Arkan Ameed

It's been working like a charm ever since.

V2com Portable Touchscreen L2 V2COM

Ha, it is rather cute. It's the V2com L2 13" which I got here in Amman, Jordan (I think it's imported from UAE). Just a USB-C connection that both powers and connects it (plug-and-play). Touch setup nice and easy through Windows Control Panel 'Tablet PC Settings'.

www.v2com.ae/products/l2-...

Back to its big screen glory where VidGrid belongs. 💛

Working perfectly now on all my screens (touch and non-touch, with pointer as well as touch). Thanks, Matt.

MS Edge on Windows 11

Same. I just realised that VidGrid on touchscreens (and even non-touch external/extended displays) doesn't show the toolbar when working with mouse/pointer but displays it when touched.

YouTube video by Sky News 'The fall of any dictator reflects badly on all autocracies'

Talked to Trevor Phillips @news.sky.com this morning about the dictators' network (not sure why they chose this headline)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qut...

"Reader, I Married Him" Patriarchy isn’t just determined by geography, states, or economic activity.

Wonderful essay via @draliceevans.bsky.social

"Reaching educated homes across the country, women novelists helped make equal partnerships deeply appealing."

Social norms matter, and storytelling plays a powerful role in them.

www.ggd.world/p/reader-i-m...

The stability of liberal democracy compared to the fragility of authoritarian... The comparison between the stability of liberal democracies and the fragility of authoritarian regimes reveals significant insights into the dynamics of...

Perplexity AI: The stability of liberal democracy compared to the fragility of authoritarian dictatorship.

www.perplexity.ai/search/the-s...

Interview with Rosemary Hopcroft for Theory and Society - Theory and Society Theory and Society -

"I’ve spent the last, say, 20–30 years trying to encourage sociologists to be more open to incorporating understandings from biology and from the other life sciences... It’s completely compatible with our concerns about inequality and social justice"

Sisyphean science: why value freedom is worth pursuing - European Journal for Philosophy of Science The value-free ideal in science has been criticised as both unattainable and undesirable. We argue that it can be defended as a practical principle guiding scientific research even if the unattainabil...

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Bias in science can and must be exposed | Jacob Stegenga

"When I hear young scholars in conferences preface a remark by saying that everyone knows that the value-free ideal is dead, I scratch my head... this approach gives up on one of the central features of science that makes it worthy of our trust, namely, its striving toward the value-free ideal"

What can architecture teach us about cultural evolution?

www.ggd.world/p/can-archit...

On the logical blood-and-soil endpoint of indigeneity:

youtu.be/4q3tzyND9R4?...

On respecting the higher standards of (and exceptionalism) of Western progressive ideals:

Adam Kirsch on the double standards over settler colonialism vis-à-vis the West and the rest (starts at 1:19:34):

youtu.be/4q3tzyND9R4?...

@hooverinstitution.bsky.social

During most of the vast history of humanity, technologies have evolved gradually, not through leaps of genius, but slow cultural adaption.

Before the scientific method, easy communication & printed books, innovation happened at the level of societies, not people. www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdf...

Opinion | Let’s Shake Up the Social Sciences (Published 2013) It is time to create new social science departments that reflect the breadth and complexity of the problems we face as well as the novelty of 21st-century science.

“TWENTY-FIVE years ago, there were departments of natural science that no longer exist today. Departments of anatomy, histology, biochemistry and physiology have disappeared, replaced by innovative departments of stem-cell biology, systems biology, neurobiology and molecular biophysics.”

“i’ll put it on my list”

When Progressives Reveal Their Inner Imperialist Mention Ukraine and watch as many ostensible leftists betray every value they profess to hold.

@neilabrams.bsky.social on leftists' inner imperialist:

www.readthedetox.com/p/when-progr...

Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species: Gervais Ph.D, Will M.: 9781633889248: Amazon.com: Books Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species [Gervais Ph.D, Will M.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species

Hi all 👋

I’m a cultural & evolutionary scientist obsessed with 2 ideas:

1) humans are the only species with religion
2) within our religious species, atheism comes naturally

I wrote a book on that, here’s a short 🧵 with some fun book tidbits. Enjoy & share!

💙📚
🧪

www.amazon.com/Disbelief-Or...

A black and white shot from BICYCLE THIEVES - a man and boy are standing outside a doorway, looking at a bicycle.

I'm teaching BICYCLE THIEVES tomorrow. Here are V. F. Perkins' on-point comments on neorealism:

'To condemn [reality] does not demand falsification. [...] Facts are facts; our imagination makes use of them, but they are not designed a priori to serve it.’

God knows what he'd have made of 2024 😬

A bunch of sex offenders, a quack doctor, a fake wrestling executive, a crackpot anti-vaccine conspiracist who beheaded a whale, and some cable TV hosts serving a narcissistic authoritarian felon sexual abuser who loves dictators and routinely incites violence. What could go wrong?

What interests me is the world and humanity. Not who is better or worse, Israel or the Palestinians. Not who is more antisemitic, or anything like that. But what can make the world better.

Are there prominent leftists engaging in self-criticism?

PNAS special feature: Half a Century of Cultural Evolution
www.pnas.org/topic/565

“When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty.”

— Confucius

the trend towards monopoly and corruption also explains the hostility to liberalism. the thing about liberal neutrality is that it is an obstacle to the kind of patronage relationships that are facilitated by corruption.