Giovanni Piantoni

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Great Ideas

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay - others will easily undertake the irksome work for me.

For this enlightenment , however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied. It is the freedom to make public use of one's reason at every point. But I hear on all sides, "Do not argue!" The Officer says: "Do not argue but drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue but pay!" The cleric: "Do not argue but believe!" In this we have examples of pervasive restrictions on freedom.

TED: Ideas worth spreading

• Barry Schwartz on the paradox of choice.
• Hans Rosling reveals new insights on poverty.
• Brian Cox presents some question that the CERN's LHC might answer.

Physics

• EPR paradox.
• Sticky tape can produce x-rays.

Mathematics

• MIT video lectures on Linear Algebra;
• A well-thought tutorial on Bayesian Reasoning;
• A quick review on calculus and friends;
• A list of basic statistical notes, that everybody should know, from the BMJ.

Computer stuff

• Effortlessly backing-up and sharing files between computers, always at your disposal;
• Introduction to Digital Signal Processing, including fourier transform and filtering;
• All the time wasted reading CAPTCHA can be used to read old books.
• A fantastic Firefox add-on (Zotero) to save, sync across computers and share references.

Psychology

• How a pencil and paper are part of your Extended Mind when solving equations.
• Heuristics and Biases^[1]: the biases in our reasoning are the results of our reasoning itself.
• Framing: how we select particular aspects of a perceived reality.
• The influence of neuroscience (and neuroimaging) on the law^[1].

Game Theory

• The Jevons paradox: if our houses and cars become more energy-efficient, the price of energy will go down and soon, we are going to consumer more energy, not less.
• Game theory, including the prisoner's dilemma and the Nash equilibrium.
• Evolutionarily stable strategy^[1], i.e. which strategy a minority should adopt to win the strategy of the majority.