Clipmarks | Kore7's clips

QUIZ: What American Accent Do You Have?

Sun, 20 May 2007 17:30:27 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: If you think you don't have an accent, think again. This short quiz is a way to find out which dialect of American English you speak.

Different regional accents become more prevalent in countries at different times throughout the years for various socio-economic and geographical reasons. These accents come to be perceived as "neutral" or "accent-less" by the majority during these times. For a while, the American dialect sometimes called "Standard Midwestern" has dominated but, like accents themselves, this "standard" constantly evolves.

Recently, the spoken aspects of American English have trended westward along with the population center of America. Many features distinct to Northeastern accents (think NYC, Boston) are being replaced in popularity with those from Western accents (think LA) across America. This shift tends to be more prominent the younger the speaker is.

Clip Source: www.gotoquiz.com

What American accent do you have?

To most Americans, an accent is something that only other people have, those other people usually being in New York, Boston, and the South. And of those other people, half of the ones you meet will swear they "don't have an accent."

Well, strictly speaking, the only way to not have an accent is to not speak. If you're from anywhere in the USA you have an accent (which may or may not be the accent of the place you're from). Go through this short quiz and you'll find out just which accent that is.

Tags: america, speech, accent, dialect, linguistics, quiz, fun, northeast, west, vowels

The Fallacy Files

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:50:03 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes
clipper's remarks: I clipped this before, but pop restrictions burried the clip.

In a very naive hope to keep discussions fallacy-free, better the debate and stimulate some self-criticism, I'm re-sharing this with you all.

Anyway, the resource is huge, examples abundant, explications very clear and even etymological grounded.

Clip Source: www.fallacyfiles.org

Go to Main Menu

INDEX

A B C D E F G H I JKL M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ

Clip Source: www.fallacyfiles.org

What are the Fallacy Files?

A collection of named fallacies—such as "ad hominem"—that is, types of bad reasoning which someone has thought distinctive and interesting enough to name and describe. This collection took the form, primarily, of the study and acquisition of books and articles on the named fallacies, especially textbooks and reference books. You can find individual files on the named fallacies via the Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies, or from the alphabetical index in the scroll bar to your left.

A collection of fallacious, or otherwise bad, arguments, that is, examples of reasoning which may commit one or more of the named fallacies under 1, or are bad in some way yet to be classified. This collection took the form of clippings from newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, photocopies of pages of books, and—in a few rare cases—entire articles or books which were rich sources of bad reasoning. I have used selections from my collection as examples in many of the files on named fallacies, and additional examples can be found in the file: Stalking the Wild Fallacy.

Tags: fallacy, logical, discussion, argument, logical fallacy, logic, appeal, argumentum, debate, index, list, rhetoric, science, politics, fallacy files

The Physics of Dance

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:42:24 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Notes from a presentation by physics professor George Gollin on the physical laws which every ballet dancer must eventually master, whether explicitly aware of them or not.

It must be noted that professor Kenneth Laws has written three books on the physics of dance and just had an interesting interview with Studio 360 on the subject.

Clip Source: web.hep.uiuc.edu

Forces sum to zero.

Both forces "point through" the dancer's center of gravity, so torque is zero.

Forces on each dancer sum to zero.

Though some forces are "off-center", the torques also sum to zero.

Smaller floor contact area (en pointe, for example) makes balance more difficult.

Not all positions which are statically balanced can be held in a turn.

Centrifugal forces exert a torque, throwing the dancer off balance. Shift center of gravity to maintain dynamic (but not static) balance

Because of "conservation of angular momentum," you can change the speed of a turn when en pointe by extending or retracting a leg.

You push on the floor one way, the floor pushes back the other way. (You can't do this on a slippery floor!)

Dancers can also perform zero-angular-momentum turns.

Gravity only influences the vertical component of motion, not the horizontal:

Height vs. time is a parabola, while horizontal distance vs. time is a straight line:

The dancer can create an illusion of floating:

Tags: dance, dancers, ballet, physics, gravity, time, torque, force, balance

The Biggest Threat to the West Lies Within Itself, Not with Islam

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:32:52 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Simon Jenkins on threats to peace and democracy.

