My Essays

Hello friends,

I am moving my blogging activities (essays) to substack (BifarinTheFifth.substack.com): be sure to click this and  subscribe to get updates.

There are

Summer is pretty tight this year, but there is always room left to read some good books, even if it’s

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Genre: Biography | Technology

I had always wanted to read Steve Jobs, so I figured reading about

A question buried in an answered question - The soul of two hunters - Nigerians as hunters, and why hell is a

The Spirit of an Essay and the 3 Commandments - Mayhem on the Streets: Python Dance, Black Tuesday, et al

The Mouse to Elephant Curve – Dinner with Thomas Robert Malthus – The Kidney of Your Business – COVID-19 and

Link to Vlog: YouTube |  Blog
I started playing goalie when I was around nine-years-old. And then I go on and

The Book of Why
By Judea Pearl
CAUSATION | How do we deal with causation specially in the context of big

Abacha ti ku oooo – They Danced, and if my Memory Serves me Right, I Danced Too – I Say,

The first desirable step to knowing God is knowing about him. Knowing God is a personal affair but knowing about

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle by Fiona Carnarvon
Genre: Biography | History

I spent a fair

One: Nubia, Mimesis and the Philosophy of Preferences
I do remember, quite vividly, dancing to ‘Segun Akinlolu’s jagbalajugbu when I was in

Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away by Rebecca Goldstein

(Philosophy)



Machine Learning (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge) by Ethem

One: Grad School Sounds Easy
This semester I served as an ambassador of the Biochemistry Graduate Program at The University of

One: What is True?
“To say of what is, that it is; or of what is not, that it is not,

[1] Kurunmi (Three Crowns) by Ola Rotimi

Genre: Historical Play

Kurunmi is a historical war play staged sometimes in the 19thcentury. Aare Kurunmi,

One: Black Professors and Molecular Genetics
We do know for a fact that if you are born into a particular race

One: The 2-ways of knowing.
Friends permit me to start with Hume’s fork [1].

He pontificated that there are two ways of

One: Satan is Not Ugly
Let’s be frank, forget about whatever you think, Satan is not ugly.

Satan is a very good-looking

One: Mr. J
I learnt of a story, told to me by a friend, he said he had asked a scientist

Friends, over the next months, I will be writing a blog series titled ‘Philosophical Morsels’.

As the name hints, it’s going

Over the summer, I visited Seattle in Washington State to present the progress of one of my doctorate research projects

Subtitle: Judging What We Do Not Know

This Low-Carb Thingy, My Keto Flu – 9/11 Averted by a US Politician –

The books I am reading (and going to read) this summer, covers a large swath of fields – anthropology, mathematics,

I don’t know them.

I just stumbled on them in the bar.

I don't know their names too, but they looked very

Ibadan, Nigeria
(Photo Credit: Supashegs Olusegun Aderinto)

[The presidential election in Nigeria is less than a year away, and like many Nigerians,  I

Don’t Follow Your Passion – Technology is Amoral – We Are All Bags of Biases – A Mexican and a

There is a popular saying amongst the people of the Yoruba tribe in West Africa, it goes thus:
omo to ba

I like to write on my birthdays. Two of such writings I have published on this blog: 25 lessons at

Dear Blog readers,

Thanks to a friend, I got to know recently that readers don't  get notification of my replies to

This essay is an adaptation of a sermon I delivered in church (audio is a little crappy).  
___________
The prodigal son.

A son asked

The last time I delivered a sermon, I was about nine, if my memory serves me right. Though, I have

The Genesis of Inequality – The Failed Promises of Food Production – The Superbugs – The Advent of Social Media

Obama’s Scientists – Why are Probiotics so ineffective? – Lunch with a Biochemistry Professor – On Drones and Bombs 

About

Anytime I miss my daily pills (typically in form of a physical book), I feel (very) feverish.

This is the product

Three essays ago, I wrote about the old Oyo empire, a 14th-19th century empire in West Africa. This video essay

Life is nonlinear  -  My unreleased, lost mixtapes -  A Nigerian Rap Superstar.

One thing has always intrigued me, about life,

Black Professors and Molecular Genetics - The Wisdom of John Rawls - Blame it on a Logos

We do know for

Africa has it is today - The Alaafin of Oyo plus or minus Sango - Who says Old Oyo Empire

The whole idea of skin in the game is to enforce the silver rule, i.e., "do not do unto others

Witches in the attic of my house - Antichrist in the Church - "See how this Christians love each other" 

I

Jihadi John's mysterious color blindness - The Mouth Odor of Suicide Bombers -  Wahhabism, Salafism, explained

Jihadi John's mysterious color

On behalf of all the indigent patients that benefited from 5bucksforcataract campaign, I want to say THANK YOU!

On August 12,

Golem of Prague – CRISPR Craze –  Designer babies will accelerate global warming

Golem of Prague

Around the 16th century in Prague,

Book - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006) by Carol Dweck.

I rarely write book reviews, even though I had

John Fredov’s failed mistress – A deep trench, a trap of compelled consistency – The Wisdom of the dullest man

I read some great books this year, here a few you might like to pick up for summer.

