ACLU visualized information regarding Guantanamo:

Don’t click if you just ate, or intend to eat in the next hour or so.

Randolph Nesse, a wonderful scientist who together with George Williams founded the field of darwinian medicine (evolutionary medicine), gave a talk at “Evolutionary Foundations for Medicine and Public Health: Focus on Infection and Cancer”, a course that was offered from August 6-10, 2012 at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine.

In his talk 25 minute talk, he tackles a wide range of examples of questions that evolutionary medicine can potentially answer, and related methodological issues we face. Good introduction into the field if you’re interested, and quite closely connected to evolutionary psychology, especially evolutionary psychopathology (which, I guess, could translate into darwinian psychiatry).

Neulich, im Büro …

… not.

Oliver Sacks, a brilliant neurologist and writer, published a little text in the NYT about turning 80. Inspiring and a great read!

… At nearly 80, with a scattering of medical and surgical problems, none disabling, I feel glad to be alive — “I’m glad I’m not dead!” sometimes bursts out of me when the weather is perfect. (This is in contrast to a story I heard from a friend who, walking with Samuel Beckett in Paris on a perfect spring morning, said to him, “Doesn’t a day like this make you glad to be alive?” to which Beckett answered, “I wouldn’t go as far as that.”) I am grateful that I have experienced many things — some wonderful, some horrible — and that I have been able to write a dozen books, to receive innumerable letters from friends, colleagues and readers, and to enjoy what Nathaniel Hawthorne called “an intercourse with the world.”

I am sorry I have wasted (and still waste) so much time; I am sorry to be as agonizingly shy at 80 as I was at 20; I am sorry that I speak no languages but my mother tongue and that I have not traveled or experienced other cultures as widely as I should have done …

Link of the day: a (pretty much complete) taxonomy of logical fallacies. Very much recommended!

Ultracrepidarianism:

“The habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one’s knowledge.”

The term draws from a famous comment purportedly made by Apelles, a famous Greek artist, to a shoemaker who presumed to criticise his painting.

The Latin phrase, “Sutor, ne ultra crepidam”, literally translates into “Shoemaker, not above the sandal”, and is used to warn people to avoid passing judgment beyond their expertise.

- Source 1, Source 2

Drawings of ultracrepidarianism and other lovely terms like

• Recumbentibus—A knockout punch, either verbal or physical.
• Acersecomic—A person whose hair has never been cut.
• Harmartia—The character flaw or error of a tragic hero.
• Jettatura—The casting of an evil eye.
• Pogonotrophy—The act of cultivating, or growing and grooming, a mustache, beard, sideburns or other facial hair.
• Ostentiferious—Bring omens or unnatural or supernatural manisfestations.
• Scripturient—Possessing a violent desire to write.

can be found here.

Chris Godfrey, the VFX (visual effects) supervisor of the recently published movie “The Great Gatsby” posted a 5-minute “before and after” video on Vimeo. It’s fantastic what you can do today with CGI (computer generated imagery) …

(Also, the soundtrack of the movie is absolutely brilliant!)

“On tuesday the 25th of June, to celebrate the 110th birthday of George Orwell, surveillance cameras in the center of the city of Utrecht were decorated with colorful party hats!”

Happy birthday, George.

( More pictures at the Project homepage )

IRONY (n.) – dropping your IPhone in Apple juice.

INTERNET (n.) – where grammar goes to die.

THERE (n.) – they same thing as “their” or “they’re”, especially if you’re an idiot.

LAUGHTER (n.) – when a smile has an orgasm.

Source: theberry.com