Punster: go on a hunting trip with Mick Jagger.
Maybe he's countersignalling, deliberately offering a superficially-negative signal in order to signal that he doesn't need to send the "expected" superficially-positive signal. See this article, also by Yvain.
There are big differences between "a study" and "a good study" and "a published study" and "a study that's been independently confirmed" and "a study that's been independently confirmed a dozen times over." These differences are important; when a scientist says something, it's not the same as the Pope saying it. It's only when dozens and hundreds of scientists start saying the same thing that we should start telling people to guzzle red wine out of a fire hose.
"Today we will be dragoons, until we are told otherwise"
"Where are our horses, then?"
"We must imagine them."
"Imaginary horses are much slower than the other kind."
Neal Stephenson, The Confusion
I stand corrected.
Here is the full article from which the quote was taken: http://www.johnlatour.com/barking_cats.htm
The preference alone is mostly harmless. When the preference is combined with the misapprehension that the preference can be fulfilled, it may harm the person asserting the preference if it leads them to make a bad choice between a meowing cat, a barking dog, or delaying the purchase of a pet.
If the preference order were (1. Barking Cat, 2. Barking Dog, 3. Meowing Cat, 4. No Pet), then the belief that a cat could be taught to bark could lead to the purchase/adoption of a meowing cat instead of the (preferred) barking dog.
Likewise, in the above preference o...
There are valid quibbles and exceptions on both counts. Some breeds of cats make vocalizations that can reasonably be described as "barking", and water will burn if there are sufficient concentrations of either an oxidizer much stronger than oxygen (such as chlorine triflouride) or a reducing agent much stronger than hydrogen (such as elemental sodium).
In the general case, though, water will not burn under normal circumstances, and most cats are physiologically incapable of barking.
The point of the quote is that objects and systems do have innate...
I replied as follows: "What would you think of someone who said, "I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"? [...] As a natural scientist, you recognize that you cannot assign characteristics at will to chemical and biological entities, cannot demand that cats bark or water burn. Why do you suppose that the situation is different in the "social sciences?"
-- Milton Friedman
If you're tempted to respond, "But I love school, and so do all my friends. Ah, the life of the mind, what could be better?" let me gently remind you that readers of economics blogs are not a random sample of the population. Most people would hate reading this blog; you read it just for fun!
-- Bryan Caplan
We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
-- Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
I'm assuming that most everyday purchases are frequently repeated (e.g. you buy milk and eggs every week), so the cognitive costs of figuring out the best place to buy milk and eggs can be amortized out over many transactions.
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
John W. Gardner
In 1705, Sir Isaac Newton became discouraged after he fell up a flight of stairs.
Unknown
I'm not sure. I came across it in translated form without sourcing.
The church is near, but the road is icy. The bar is far away, but I will walk carefully.
-- Russian proverb
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
-- Oliver Cromwell
In both cases, the tradeoff is the same - drive fifteen minutes to save twenty bucks - but people were much more willing to do it for the cheap item, because $20 was a higher percentage of its total cost. With the $2000 TV, the $20 vanishes into the total cost like a drop in the ocean and seems insignificant.
Evaluating cost savings as a percentage actually makes a certain amount of sense when evaluating policies rather than acts. Cheaper purchases tend to be much more frequent: you probably buy many more shirts than you do big-screen TVs, so expending t...
I answered yes to your hypothetical, but I am not currently signed up for cryonics and have no short- or medium-term plans to do so.
My reasons for the difference:
In your hypothetical, I've received a divine revelation that there's no afterlife, and that reincarnation would be successful. In real life, I have a low estimate of the likelihood of cryonics leading to a successful revival and a low-but-nonzero estimate of the likelihood of an afterlife.
In your hypothetical, there's no advance cost for the reincarnation option. For cryonics, the advance cost
For particularly important decisions, consider contemplating them at different times, if you can. Think about one thing Monday morning, then Wednesday afternoon, then Saturday evening, going only to the point of getting an overall feel for an answer, and not to the point of really making a solid conclusion.
This seems congruent with the folk idea of "sleeping on" difficult or particularly important decisions rather than coming to a decision on the spot, and with the legal practice of having "cooling off periods" after a purchase is made or a contract is signed, during which one party can void the agreement.
This works for any shirt, jacket, or coat. In addition to the benefit you cite, it also make the garment hang more naturally on your body as you move your arms, since the sleeve is designed to be able move with your arms on the assumption that the cap of the sleeve is aligned with the top of your shoulder.
The test I usually do is to try on the garment and raise my arm without moving my shoulder. The spot where my arm starts moving should be at or just below the shoulder seam.
I tried it for a few months in grad school. It works better than you'd expect, but not as well as you'd hope.
Days 2-3 were very rough, but after I acclimated, my subjective experience was similar to staying up a few hours past my normal bedtime (mild fatigue, but not unpleasant or debilitating if I was actively doing something).
Three things killed it for me:
... (read more)It is very difficult to maintain a social life if you need to go home and nap every 3.5 hours on a strict schedule.
My class schedule was different on different days of the week, so I had to fudge my