Ben Sima

Category: Thought

  • Clojure Resources for Learning, Building, Developing, Experimenting

    Clojure is a fascinating language and learning it has presented an intellectual challenge I haven’t experienced in a long time. I guess trying to wrap my head around all the various declensions and forms in Attic Greek was the last thing that challenged me this much. As I’m learning Clojure, I’m finding all kinds of […]

  • Yossarian

    From the climactic final pages of Catch-22: Yossarian crossed quickly to the other side of the immense avenue to escape the nauseating sight and found himself walking on human teeth lying on the drenched, glistening pavement near splotches of blood kept sticky by the pelting raindrops poking each one like sharp fingernails. Molars and broken […]

  • Dementia Rate Is Found to Drop Sharply

    Dementia Rate Is Found to Drop Sharply Key quote: The British study, published on Tuesday in The Lancet, and the Danish one, which was released last week, also in The Lancet, confirmed something that researchers on aging have long suspected but lacked good evidence to prove: dementia rates would fall and mental acuity improve as […]

  • Crowdfunding, disrupting banks

    Crowdfunding, disrupting banks From a report by BBVA Compass: “To succeed in this new hyperconnected and competitive environment, banks will have to follow a customer-centric approach and offer simple, user-friendly and effective products, with a high level of transparency and security,” chief economist Nathaniel Karp writes. The report and article goes on to discuss crowdfunding. […]

  • Christopher Hitchens’ Lies to Atheists

    Christopher Hitchens’ Lies to Atheists (via nolan) It’s not really that he lied per se, he was just very vocal about his extremist view typical of reductionistic scientists, which is the prominent perspective embraced by the likes of the Technological Singularity movement (Dean Kaman et al), etc etc. Reductionism fails to appreciate the power of […]

  • Comparing apples and oranges

    Comparing apples and oranges In 1995, Scott A. Sandford, a researcher at the NASA Ames Center in Mountain View, California, took up a landmark study that proves, once and for all, that one can compare apples and oranges. In fact, they’re quite similar.

  • Tolstoy

    I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and […]

  • Patenting human genes?

    The Supreme Court is about to decide if corporations should be able to patent genes. Lets hope they make the right decision. Update: Wikipedia article on the decision

  • The Skill Developed in Meditation

    Via Ben Casnocha’s blog Meditation is basically a training method for your mind. When certain things happen to you, your mind generates a certain response whether it be happiness, frustration, anger ect. The way your mind has been inculcated is the path of least resistance and the path it wants to take, and will take […]

  • The Other Side

    If You Ever Feel Alone In This So most of us keep these struggles private, some of us are lucky to count fellow founders as close friends who we can confide in. Who we can talk to candidly in a circle of founder trust. If you’re a founder and don’t have this, make these friendships. […]