This defeatism led the American Congress to allow its president to authorise torture and detention without trial in what Senator Robert Byrd called “the slow unravelling of the people’s liberties”. It enabled a British Home Office to curb free speech and habeas corpus. It arms police, fortifies buildings and impedes the free movement of citizens. It makes every Christian suspicious of every Muslim.

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

The biggest threat to the West lies within itself, not with Islam

The chief threat to world security at present lies in the capacity of tiny groups of political Islamists to goad the West into a rolling military retaliation.

Extremists on each side feed off the others’ frenzied scenarios so as to garner money and political support for their respective armies of the night. Each sees the other as a cosmic menace and abandons communal tolerance and peaceful diplomacy to counter it.

To portray Islam as a whole as a concerted threat to western security, and to imply that the West’s democratic institutions and freedoms are not proof against that threat, is absurd and close to treason. Then to demand that western freedoms be dismantled and stored away for the duration of a “war on terror” is to wave the flag of surrender.

I believe in the robustness of the democracies created in the West over the past half-century. I am not sure that our leaders do.

Tags: terrorism, islam, christianity, religion, freedom, war, peace, democracy, west, torture

How to Brood

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:35:24 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Tom Chiarella might be my favorite author to clip, not only because of the originality of his topics but because of his pithy, honest terseness and his wry approach to modern life.

Now pardon me while I mull over what all this implies about me, Clipmarks, and the entire history of humanity alone in a corner somewhere....

Some people are smart. They stay away. You might call this respect. Others are pathological in their worry. "Why so glum?" they ask. Or "How you doing, big guy?" And just because they won't honor my need to be alone in public, to stretch around inside the muscle of my worry, or respect the fact that a smile is sometimes just a tiresome, mawkish mask, I flat-out lie. I tell them I'm doing fine. Jim Dandy. Then I smile and wait for a good moment to turn back to my troubles -- which now include the fact that some jackass thinks it's okay to call me "big guy."

Clip Source: www.esquire.com

It's not quite moping, it's not quite dwelling. It's brooding. And sometimes it's exactly what a man needs to do.

I'd give you a list of my troubles, but then you'd e-mail me solutions, and I hate that. See, I think about my troubles. I sit in the corner of a coffee shop and think as hard as I can. Sometimes I'll do it at my desk or as I'm walking. I shut the world out. I brood. And I like it.

When people approach me, I stare at them in the most neutral way I can. Blank. This seems to offend some, mostly those who see every moment as some light socket of human engagement that you'd better darned-well stay plugged in to if you want to get the most out of life. But a deep brood lets me sink the grappling hooks into jealousy, anger, and bitterness before I speak again. New-agers tell you this stuff eats you up, so give me time to let it go, my way. I don't need forever. Just a few minutes.

Tags: brood, men, advice, life, howto, think, deep, thoughts

Mapping Kerouac: The Grammatical Artwork of Stefanie Posavec

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:14:40 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Posavec dissects every word, phrase, sentence, and subject of Kerouac's On the Road to invent new ways of looking at the familiar masterpiece. The diagrams make for beautiful art in their own right. (See source for high-res pictures.)

In her structure analysis, each chapter explodes in a color-coded starburst of topical breakdowns. At a glance, you can see Kerouac's focus wander from the sketches of local life in the beginning, to depictions of work and travel in the middle, with women and the subject of love dominating the latter chapters.

The comparative sentence diagrams are what really drew me in. It's fascinating to behold an entire literary work all at once on one page. What's more, Kerouac's casual prose style can be differentiated immediately from the stately, grandiose writing of Faulkner, not to mention the terse, claustrophobic style of Orwell's fiction.

Literary reductionism at its most fun and beautiful.

Clip Source: www.notcot.com

Stefanie’s maps capture something above and beyond that of the others. Rather than mapping physical geography, her maps capture regularities and patterns within a literary space.

The maps visually represent the rhythm and structure of Kerouac’s literary space, creating works that are not only gorgeous from the point of view of graphic design, but also exhibit scientific rigor and precision in their formulation: meticulous scouring the surface of the text, highlighting and noting sentence length, prosody and themes, Posavec’s approach to the text is not unlike that of a surveyor.

