I declared podcasts bankruptcy and recovered with a better curated subscription list 🎧👍
Microposts
A mind bending discussion on the Making Sense podcast: what we perceive as reality is only a “user interface wrapper” that natural selection has created to enhance our fitness. It has no necessary mapping to the truth of reality.
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is an imaginative literary romance novel wrapped in a time travel espionage plot. I really enjoyed it, though it was not at all like my usual sci-fi reading 📚
Gamer
I’ve just bumped up my monthly support of CANADALAND to the next tier. Plenty of great content that I’m happy to pay for.
Great fun at the Axe Pancreatic Cancer fundraiser last night! Thanks to everyone that joined us to raise money to support two promising clinical trials.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 →
A cool visualization and exploration of the network of scientific papers
As a daily AeroPress user, I enjoyed watching this documentary on its origin and culture
I finally got my flu shot and hope you did too 😷🦠
A great conversation between Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins on the Making Sense podcast. Nice to hear Dawkins talking about evolution again.
Several catchy songs on Joseph Arthur’s new album Come Back World
Recursion by Blake Crouch is an entertaining time-travel, multiverse story. Distinct from his previous Dark Matter novel, but with the right kinds of echos 📚
With an agent based model you can explore interesting scenarios. Our latest post models the 🇨🇦 election with another Liberal scandal, new Conservatives climate change policy, or proportional representation. The results are not obvious, showing benefits of non-linear modelling.
At my son’s soccer game, but I’m not that familiar with the game. Anyone know what position he’s playing in this picture?
Axe Pancreatic Cancer is back! Join us to throw axes, drink beer and wine, and raise money for pancreatic cancer research. Early bird tickets are sold out. So, don’t wait!
We’ve been using our agent-based model to analyze the upcoming Federal election here in Canada. Now that we’ve generated our predictions, we’re going to explore how best to explain the outcomes. 🗳🇨🇦
My “Best Dad” mug has been recalled. Apparently it may break when filled with hot liquid, which is exactly its function. Hopefully this isn’t some metaphor for my parenting
Stranger Things season 3 is fun with 80s nostalgia and familiar characters. Not as delightfully creepy as season 1 though.
Nick Cave’s song Hollywood is quite potent, particularly given the recent death of his teenage son 😢🎧
Thanks to Run the Jewels 3 for providing a much-needed boost on today’s run 🏃♂️
Fall has arrived
Thanksgiving weekend begins with the traditional excessively long and slow drive on the 401
With Category Theory, Mathematics Escapes From Equality - Quanta Magazine
Ultimately, you will build an infinite tower of equivalences between equivalences. By considering the entire edifice, you generate a full perspective on whatever objects you’ve chosen to represent as points on that sphere.
Thanks to a recommendation from @verybadwizards I read and very much enjoyed Ted Chiang’s short story “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom”. Plenty of deep implications for free will and morality in a fascinating story.
After 20 years and four cars, the Darwin Fish on the back of our car has disappeared. Hopefully it wasn’t ripped off by a zealot!
Replacements are surprisingly expensive (~$50). But the car looks wrong without one.
An unexpected and welcome surprise in the latest Byword update #rstats
I enjoyed The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. Very inventive, though definitely some grim parts, as you might expect for the second book in a trilogy. The dialogue can be a bit clunky, so the emphasis is on the science. 📚
As Canada’s federal election campaign gets increasingly ridiculous, I’d like the political parties to know that I’ll vote for whoever has the most credible and ambitious climate change plan. This includes a carbon price, otherwise it isn’t credible 🇨🇦 🗳
Wednesday, September 25, 2019 →
Two great Mindscape episodes in a row about climate change overcast.fm/+S_7kXRI8…
I enjoyed Borderline by Mishell Baker. A good mix of fantasy and realism with compelling characters 📚