Eclectic Living
The last time I wrote a post, I was getting ready to embark on an 11-day trip to Scotland to film a movie with my brother and a friend. As it turns out, shooting a feature-length film in 11 days in a foreign land is challenging. But it was also an incredible experience, which I'll document... Continue Reading →
Food is a problem for a good chunk of the planet. There are over 800 million undernourished people in the world, and millions more that have other forms of malnutrition. According to Mark Bittman, the problem is more one of poverty than of a lack of food. Maybe this is true, but almost all of the potential... Continue Reading →
We've spent a fair amount of time (too much?) discussing the plight of lab mice, so it's time to give the lab rat its due. Rats are amazing little critters, and they have a lot to tell us about ourselves, especially if we subject them to torturous trials and tribulations. In a recent study, rats... Continue Reading →
2014 was the year of self-tracking for me. I created a mood tracking spreadsheet (download it for free), to which I also added my data from MyFitnessPal. Now the results are in, and what they reveal will shock you (not so much). The primary purpose of building my mood tracking contraption was to see which variables in my life... Continue Reading →
How much does language shape culture? Does English lead to more efficiency because of how precise it can be (with, by some estimates, more than twice as many words as the next verbose language)? Or does English delay learning because of its Byzantine and vermicular rules?* Is Spanish the opposite because of its relatively straightforward structure?... Continue Reading →
It appears the folks at the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee have been frequenting Poppa's Cottage, and taking our advice to heart (so to speak). Their new guidelines have finally eased some of the former restrictions on fat and cholesterol, and have more harshly implicated simple carbs and sugar (a.k.a. yayo) in our growing (literally) health... Continue Reading →
As mentioned in a recent post, we mostly-hairless apes are genetically sucky actors when it comes to economics. In many ways, we display similar irrational behavior to our relatives the capuchin monkeys. Capuchins, like us, don't want to give up something we already have, even for more than we would be willing to pay for... Continue Reading →
"I think we have reason to believe that the mind is equipped with a battery of emotions, drives, and faculties for reasoning and communicating, and that they have a common logic across cultures, are difficult to erase or redesign from scratch, were shaped by natural selection acting over the course of human evolution, and owe... Continue Reading →
"War, unh, Good god, y'all, What is it good for?" Well, apparently we have an answer to that question now. War is good for getting more cows, which is of course good for getting more women, which is essential to maxing out how many babies you sire. And from a woman's perspective, hooking up with... Continue Reading →
“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them - the starry heavens above and the moral law within.” -Immanuel Kant Have you ever been awestruck? It's a truly palpable feeling, hence the bolt-of-lightning idiom often associated with it. Awe is often accompanied... Continue Reading →
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