Leon Atkinson's Blog, page 23

23andMe drops to $99

For only 99 bucks, it could be fun to see what 23andMe comes up with. Check out Mark Sisson’s Should You Get Your Genome Sequenced? before you order, though.

23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki announces new million customer goal | The 23andMe Blog

Today we’re announcing some big news. I don’t want this moment to go by without a note of gratitude to our customers and those who have been advocates for 23andMe over the years.

We have come a long way together.  Because of you we pioneered the use of personal genetics.  You are helping us establish a new medical era that is defined by wellness, disease prevention, and personalized care.  You also helped us create a novel research platform.  By leveraging online tools, social networking and crowd sourcing, and combining them with genetics, we created a platform that has set the stage to transform the way pharma companies and academics do health and wellness research.

We want to do more.

Ayn Rand chats with Jim Henson

The site does not make this very clear–it’s fiction. It’s still fascinating.

The ARPANET Dialogues » Blog Archive » Vol. IV

17 April 1976 – The transcript presented here records a conversation between four figures from the broad spectrum of culture: puppeteer Jim Henson; Russian-American writer, philosopher and playwright Ayn Rand; painter Sidney Nolan; and artist and musician Yoko Ono. A few months after the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, The Agency’s tests with the ARPANET convened these four individuals, each with a distinct sense of, as well as the potential means for, a competing world-view. These individuals, who cross different hemispheres, were to help with considerations towards the viability of broadly implementing Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.* Please note that the respective computer terminals for each participant were identified by the names of gods from Roman mythology and have here been changed to reflect the actual names of the participants. The application, still in its early stage of development, had limited syntax capability, thus punctuation was limited to the full stop. Also, the original timestamps for each transmission have been removed for the sake of legibility.

Above And Beyond

The newly-hired principal at Tre and Henry’s school has a blog. (+) He shared this video that promotes individualism on the blog, twice. (++) He’s personally teaching a before-school class on programming. (+++) The class was full immediately. (++++)

 

Above And Beyond

Created through collaboration by members of Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the talented folks at FableVision, Above & Beyond is a story about what is possible when communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity take center stage in schools and transform learning opportunities for all kids.Visit www.p21.org, www.p21.org/4Cs and www.fablevisionstudios.com for more info.

Voluntaryist minecraft server

Log into mc.intangir.org from Minecraft and you’ll find a world kept free of authoritarian psychopaths. The kids and I have essentially been doing the same thing with our private server where the motto is “Be peaceful and fill in holes”. It’s been a great tool for us to practice non-violent communication and generally how to cooperate.

There have been opportunities for conflict that lead to intense discussions and then to peaceful resolutions. Likewise, we’ve worked together on several large projects.

I’m looking forward to introducing this public server to my kids.

The Voluntaryist

Q. What is the Voluntaryist website for?

A. This site is intended to promote the philosophy of voluntaryism as it might apply in both the game of Minecraft, and also in real life. This site is also intended to promote Intangir’s Voluntaryist Minecraft server where this philosophy is strongly encouraged and nurtured.

Q. What is Voluntaryism?

A. Voluntaryism is a philosophy which states that all interactions in society should be mutually voluntary, and those actions which are not (coercion) should be abolished. It is a clarification on the concept of anarchy which recognizes that abolishing rulership must necessarily also prohibit the means of rulership: initiation of aggressive force. This concept is used to avoid the assuption that most people jump to upon hearing the word anarchy, which is chaos. A true anarchy (voluntarism) is one which recognizes that all attempts to rule, initiate force, or coercion are violations of human rights and have no place in peaceful civilized society. A simple idea with far reaching implications!

Green Day’s X-Kid video

The entire video is a close shot of a cassette playing.

 

Copyright Gangnam Style

Isn’t it interesting how we see the following pattern appear over and over? Some law is held up as a solution for some problem and ends making it worse. Copyrights help make sure artists make enough money to make more art? Patents encourage innovation? It makes you wonder if there is any government program that isn’t bullshit.

Psy Makes $8.1 Million By Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam Style | Techdirt Lite

A couple of months back, Mike wrote about how Psy’s relaxed attitude to people infringing on his copyright helped turn Gangnam Style into one of the most successful cultural phenomena in recent years, and that includes becoming the most-viewed video on YouTube ever.

Ah yes, the maximalists will retort, this free-and-easy, laid-back approach is all very nice, but it doesn’t put food on his table, does it? If you want to make a living from this stuff, you’ve got to enforce copyright to stop all those freeloaders ruining your business. Well, maybe not:

With one song, 34-year-old Park Jae-sang — better known as PSY — is set to become a millionaire from YouTube ads and iTunes downloads, underlining a shift in how money is being made in the music business. An even bigger dollop of cash will come from TV commercials.

Mike Judge set to skewer the valley

Office Space + Idiocracy = Silicon Valley

Deadline.com » Blog ArchiveHBO Greenlights Comedy Pilot From Mike Judge, ‘King Of The Hill’ Duo & Scott Rudin – Deadline.com

Silicon Valley is set in the high tech gold rush of modern Silicon Valley, where the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success.

The APA is not the only solution

The problem might really be that the APA has no real competition. It’s a monopoly held up by the government, who designates the DSM as the bible for mental health when it gives out payments only for approved diagnostic codes. Clinicians ought to continue to develop alternative methods of diagnosis and treatment. Paired with modern data analysis, we can prove that there’s something better than the existing bureaucracy.

Psychiatry is failing those with personality disorders – New Scientist – New Scientist

A workable diagnostic system is needed, because sticking with the status quo is not an option

IF DOCTORS sent patients with angina home with nothing but a prescription for a painkiller to control chest pain, they would be sued for malpractice. Sadly, that is a fitting analogy for what happens all too often to people with personality disorders.

 

Why do we cry?

A related question answered by Leonard Peikoff was why we cry at joyful occasions. His answer: we perceive the beauty of life in context with the knowledge that it is not always so. If you feel that complex mix of joy and sorrow welling up in the coming weeks, take my advice: let the tears flow. That’s how nature made us.

CultureLab: Tragic tears: Why we are the only animals that cry

WE ARE the only animals who shed tears from emotion. But why? And what parts of the brain govern our impulse to weep? In Why Humans Like to Cry, Michael Trimble looks to neuroscience, art and evolution for answers.

His basic argument is that there is a set of neural systems in the brain that respond selectively to emotional stimuli and, specifically, tragedy. By this, he means the individual experience of loss, whose co-evolution with language and culture led to – or at least aided in – the birth of the art form of the same name, which deals with loss and suffering as essential aspects of humanity.

Your cognitive dissonance makes you vulnerable

If you are living half-consciously, you can expect that the simple act of explaining an argument might change your mind. The solution, of course is to live in full consciousness. But that will require a possibly painful process of weeding out all sources of cognitive dissonance.

Your Beliefs Are Malleable

Many years ago, while teaching my first college level course in Human Sexuality, I was having a bit of difficulty dealing with two students who seemed to always be at each other’s throats. Each time a controversial topic (e.g., abortion, homosexuality, pornography) was covered, their open disagreements seemed to escalate into full blown arguments. After a few weeks of this I’d had enough, and I executed a plan designed to teach them (and the rest of the class) to expand their horizons and to find common ground. I asked all of the students to write a short paragraph expressing their positions on a list of ten sex-related topics, and to turn it in after they had signed it. They were then instructed to write a research paper in which they attempted to support the opposite of their own opinion on one of the topics in the list. This is an old trick, and I expected a bit of resistance and protest, but I had faith that most would follow through and learn from the experience.