Yet more music reviews (sorry), metaphor construction, cognitive bias, an atlas of the universe, the RIOT Wheel, McGrath on fan-fic, Rucker on biotech…

• 1 – Built To Spill – You In Reverse

  Album review

  (tags: paulgraven review music)

• 2 – Silversun Pickups – Carnavas

  Album review – an exceptionally good album, too, if I may say so.

  (tags: paulgraven review music)

• 3 – Do Your Metaphors Rock?

  “…it may take you longer to nail the perfect clarity-inducing or objection-slaying metaphor than it takes to write the entire rest of the piece. But done correctly, it’s the element that will make the most difference.”

  (tags: mental image craft metaphor communication language writing)

• 4 – 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong

  “A cognitive bias is something that our minds commonly do to distort our own view of reality. Here are the 26 most studied and widely accepted cognitive biases.”

  (tags: thinking rhetoric reasoning philosophy phenomenon perception logic learning knowledge fallacies decisions cognition bias)

• 5 – The RIOT Wheel – Single-Wheeled Vehicle

  I cannot possibly explain how desperately I want one of these.

  (tags: design project engineering transport Wheel RIOT vehicle wheeled single steampunk)

• 6 – An Atlas of The Universe

  “There are nine main maps on this web page … The first map shows the nearest stars and then the other maps slowly expand out until we have reached the scale of the entire visible universe.” Reminds me of Elite.

  (tags: maps universe atlas cosmology astronomy space)

• 7 – Fan fiction and the needs it serves

  “While I no longer make or read fan-fic I can see positives for both those who do write it … and those who originate the material … and few, if any, drawbacks if the fan-fiction is restricted to a non-commercial basis.”

  (tags: property intellectual IP copyright culture creativity writing fan-fic fiction fan)

• 8 – Moral Reasoning Done To Justify Intuitions?

  “People choose a political party which seems to share some values and styles of cognition. Then they demonstrate loyalty to their political tribe by subscribing to its myths.” Very interesting – this’ll cause some fireworks, I’ll bet.

  (tags: morality liberal conservative politics decisions justification reasoning processing moral research psychology)

• 9 – 28 New Exoplanets Announced

  “…it shouldn’t be neglected that a rocky place with high water content, discovered through a transit of a ‘hot Neptune,’ is an exciting reminder that the essentials for life are likely widespread.”

  (tags: water atmosphere Gliese formation theory discovery exoplanets planets extrasolar science astronomy space)

• 10 – Essay: Our Synthetic Futures (Rudy Rucker)

  “Hipsters will install living tattoo colonies of algae under their skin. Punk rockers can get a shocking dog-collar effect by grafting on a spiky necklace of extra fingers with colored nails.” Rudy Rucker FTW.

  (tags: biotech futurism writer author sf scifi fiction technology science biology synthetic essay Rucker Rudy)

• 11 – Blacktop Mourning – No Regret

  Album review

  (tags: paulgraven review music)

• 12 – Cephalic Carnage – Xenosapien

  Album review

  (tags: paulgraven review music)

• 13 – Man Must Die – The Human Condition

  Album review

  (tags: paulgraven review music)