SPQR: A

Seneca, the lake Wobegon effect – The Cult of Romanticism – But, not necessarily

(Un)happiness is reflected in the disparity between

Sisyphus takes us back to school – Marcus Crassus drinks a cup of molten gold – Happiness has to be

Moremi, a detective par excellence – 50,000 soldiers, 9,000 horsemen and some 37 elephants – Fabius Maximus ‘the delayer’ –

(7 years ago with my brother - Alayo, Now taller than I am. And I have no idea why we aren't smiling

The Mouse to Elephant Curve – Dinner with Rev'd Thomas Robert Malthus – In Case you are Wondering, Nero killed

I spent my December vacation with family in Nigeria. I had a nice time but even more fulfilling was the

X and 2X Kind of Happiness; If you cannot lose it, you do not have it; The Gospel according to

I read some great books in 2016 and Antifragile by Nassim Taleb comes out first. He discussed the philosophical

Around 398AD, the now modern day Madagascar found herself in a state of economic and moral quagmire – the prices

Let’s start with a very hypothetical stereotype: Cosmologists make bad spouses.

In this world, your mum (and possibly grandma, probably

Let’s start with a very hypothetical stereotype: Cosmologists make bad spouses.

In this world, your mum (and possibly grandma, probably

[caption id="attachment_426" align="alignnone" width="1460"] Thomas Sankara[/caption]

About 3 years ago during my Youth Service in Nigeria (an obligatory service to the

A Warm Conversation with my Physician
I spent my week in a slight state of discomfort with some fairly intractable symptoms,

I recently finished the fictional book – Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke. It’s a little powerful book propounding

My Top Neural Dances – Codex purpureus Rossanensis and the Good Samaritan – Tonight, it's either Quantum Mechanics or Soccer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72GwVrvVB4g

[WebLink For Donation]

Transcripts:

285 million people in the world are visually impaired: of this 285 million people, 39 million are blind

I will start with a very, very weird manifestation of envy: we strangely (but innately) prefer to have less rather

Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher – Wole Soyinka, and the fumes of Nigeria petroleum –  The best way

Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher – Wole Soyinka, and the fumes of Nigeria petroleum –  The best way

Bale terrific free kicks at the Euro games – Peccadilloes like the text message of the past week – Bill

[caption id="attachment_327" align="aligncenter" width="700"] IMAGE: CEDRIC VILLANI (cedricvillani.org)[/caption]

Cédric Villani is a French mathematician, who was awarded the Fields Medal in

[caption id="attachment_316" align="aligncenter" width="3264"] My Summer Reading List (En Photo)[/caption]

The spring semester was concluded about 3 weeks ago, and there

Majority of us operate with a dangerous assumption: working less translates to a 'gaunted' productivity and VICE-VERSA.

We literally think working

The larger a project (either in space or in time), the less amenable to predictability it becomes. If I am

[caption id="attachment_287" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Photo Credit: CNN[/caption]

My last blog post was on skin-in-the-game, here is a sequel, with a

[caption id="attachment_260" align="aligncenter" width="640"] A photo abstract of how I spend my Friday nights (after intense episodes of soccer): A

How to get stucked in traffic -- The most impalpable definitions of selfishness -- How you can save the world

25 lessons (or ideas) I learnt over the past quarter-century (in no particular order).

I might be guilty of an availability

MARCUS THOUGHTS ON TIME, JEALOUSY, AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOOD LIFE AND A GOOD WIFE.

After an inundating recommendation by

On Optimism: A fictional friend told me the other day about his staunch conviction about the existence of only

SHOW ME YOUR HAPPINESS-GOAL AND I WILL TELL YOU WHAT TO EXPECT.

I have continued to fibble with an happiness hypothesis

“I was happier when I was not a billionaire”

Those were the words of a 21st century billionaire
...
As I scrolled down

ERROR THEORY, THE SHAPE OF THE EARTH, AND HOW TO GROOM A CHILD.

Disproving beliefs (or winning a real argument) is

COMPLICATIONS IN SURGERY AND THE ART OF PREMORTEM

In a brilliant talk by Atul Gawande – an American Surgeon – at

Thanks to a routine cognitive overload from reading, I decided to look up notjustok.com today after a long stint.

When you hear the word *stereotypes* for most people, a negative connotation ensue. It needn’t be so. They are useful

When you hear the word *stereotypes* for most people, a negative connotation ensue. It needn’t be so. They are useful

I am going to succinctly expatiate on 2 thesis:
Un, Happiness is a salutary evolutionary gadget
Deux, unfortunately, the very same gadget

Let’s start with a thought experiment, quickly. Visualize two boxes.
In box A there are 50 red balls and 50 black

In my opinion, one of the most valid heuristics in life is: “hard is good, easy is bad” – great ‘entities’

FreeImages.com/thomas gray
When it comes to risk assessment, it turns out that our rationality is often compromised – seriously.
This formula (attributed

FreeImages.com/Cara James
Let’s consider this epigram “prepared for failure, ready for success”
It could sound mundane but it’s an extremely powerful philosophy

Kindly consider this: 2+2.

I can bet what comes to your mind. Four right?

Question: Did you think before the number [four]

FreeImages.com/dimitri_c
The development of a state is contingent on the success and failure of the comprising individuals; and the most positive

First, life is competition. Here is Will and Ariel Durant in their 1968 book: Lessons of History

“Competition is not

In traditional physics, the flow of energy is followed my motion, in the same vein in social physics, the flow

I typically don’t write on this subject.

This was written to assist folks who  – or know those who – want

Incentives and disincentives literally drives the world.
Knowing how to manage both determines the success and the failure of any

FreeImages.com/Carly Walde
3 Types of Focus
I wrote out some notes from Prof. Daniel Goleman talk at google on his new book:

I typically don't write on this subject.

This was written to assist folks who  - or know those who -

"...And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty

The richest wisdom on earth are buried in history.
Reading the book, Lessons of History by Will and Aeriel Durant

 “...IT’S PRETTY OBVIOUS, THE MIDDLE TOP IS THE SWEET SPOT”

Benjamin Franklin wrote:
“Perhaps the history of the errors of