Cognitive Engineering

It’s one of Britain’s most loved yet least considered products: the humble crisp.

In this week’s podcast, we discuss the association between colour and crisp flavours. We ask all the burning questions: What does your favourite crisp flavour say about you? Have crisp packets always been the same colour? Is there really a definitive colour palette for each flavour? Along the way, we take you through the contentious history of crisps, differences in preference across countries and generations, and search for an objective basis for the colour of crisp packets.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• So long, salt and vinegar: how crisp flavours went from simple to sensational
• Generation ready salted
• Crisp packet colours should have an international flavour standard
• On tasty colours and colourful tastes? Assessing, explaining, and utilizing crossmodal correspondences between colours and basic tastes

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Taking a walk through the woods with the family pet can sometimes unearth some unexpected surprises. Sticks, stones or even, buried treasure.

In this week’s podcast, we discuss what counts as treasure and how you might distinguish it from trash. We survey the historical legal definitions of treasure, assess the likelihood of a detectorist striking gold and present examples of how finding treasure can ignite our imagination and become a bridge to the past. Finally, we share the treasures we would most like to discover ourselves.

• Detectorists jailed for stealing £12m Viking hoard of gold and silver
• Buried treasure: record UK haul fuelled by rise in metal detectorists
• A Survey of Metal-Detector Users in the UK
• Missing Gold Fabergé Egg Found by Scrap-Metal Dealer

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

"If I could talk with the animals, just imagine it..."

In this week's podcast, we discuss what it would be like if we could indeed talk with animals. We consider the ethics of such conversations and try to work out what our non-human friends might be able to teach us. We also dive into topics such as language processing, communication and intelligence.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• Are We on the Verge of Chatting with Whales?
• Philosophical Investigations by Wittgenstein
• Wittgenstein and the Lion
• Arrival
• Tardigrade Becomes First 'Quantum Entangled' Animal in History

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he "certainly broke no rules" as questions continue to plague the government over parties during lockdown last Christmas. In the wake of the Christmas party scandal, we think it is timely to revisit our podcast on ministerial accountability.

Christmas parties row: Three gatherings to be investigated by top civil servant https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-59591610

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Some government ministers seem to constantly court controversy, while others manage to fly smoothly under the incompetence radar. Is this down to luck or judgement, and what is it realistic to expect from our politicians?

In this podcast, we examine ministerial accountability using Gavin Williamson as a case study. We consider whether it is realistic to expect a government minister to be infallible, and if so what level of fallibility is acceptable. We also delve into concepts of ministerial responsibility and honour, and try to understand when something is a minister’s fault.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• The Crichel Down Affair
• List of political scandals in the United Kingdom
• Institute for Government chart of ministerial resignations
• Gordon Brown - Taking Responsibility

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Magic, spells and wizardry aren’t things you normally associate with local government(unless you're in Environmental Services). But in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, a man employed as the ordained city wizard was let go after 23 years of toil and trouble.

In this week’s podcast, we address the vital topic of unemployed wizards. We start by discussing if there might be more value in employing a wizard than a strict accounting metric would suggest, then ask if we should be placing an 'existence value' on oddities in public spending. Finally, we share the joys of placing importance on pointless luxuries and celebrate the superfluous.

• Council to stop paying The Wizard $16,000 a year after 23 years on the payroll
• Aleister Crowley’s concept of Magick

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Irritability, sleeplessness, muscle tension and fatigue are all potentially caused by too much noise. Was Schopenhauer right when he called noise the "most impertinent of interruptions"? This week, we discuss the issue of noise pollution... ...as quietly as we can.

The European Environment Agency estimates there are 10,000 premature deaths from noise exposure each year. So why are our cities noisier than ever and what can we do about it? We debate whether susceptibility to noise correlates with age, explore the idea of information overload and ask why we get drawn into the promise of stimulation even when it may be causing us harm. Finally, we share strategies for counteracting and coping with the noisy world around us.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• Cities are reportedly noisier than ever
• European Environment Agency report: Noise in Europe 2014
• Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents
• Shift Blog: How to avoid notification overload
• Noise: How to overcome the high, hidden cost of inconsistent decision making
• Paris bids to turn volume down in ‘City of Noise’
• Decibel Hell: The effects of living in a noisy world

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

How often do you use the interrobang, asterism or SarcMark? Do you ever find yourself scrolling to find the perfect emoji? Or perhaps you might feel frustrated by the overuse of punctuation?!?

In this week’s podcast, we discuss new punctuation. In a world awash with corporate-speak and scare quotes, what should we add or remove from conventional punctuation and how could it be optimised? We consider punctuation we would like to borrow from other languages, Nick coins a new term for an emoji and we discuss the history of proposed punctuation that didn’t quite stick. Finally, we reveal our favourite pieces of punctuation...

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• User Guidelines and Netiquette by Arlene H. Rinaldi
• Uncommon punctuation marks and how to use them
• Emojipedia
• Punctuation that failed to make its mark
• The 14 common types of punctuation in English

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

With the UK's terrorism threat level being raised from substantial to SEVERE, following the 14 November incident in Liverpool, we are revisiting our podcast with Jerry Smith from CHC Global.

• https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-terrorism-threat-level-raised-to-severe
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Ever wondered how we measure the amount of terrorism? We talk to Jerry Smith from CHC Global, who explains how the Global Terrorism Database has been keeping track of terrorist events all around the world for 50 years.

This podcast covers the painstaking process of collecting structured information about terrorism and considers how you standardise the measurement of something so chaotic and destructive. It explores how the Global Terrorism Database goes about collecting information, categorising events and maintaining data quality to create one of our favourite datasets.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• The Global Terrorism Database www.start.umd.edu/data-tools/globa…ism-database-gtd
• CHC Global
• Analysis of terrorist event frequency

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Do you prefer Rembrandt or Rothko? The Vatican or The Shard? A Georgian terrace or a 1960s housing estate? Ever wondered why we stopped building beautiful old buildings and how architectural modernism came to dominate our skylines?

This week we discuss the theory of the Tartarian civilization. It claims that our most ornate buildings are the work of a lost civilization called the Tartarian Empire and attempts to explain the rise of architectural modernism. We set out the theories for and against modernism, deconstruct survivorship bias and new urbanism and discuss a famously anti-modernist town designed by Prince Charles. Nick presents a taxonomy of theories that may explain divergent tastes in architecture and we share our own architectural predilections.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• Whither Tartaria?
• Poundbury
• Celebration, Florida
• Richard H. Driehaus Architecture Competition
• Londoners grow fond of the Shard

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

With Remembrance Day occurring next week, it seems only fitting to re-release a podcast we recorded in 2018. In this podcast, we discuss Remembrance Day, what it means, why we commemorate, and how its purpose has changed over the decades.

Remembrance Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]