how to approach self experimentation to make it more like science

ryan nails it again

What distinguishes a great mnemonist, I learned, is the ability to create lavish images on the fly, to paint in the mind a scene so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten.

critical examination of ill-supported assertions takes a lot more time than making the assertions in the first place;

Finally, don't take anything I'm saying to mean you're an idiot. This is just how things work when you're working in a field where knowledge and information are important. You get new information and then you're wrong. Oh well. It's not that big of a deal.

more important to keep an open mind about a goal than to be determined

patients need to *believe* they will be helped

Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve. Although mathematics will help you arrive at elegant and efficient methods, the use of a computer and programming skills will be required to solve most problems.

vegan diet, and barefoot running

alain de botton's heroes

"What if, after every toss, we had the option of not counting it? What if we were allowed to simply discard every toss that came up tails? Now, given the ability to select, how long would it take to rack up a hundred heads in a row? About two hundred throws."

consensus views are fragile. takes this angle on climate change

the science behind dopamine

os x charting software, freeware

On the one hand, while it’s probably not enormously important whether most people have a handle on the mind-body problem, a democracy can’t make ethics and political philosophy the exclusive province of cloistered academics. On the other hand, I look at the online public sphere and too often tend to find myself thinking: “Discourse at this level can’t possibly accomplish anything beyond giving people some simulation of justification for what they wanted to believe in the first place.” This is, needless to say, not a problem limited to philosophy. And I think it may contribute to the fragmentation and political polarization we see online, which are generally explained in sociological terms as an “echo chamber” effect or “groupthink.”

"It is not about managing research, it is about how you individually do your research. I could give a talk on the other subject - but it's not, it's about you. I'm not talking about ordinary run-of-the-mill research; I'm talking about great research. "

using mind enhancing drugs to improve performance

Their desire wasn’t defeated—it was merely forgotten. “If you’re thinking about the marshmallow and how delicious it is, then you’re going to eat it,” Mischel says. “The key is to avoid thinking about it in the first place.” ... “Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.”