Tags: art, artwork, literature, kerouac, grammar, map

The Soul of the Commuter

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 19:28:08 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Roughly one out of every six American workers commutes more than forty-five minutes, each way. People travel between counties the way they used to travel between neighborhoods.

Until recently, I was one of these Americans. What started out as an invigorating drive through new urban environs eventually became repetitious and wearisome. Even though I was careful to fill my time with music, podcasts, audio-books, or phone calls, I don't miss this daily aggravation at all now, instead embracing the freedom public transportation confers. (Trains can be your friends...who knew? .)

The mental relaxation that comes with not being on constant heightened alert for all the unpredictable hazards is priceless and has returned a small measure of serenity to my life I thought I had lost.

What do clippers think? Are extended commutes worth their return? Given its finite supply, shouldn't most of us be valuing our precious time higher?

Clip Source: www.newyorker.com

Some take on long commutes by choice, and some out of necessity, although the difference between one and the other can be hard to discern. A commute is a distillation of a life’s main ingredients, a product of fundamental values and choices. And time is the vital currency: how much of it you spend—and how you spend it—reveals a great deal about how much you think it is worth.

Commuting is an exercise in repetition. The will to efficiency varies, but it expresses itself in the hardening of commuters’ habits, as they seek to alleviate the dissipation of time and sanity. Some people travel with coffee; they have a place to buy it, a preferred approach to not spilling it, a manner of discarding the cup.

You can spot the novice: he’s rifling through pockets in search of his ticket, coffee bubbling up out the pinprick holes of his flattop lid, leading him to wonder how it is possible for the coffee to be leaking when the top is on tight. He has no strategy for newsprint stain.

Tags: commute, career, work, sprawl, urban, cities, transportation, time, economics, planning

Clipmarks + Frappr = Show us where you are!

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 04:11:04 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: You know it had to happen sooner or later! Visit

http://www.frappr.com/clipmarks

and represent your city on the worldwide Clipmarks map. It's fun!

Clip Source: www.frappr.com

ClipMarks
(link) http://www.frappr.com/clipmarks

Map

Satellite

Hybrid

Tags: clipmarks, clipper, clippers, frappr, map, town, hometown, location, world

How To Think

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:52:35 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: With the internet saturating ever deeper into our busy lives, humans are navigating uncharted informational and attentional waters these days. MIT neuroengineer, Ed Boyden, put together these rules of thumb to managing brain resources in an age of complexity.

7. Make your mistakes quickly. You may mess things up on the first try, but do it fast, and then move on. Document what led to the error so that you learn what to recognize, and then move on. Get the mistakes out of the way. As Shakespeare put it, "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

(Via Kottke.)

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

1. Synthesize new ideas constantly. Never read passively. Annotate, model, think, and synthesize while you read

2. Learn how to learn (rapidly). One of the most important talents for the 21st century is the ability to learn almost anything instantly, so cultivate this talent.

3. Work backward from your goal. Or else you may never get there. If you work forward, you may invent something profound--or you might not.

4. Always have a long-term plan. Even if you change it every day. The act of making the plan alone is worth it.

6. Collaborate.

8. As you develop skills, write up best-practices protocols. That way, when you return to something you've done, you can make it routine. Instinctualize conscious control.

9. Document everything obsessively. If you don't record it, it may never have an impact on the world.

10. Keep it simple. If it looks like something hard to engineer, it probably is. If you can spend two days thinking of ways to make it 10 times simpler, do it.

Tags: howto, guide, advice, think, brain, mind, goals, life

Political Junkies: Why it Feels Good to Be an Extremist

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:28:12 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: In The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Western summarizes fMRI experiments exploring the neuro-psychology of systematic bias and rationalization in the brains of political extremists. Finding ways to dismiss contradictory evidence triggers pleasant emotional releases in partisans' brains, eventually becoming a pleasurable, learned behavior.

Once partisans had found a way to reason to false conclusions, not only did neural circuits involved in negative emotions turn off, but circuits involved in positive emotions turned on.

The partisan brain didn't seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating reward circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased "reasoning."

