end logistics that makes everything work together is missing, meaning that the men and guns never get to the right place at the right time - which means that all either China or Russia has to do is act a bit threatening and ask for some concessions.

I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that someone is going to try a WWII conquer the world push - nukes pretty much rule that out. That being said, votes and dollars are just as effective as bullets when trying to expand influence these days.

One last thing to note: so far, the United Nations has not been able to do anything meaningful in respect to the conflict. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the UN has lost the ability to accomplish anything outside of its current, largely ceremonial role.

Update: Thanks for the corrections, Ryan

What's up with Apple Products?

I've been poking around, mostly on Craigslist, trying to find a reasonably priced Intel-based Mac. They are nowhere to be found. What the heck is up with the super-high resale value of Apple products? I knew that this phenomenon was out there, but this is madness - I can buy current generation products with student discount less expensive than I can buy last generation products off of Craigslist. I feel like I'm here.

Safety is an Illusion

I have been a huge fan of Overcoming Bias since I ran across the post, My Favorite Liar.

Recently, they have published another article, , which I feel immense kinship with. For a long time, I have been puzzled by the faith, most people I know, have in certifications and institutions. People would get annoyed at me when I wouldn't trust things they learned at school or read in books.

The explanation that a wrenching emotional 'event' is required to begin to distrust makes a lot of sense. It becomes easy to be smug about other peoples' sloppy thinking, until the principle is turned back on one's self. Living without a solid intellectual foundation is both terrifying and exhilarating. The trade off doesn't seem worth it; the only problem is, the alternatives don't come close to comparing.