Review: How the Mind Works

Amazon

From How the Mind Works, by Steven Pinker:

The complex structure of the mind is the subject of this book. Its key idea can be captured in a sentence: The mind is a system of organs of computation, designed by natural selection to solve the kinds of problems our ancestors faced in their foraging way of life, in particular, understanding and outmaneuvering objects, animals, plants, and other people."

That's the gist of this 20-year-old best-selling work of popular science. It's what attracted me. After the jump, whether it succeeded.

POTD: Little Boxes in Galveston

From 2017 12 01 Galveston

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Seawall Boulevard in Galveston, Texas. I'd name the condominium complex, but they all look just the same.

Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There's a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same

Source: Malvina Reynolds.

The song is from 1963. It must have made quite an impression on my 12-year-old mind, for it comes to mind automatically anytime I'm presented with a scene like this.

The Shape of Water (2017)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Shape of Water (2017): "Beauty and the Beast" meets "Creature from the Black Lagoon." In a heist movie with Russian spies. The premise is preposterous but it works. A love story with something for everyone. A-

She's Gotta Have It (TV 2017)

Rotten Tomatoes

She's Gotta Have It (TV): Smart young independent brash black female artist in Brooklyn and her friends, who talk mostly about sex and race. An exotic world (for me) but still shallow, even if Nola is deeper here than in the 1986 movie. Saw 3 of 10 episodes. C-

The Beguiled (2017)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Beguiled (2017): Wounded Union soldier takes shelter in southern girls' school. Repressed social norms dominate, leaving movie disappointingly bloodless for subject matter. But everything and everyone look great. C+