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RRR
Rambunctious, Revanchist and Ridiculous in the extreme, this might be the silliest movie since 300 (to which it bears a passing, well-oiled resemblance). But despite a disappointingly banal ending for the Governor’s wife (she deserved something more), it’s pretty sure to please from stem to stern. Best watched with a large and not very sober…
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Saturday Sun & Chelsea Morning
After a long, wet SF winter, it’s easy to appreciate how New Yorkers and the English feel about a warm sunny day. And what better company for the sun could Mr. Shuffle devise than a rare almost cheerful Nick Drake tune and Joni Mitchell’s buttery ode to the sun through yellow curtains…
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The Role of Reinforcement Learning in Transformative Decision-Making
Cognitive science can’t settle questions of right and wrong. But it can set the table for theories of rational decision-making and ethics. And the one thing we know for sure about how we think is that, at the most fundamental level, our brains are connection systems that are changed by experience.This matters; transformational experiences and…
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Problems in Cognition and the Work to be Rational (Post)
For a decision-maker, the nature of human cognition creates the challenges of transformational experience and the necessity for self-altering decisions. But the nature of connection systems also creates a series of important hurdles to both optimal decision-making in preference optimization and thoughtful decision-making around self-change. Since connection systems can do amazing things (like become unbeatable…
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The Nice Guys
Gosling and Crowe do Redford and Newman (and do it damn well) in a movie with near perfect comic beats. Watch it for the ankle gun scene alone…and stuff… (HBO Max & Netflix)
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Samuel Adams Revolutionary
At a recent Berkeley concert featuring Daniel Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Hope introduced Max Richter’s Four Seasons Recomposed (which formed the second half of the concert), recounting the story of the piece’s creation. Richter wrote it for Hope and when he first broached the idea, Hope says he rather flippantly asked Richter what…
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Dr. Fauci and the Public Life
The recent retirement of Dr. Anthony Fauci is a good time to reflect on the virtues and perils of a public life. Because so much of that life and our knowledge of it is colored by the last few years and the Covid pandemic, during which he became nearly as recognizable and almost as ubiquitous…
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Before the Coffee Gets Cold
A few years back we somehow got signed up for a Boksu subscription – a monthly box of seasonal Japanese snacks – that just kept going month after month for years. The boxes are lovely and crafted in way that seems utterly unique to the Japanese as are many of the snacks, and everyone in…
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Prediction & Cognition
Cognitive science can’t settle questions of right and wrong. But it can set the table for theories of rational decision-making and ethics. And the one thing we know for sure about how we think is that, at the most fundamental level, our brains are connection systems that are changed by experience. This, unlike theories of…
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Aftersun
The man you are for your children is not necessarily the man you are. Often, that’s a good thing – at least for your children. A sad, dreamy, slow-burn sans ignition that will remind any father of their daughter’s brief age of perfect grace. (Cheated and watched this on the plane flying home from NY…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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