Lecture to myself

Over the past few weeks, I’ve experienced a string of financial and personal set-backs. These setbacks include various major car repair bills, some aches and pains, a minor auto accident (no injuries), and just when I was resigning myself to simply pay the bills and deal with the aches and pains, my iPhone fell out of its holster at the grocery store tonight. I made a call while in the store, then noticed that I didn’t have my phone when I got into my car. I scoured the parking lot with a flashlight, then retraced all of my steps within the store. No phone could be found. The store employees helped out, and then didn’t find anything either. The off-duty cop said to consider it stolen—the crooks remove the sim cards and sell the phones. I was angry tonight, because I was obsessed on the obvious point that some bastard stole my phone instead of turning it in. That is also a rather narrow view of justice, I’ll admit. Who knows what kind of torment the iPhone thief experienced. Maybe he (I’ll assume it was a he) was born into an extremely shitty family and never recovered from that. Not that some people don’t show extraordinary resilience, but these relatively rare exceptions don’t mean that we should expect extraordinary accomplishments from most ordinary people. But I digress. [more . . . ]

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Comprehensive list of cognitive biases

The next time someone mentions that humans are "rational" you might want to refer them to Wikipedia's list of dozens of cognitive biases. How handy to have all of these biases listed in one place. The list includes each of the following biases, each of them liked to specific Wikipedia articles. Decision-making and behavioral biases Bandwagon effect Base rate fallacy Bias blind spot Choice-supportive bias Confirmation bias Congruence bias Contrast effect Denomination effect Distinction bias Endowment effect Experimenter's or Expectation bias Extraordinarity bias Focusing effect Framing Hyperbolic discounting Illusion of control Impact bias Information bias Interloper effect Irrational escalation Just-world phenomenon Loss aversion Mere exposure effect Money illusion Moral credential effect Need for Closure Negativity bias Neglect of probability Normalcy bias Omission bias Outcome bias Planning fallacy Pseudocertainty effect Reactance Restraint bias Selective perception Semmelweis reflex Status quo bias Von Restorff effect Wishful thinking Zero-risk bias Biases in probability and belief Ambiguity effect Anchoring effect Attentional bias Authority bias [More . . . ]

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The chase is on

This video shows a neutrophil, a type of white blood cell, chasing down and engulfing a bacteria in the midst of field of red blood cells. Amazing agility, considering that the neutrophil is a single-celled organism! Visit this post to go one even one step deeper. Or check out "Powers of Ten" for ramping up or down in your search for awe.

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Significance of the leaked cables of Ambassador Eikenberry

At Democracy Now, Amy Goodman recently interviewed Michael Hastings, who authored the extensive article the resulted in President Obama's firing of General McChrystal. In that interview, Hastings urged the audience to take the time to read cables by U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, which were leaked to the New York Times:

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about Karl Eikenberry. This is a significant split between McChrystal and the ambassador, also a general or retired general, Ambassador Eikenberry, and the cables that he sent that Dan Ellsberg has called the new Pentagon Papers that he sent to Hillary Clinton but were leaked.

MICHAEL HASTINGS: I think this is the most fascinating development and the guy whose job is sort of the most in the balance right now is Ambassador Eikenberry, because it’s known as General McChrystal’s strategy, but guess who was also writing that strategy? General Petraeus. It was a devastating critique. I recommend anyone to go back and read those cables to see probably what was the most prescient and scathing critique of the strategy we’re pursuing and the leak angered McChrystal’s team beyond belief.

You can read those cables at this web page of the New York Times, along with this further description by the NYT. Ambassador Eikenberry's comments constitute a blistering and candid criticism of the policy the United States continues to pursue:
In November 2009, Karl W. Eikenberry, the United States ambassador to Afghanistan and retired Army lieutenant general, sent two classified cables to his superiors in which he offered his assessment of the proposed U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. While the broad outlines of Mr. Eikenberry's cables were leaked soon after he sent them, the complete cables, obtained recently by The New York Times, show just how strongly the current ambassador feels about President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan government, the state of its military, and the chances that a troop buildup will actually hurt the war effort by making the Karzai government too dependent on the United States.
The New York Times reported on these leaked cables on January 25, 2010.

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