How coffee beans are harvested and the different ways of preparing coffee.
Author: Seanny123
I'm a Theoretical Neuroscientist turned Data Scientist. I enjoy writing taking chances, making mistakes and getting messy.
How to Survive Existential Crises: Logotherapy in a Nutshell
An explanation of the concept of logotherapy from Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning“. In particular, how there are three ways to find meaning in life:
- Working towards (not completing) a great work.
- Loving someone else.
- Finding meaning in unavoidable suffering
Notice how there’s no mention of explicitly pursuing happiness or peace. To Viktor, those things were side effects.
The first two are pretty basic, but the last one requires some explanation.
Life is filled with (often cruel) randomness. Consequently, it’s not uncommon to find yourself in an unpleasant and inescapable state. Maybe you have cancer, maybe you just got kicked out of school or maybe you’re jewish and you just got put in a concentration camp. Viktor maintained that even in these states, with hard work, you could still find meaning and a reason to continue on.
In the book, Viktor explains that as long as action or meaning can be found in this suffering, it becomes manageable and instead of being omnipresent and all-consuming, it becomes an understandable burden to learn and grow from.
He has applied this concept to victims of rape, sufferers of grief and those with suicidal tendencies.
The Pixar Pipeline
Explaining the first steps in animation – story & art, modelling, rigging, simulation, sets & cameras, lighting.
Meditation
Meditation can be a group or solo activity. Mason explains why both are valid, as well as where to find group meditation retreats and what to expect from them.
Hacking Friendship
Building meaningful and lasting friendships isn’t easy, but as long as you remember a few key things (with food metaphors), than you’ll be fine!
How to Sell Anything: The Art of Reframing
Sometimes to sell things, you need to switch the context of the sale. For example, in Toby’s experience of selling furnaces, he made sure the customer felt like they were the ones that had to convince Toby to sell them something. He did this by giving the illusion of exclusivity or limited seller time.
Baseball: Understanding the Game via Stats
How to read post-game statistics in baseball to keep up with the progression of your favourite teams, without spending time to watch the actual game.
Life Lessons from Dance Dance Revolution (DDR)
How and why to keep a growth mindset, as demonstrated via becoming better at Dance Dance Revolution.
Soylent: 75% Hype, 25% Awesome
Soylent is a powdered food replacement, that’s been getting a lot of hype. Although there are some real benefits (it’s kind of cheap, it is nutritionally complete) and food is actually problematic, there’s still a long ways to go until Soylent’s mission of cooking only being for the rich is achieved.
How to Build a Brain
The world’s largest functional brain model, Spaun, recently came out of a laboratory in Waterloo. But how was it made and why is it important? This presentation describes the tools (the Neural Engineering Framework and Nengo) that allowed for the creation of Spaun and what lies in the future of brain modelling.
Learning Night 