These reward circuits overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their "fix," giving new meaning to the term political junkie.
Clip Source: daily.sightline.org
How is it that even smart people can ignore a pile of evidence that contradicts their deeply-held beliefs. Why is it I get a rush when I'm making fun of a politician I don't agree with -- even if it's his flubs or quirks I'm mocking, not necessarily his ideas?
According to the research of Drew Western, political partisans -- and especially the smart, well-informed ones -- not only feel better when their brains downplay contradictory political information, they actually get a little emotional "high" when the brain (unconsciously) rejects evidence that contradicts their deeply held political beliefs.
In a series of brain scans of political partisans asked to consider contradictory statements by the politicians they supported, Western found that the brain reverted to the comfort zone of its long-held biases -- and doing so actually made people feel good.

Tags: science, politics, neuroscience, psychology, brain, reason, extremism, bias, beliefs

Repetition Makes False Beliefs Permanent

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 03:24:18 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Politicians and other unscrupulous types have long exploited what psychological studies are now confirming: due to the neurophysiology of the learning process, simple repetitive association between two concepts is enough to make false propositions "feel" true and well-supported.

Worse, after enough exposure to such associations, subsequent denials can strengthen the perception of the falsehood instead of weakening it. (This is a major reason why the stigma of a false accusation can persist even after innocence is proven.)

Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain's subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach

Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious "rules of thumb" that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

The experiments do not show that denials are completely useless; if that were true, everyone would believe the myths. But the mind's bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.

The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people's minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.

Tags: politics, psychology, bias, manipulation, urban legends, beliefs, brain, cognitive science, myths, learning

Understanding Evolution

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 19:54:17 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad
clipper's remarks: A great resource

Clip Source: evolution.berkeley.edu

| |

What is evolution and how does it work?
Detailed explanations of the mechanisms of evolution and the history of life on Earth

Includes: Examples of evolution, Genetics, History of life on Earth, Macroevolution, Microevolution, Natural selection, Speciation ...

How does evolution impact my life?
The relevance of evolutionary theory to our everyday lives

Includes: Agriculture, Conservation, Medicine ...

What is the evidence for evolution?
Multiple lines of scientific evidence relating to evolution

Includes: Homology and analogy ...

What is the history of evolutionary theory?
The history of ideas, research, and contributors in the study of evolution

Looking for information on controversies in the public arena relating to evolution? See our frequently-asked questions.

Where species come from - November 2006
Cries of "Save the rainforest! Save the coral reefs!" may rally the conservation movement — but what about the arctic tundra, or the semiarid desert? Are those ecosystems unthreatened? Far from it; ecosystems all around the world and at every latitude are endangered in some way by human activity. So why do rainforests and reefs get so much attention?

Read the whole story to see the evolution connection >>

Phylogenetic systematics, a.k.a. evolutionary trees
All life on Earth is united by evolutionary history; we are all evolutionary cousins — twigs on the tree of life. Phylogenetic systematics is the formal name for the field within biology that reconstructs evolutionary history and studies the patterns of relationships among organisms.

Evolution 101
This in-depth, multi-part course takes you through evolutionary theory and mechanisms, from definitions to details, natural selection to genetic drift, mutations to punctuated equilibrium.

Tags: evolution, science

How to Write Aphorisms

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:43:09 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Delacroix, Eugene (France, 1798-1863)

To be a poet at twenty is to be twenty; to be a poet at forty is to be a poet.

According to James Geary, editor of the compendium Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists, a truely memorable, quotable aphorism satisfies five laws:

It must be brief. It must be definitive. It must be personal — that's the difference between an aphorism and a proverb. It must be philosophical — that's the difference between an aphorism and a platitude, which is not philosophical....

And the fifth law is it must have a twist. And that can be either a linguistic twist or a psychological twist or even a twist in logic that somehow flips the reader into a totally unexpected place.

Now you know, so get to work!

Clip Source: www.npr.org

Hubbard, Frank McKinney (United States, 1868-1930)

A good listener is usually thinking about something else.

Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.

Roosevelt, Eleanor (United States, 1884-1962)

A woman is like a teabag — only in hot water do you realize how strong she is.

Tutu, Desmond (South Africa, 1931- )

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

Bunsch, Karol (Poland, 1898-1987)

Honest conceit is better than false modesty.

Morandotti, Alessandro (Italy, 1909-1979)

The kiss is an ingenious invention that prevents lovers from uttering too many inanities.

You recognize a true friend by how he lies to you.

Chekhov, Anton (Russia, 1860-1904)

Any idiot can face a crisis. It is this day-to-day living that wears you out.

Sato, Issai (Japan, 1772-1859)

There are always people who make big declarations. These are always people of little consequence.

Tags: aphorisms, writing, history, quotes, pithy, how-to, be famous!

Why Your Decisions are Always Right

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 09:56:20 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Why are humans so good at fooling themselves? now thats a question!

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Life is full of choices, sometimes too many choices.

Should you buy the SUV or the gas-saving hybrid car? Should you have the artery-clogging cheeseburger or the lean turkey sandwich? Sometimes we make the "right" choices, but other times we make the choices of fools. Oddly enough, those foolish choices don’t usually bother us for long. Instead, they are quickly rationalized until the guilt goes away.

Why are humans so good at fooling themselves?

Our brains, then, weren't so much designed to make choices as to pretend, no matter what, that we made the right choices. The goal seems to be mental peace; as we all know too well, the time from bad choice to righteousness is very uncomfortable and so the sooner we justify our decisions, the better.

This kind of shilly-shallying is, in fact, so prevalent in human behavior that it must have some evolutionary basis. That is, it must be advantageous. Embarrassing and annoying, but advantageous. How?

Tags: life, choices, evolution, peace, mind, rationalization, brain

25 Greatest Science Books of All Time

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 02:26:37 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

The Origin of Species (1859)

Darwin's masterwork is, undeniably, The Origin of Species, in which he introduced his theory of evolution by natural selection. Prior to its publication, the prevailing view was that each species had existed in its current form since the moment of divine creation and that humans were a privileged form of life, above and apart from nature. Darwin's theory knocked us from that pedestal. Wary of a religious backlash, he kept his ideas secret for almost two decades while bolstering them with additional observations and experiments. The result is an avalanche of detail—there seems to be no species he did not contemplate—thankfully delivered in accessible, conversational prose. A century and a half later, Darwin's paean to evolution still begs to be heard: "There is grandeur in this view of life," he wrote, that "from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
Clip Source: discover.com

1. and 2. The Voyage of the Beagle (1845) and The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin [tie]

3. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) by Isaac Newton (1687)

4. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei (1632)

5. De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres) by Nicolaus Copernicus (1543)

6. Physica (Physics) by Aristotle (circa 330 B.C.)

7. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius (1543)

8. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein (1916)

Clip Source: discover.com
9. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)
10. One Two Three . . . Infinity by George Gamow (1947)

11. The Double Helix by James D. Watson (1968)
12. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger (1944)
13. The Cosmic Connection by Carl Sagan (1973)

14. The Insect Societies by Edward O. Wilson (1971)
15. The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg (1977)
16. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
17. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould (1981)

18. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks (1985)
Clip Source: discover.com
19. The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1814)
20. The Feynman Lectures on Physics by* Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands (1963)

21. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred C. Kinsey et al. (1948)
22. Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey (1983)

23. Under a Lucky Star by Roy Chapman Andrews (1943)
24. Micrographia by Robert Hooke (1665)

25. Gaia by James Lovelock (1979)
Honorable Mentions

Tags: science, book, books, reading, best of, list, history, literature, discover, darwin, newton, galileo

Clipmarks | Kore7's clips

QUIZ: What American Accent Do You Have?

What American accent do you have?

The Fallacy Files

Go to Main Menu

INDEX

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

What are the Fallacy Files?

The Physics of Dance

The Biggest Threat to the West Lies Within Itself, Not with Islam

The biggest threat to the West lies within itself, not with Islam

How to Brood

Mapping Kerouac: The Grammatical Artwork of Stefanie Posavec

The Soul of the Commuter

Clipmarks + Frappr = Show us where you are!

How To Think

Political Junkies: Why it Feels Good to Be an Extremist

Repetition Makes False Beliefs Permanent

Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach

Understanding Evolution

How to Write Aphorisms

Why Your Decisions are Always Right

25 Greatest Science Books of All Time

A B C D E F G H I JKL M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