anotherboywholived:

I’ve been using a mind palace since my teens and never thought it odd until I saw tumblr’s reaction to Sherlock’s use of the technique. A couple days ago I found myself building an extension in order to cram for my philosophy exam the following day and I figured I’d use this as an example and get you all exploiting the genius of this method.

Because, frankly, that one on wikihow that’s been going around is a headache, and mine has bad jokes and Sherlock examples.

If anyone’s any further questions just hit up my ask and we’ll talk.

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fuckyeahskepticism:

Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric

• Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
• Argument from “authority”.
• Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an “unfavourable” decision).
• Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
• Special pleading (typically referring to god’s will).
• Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).
• Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
• Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).
• Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)
• Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not “proved”).
• Non sequitur - “it does not follow” - the logic falls down.
• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - “it happened after so it was caused by” - confusion of cause and effect.
• Meaningless question (“what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).
• Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the “other side” look worse than it really is).
• Short-term v. long-term - a subset of excluded middle (“why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?”).
• Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle - unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).
• Confusion of correlation and causation.
• Straw man - caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack.
• Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
• Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as “police action” to get around limitations on Presidential powers. “An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public”

These are great to know. Learn ‘em, practice detecting ‘em, read Demon Haunted World if you haven’t yet.

(via sacca)

Under the title, Trash is Not Trash, photographer Gaby Herbstein worked with illustrator Pablo Bernasconi to come up with this wonderfully whimsical series which asks us to reflect on the importance of recycling and think about what we can do to reduce our ecological footprint. (Ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate.)

fuckyeahexistentialism:

(via sacca)

Manufactoria is a great game. As a person with no programming or computer science backgrounds at all it was a great introduction into the land of programming, and also just an overall great puzzle game.

However, that does not mean it was by any means an easy experience. The steep learning curve and high degree of difficulty on the later levels, combined with the author’s very minimalistic explanations of gameplay and functions, can make this game very off-putting for new players.

From the GameFAQ

Syllabus and info links from MAS.967 - A Survey Seminar and Action Laboratory. Organized by Jay Silver and Eric Rosenbaum of MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten.