my pool

architecture of energy

It is difficult to determine in advance the magnitude of any human being’s energy, potential or kinetic. We can know the quantity of energy it takes to walk a given distance, but what is the energy of a person who assassinates a world leader? Do we measure it by cause or effect? Or the person who invents a new technology? Or the person who designs a housing project? Or the person who devotes themselves to helping the poor? The energy of such persons’ thoughts and actions cannot be measured quantitatively or qualitatively by applying any known formula

lebbeus woods.

stand’s toasted marshmallow shake recipe

• 3 scoops vanilla ice cream (they use Laboratorio del Gelato)
• 1 tablespoon whole milk
• 1 large dollop, er, Wookstock Water Buffalo Milk yogurt 
• 5 Kraft Jumbo Jef-Puffed marshmallows
• Whipped cream

1. Toast marshamllows under a broiler, or, if you’re frisky, over a flame until they just start to blacken evenly (the trick is to make sure it’s evenly toasted and dark, but not turned to charcoal).
2. Put the milk, yogurt, and then ice cream in the blender. Blend carefully, just until you get a “donut”—when you see the shake holding to the sides of the blender with a hollow core.
3. Add three of the toasted marshmallows to the blender, and whirl it just until they’re all broken up and distributed evenly. Be careful not to overblend it, making it too melty.
4. Pour shake into a glass, top with a dollop of whipped cream, break the last two marshmallows on top, and serve with an extra-wide straw.
5. Repeat if necessary. And it will probably be necessary.

reddit’s top 200 books

1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. (UP:1443 | WS:2210 | Total:3653)
2. 1984 by George Orwell. (UP:1447 | WS:2090 | Total:3537)
3. Dune by Frank Herbert. (UP:1122 | WS:2140 | Total:3262)
4. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. (UP:967 | WS:1750 | Total:2717)
5. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. (UP:931 | WS:1680 | Total:2611)
6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. (UP:1031 | WS:1530 | Total:2561)
7. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. (UP:907 | WS:1320 | Total:2227)
8. The Bible by Various. (UP:810 | WS:1230 | Total:2040)
9. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. (UP:603 | WS:1220 | Total:1823)
10. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling. (UP:1169 | WS:560 | Total:1729)
11. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. (UP:610 | WS:1090 | Total:1700)
12. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman. (UP:483 | WS:1130 | Total:1613)
13. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. (UP:473 | WS:1070 | Total:1543)
14. The Foundation Saga by Isaac Asimov. (UP:519 | WS:960 | Total:1479)
15. Neuromancer by William Gibson. (UP:449 | WS:960 | Total:1409)
16. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. (UP:664 | WS:710 | Total:1374)
17. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. (UP:455 | WS:870 | Total:1325)
18. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. (UP:402 | WS:880 | Total:1282)
19. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. (UP:388 | WS:890 | Total:1278)
20. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. (UP:466 | WS:790 | Total:1256)

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tetris effect

occurs when people devote sufficient time and attention to an activity that it begins to overshadow their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It is named after the video game Tetris.  People who play Tetris for a prolonged amount of time may then find themselves thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes on a supermarket shelf or the buildings on a street.

memory biases

In psychology and cognitive science, a memory bias is a cognitive bias that either enhances or impairs the recall of a memory (either the chances that the memory will be recalled at all, or the amount of time it takes for it to be recalled, or both), or that alters the content of a reported memory. There are many types of memory bias, including:

1. Choice-supportive bias: remembering chosen options as having been better than rejected options (Mather, Shafir & Johnson, 2000).
2. Change bias: after an investment of effort in producing change, remembering one’s past performance as more difficult than it actually was^[1]
3. Childhood amnesia: the retention of few memories from before the age of four.
4. Consistency bias: incorrectly remembering one’s past attitudes and behaviour as resembling present attitudes and behaviour.
5. Context effect: that cognition and memory are dependent on context, such that out-of-context memories are more difficult to retrieve than in-context memories (e.g., recall time and accuracy for a work-related memory will be lower at home, and vice versa).
6. Cryptomnesia: a form of misattribution where a memory is mistaken for imagination, because there is no subjective experience of it being a memory.^[1]
7. Egocentric bias: recalling the past in a self-serving manner, e.g. remembering one’s exam grades as being better than they were, or remembering a caught fish as being bigger than it really was.
8. Fading affect bias: a bias in which the emotion associated with unpleasant memories fades more quickly than the emotion associated with positive events.^[2].
9. Hindsight bias: the inclination to see past events as being predictable; also called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect.
10. Humor effect: that humorous items are more easily remembered than non-humorous ones, which might be explained by the distinctiveness of humor, the increased cognitive processing time to understand the humor, or the emotional arousal caused by the humor.

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