Charlie Rose Brain Series : Depression

http://www.hulu.com/watch/366103/charlie-rose-brain-series-2-depression

 

if you don't go through the whole thing - just listen to the initial bit by the author - andrew solomon. he is superbly eloquent ....  and accurate.

 

 

The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.

 

-Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)

"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I am indebted to her for."

-- W.C. Fields, in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break

Two liners

 The difference between in-laws and outlaws?
Outlaws are wanted.
 
  Alcohol is a perfect solvent:
It dissolves marriages, families and careers.

  A fine is a tax for doing wrong.
A tax is a fine for doing well.

  Archeologist: someone whose career lies in ruins.
  An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have:
The older she gets, the more interested he becomes in her.

  There are two kinds of people who don't say much:
those who are quiet and those who talk a lot.

  They say that alcohol kills slowly.
So what? Who's in a hurry ?

  Alcohol and calculus don't mix.
Never drink and derive

  One nice thing about egotists:
They don't talk about other people.

  There was a man who said,
"I never knew what happiness was until I got married...
and then it was too late

  Before marriage, a man yearns for the woman he loves.
After marriage, the 'Y' becomes silent.

Re: Vi Hart on Pi

On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 9:40 AM, Matthew Creedican <creedima@gmail.com> wrote:

fun math videos..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7vhMMXagQ

Nice ! You also should see her video on drawing elephants in class ... it's fun too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK5Z709J2eo

There was also a good writeup on vi hart in the nytimes (i think) a few months ago. Worth reading.

NYTimes: Learning From the Spurned and Tipsy Fruit Fly

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shantanu Singh

From The New York Times:

Learning From the Spurned and Tipsy Fruit Fly

A new study finds that young male fruit flies that have been rejected
by females apparently self-medicate just like humans do.

http://nyti.ms/yL9qGC

Nani Palkhiwala wrote on 16 January 1984.

“The picture that emerges is that of a great country in a state of moral decay. The immediate future seems to belong to the doomsayers rather than to cheer mongers. We suffer from a fatty degeneration of conscience, and the malady seems to be not only persistent but prone to aggravation. The life style of too many politicians and businessmen bears eloquent testimony to the truth of dictum that the single minded pursuit of money impoverishes the mind, shrivels the imagination and desiccates the heart. The tricolour fluttering all over the country is black, red and scarlet – black money, red tape and scarlet corruption.”

Confirmation bias

Another (biased) data-point feeding into my extreme suspicions and
distaste for the field of psychology as it is practiced by the
majority of half-assed practitioners ... it is by far one of the
biggest frauds of the modern era in medicine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/opinion/i-had-asperger-syndrome-briefly.html?src=me&ref=general

His name is James Bond

Hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT8lJEgEuTk&feature=colike

Pit-bull reviewing, the pursuit of perfection and the victims of success

(Yet) Another editorial decrying the excesses (or insufficiencies) of the peer review system:

 

 

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/9/84

 

The main thesis of this article is that :

 

the success of a postdoctoral Fellow in finding a good academic position is perceived to depend, and to a large extent probably does depend, on his or her having published a paper in one of the three highest-profile general biology journals; but getting a paper into one of those journals can be extraordinarily difficult because - it is widely felt - referees seem to see it as their responsibility to insist on time-consuming additions and revisions, and editors are unable or unwilling to judge for themselves the justice of the referees' advice.

 

 

 

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

-- Samuel Beckett

 

The tell tale heart

The spookiness of this Edgar Allen Poe story is enhanced many-fold by
the haunting narration of the inimitable James Mason in this animated
short.

http://vimeo.com/12254194

Falling Man

An interesting "biography" about Manmohan Singh and his present bundle of woes:

http://www.caravanmagazine.in/PrintThisStory.aspx?StoryId=1103

Beautiful graphic

Aside from the content of this graphic – the info-vis aspect of it really caught my attention. It succinctly and clearly conveys so much information. Truly – this is an case of when a graphic can be worth a thousand words.

They laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian. They're not laughing now.

 

-Bob Monkhouse, comedian (1928-2003)

Mark Twain's autobiography

One can only hope that the autobiography is as witty as this review of it ...

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/At-Grandpa-Twain-s-knee-7055