1. 14 August 2006

    Quick Question

    878 days ago

    Think of all the stuff in the world – some of it beyond good, some bone crushingly bad – I just want to ask a quick question. Can one outweigh the other? Do the amazing things that we (or at least I) can do now eclipse the bad? 100 years from now, what will people think of us? If we manage to kill ourselves off, will all the amazing things we’ve accomplished have been worth it? Yes/no: Is it all that big a deal? Does anybody even know.

  2. 21 May 2006

    wtf?

    963 days ago

    I’m a bit disappointed that the above has slinked it’s way into my daily vocabulary. I’ve been a bit resistant to these internet neologisms for awhile1. Twice today it’s come up while I’ve been talking to myself thinking, which I think is a bit much. I wasn’t even sitting at a computer either time. zomg.

    I used the truncation of words pretty heavily as a kid, along with never capitalizing anything and omitting nearly every requisite punctuator from my online talk, but kicked the habit hard and fast. It’s been years, and now I think they’re creeping back. But at least it’s with a holier than thou penchant for cynicism this time.

    1 Times the following have appeared in all of this site: omg: 0, lol: 0, wtf: 1. And that’s in ~three years.

  3. 19 March 2006

    A Whole New Mind

    Daniel H. Pink

    1027 days ago

    You’re going to need one, according to Pink. With the forces of cheap labor halfway across the world, cheap domestic products available in abundance here at home, and robot computers increasingly able to do what humans used to make their livings at; you’re looking at unemployment.

    Pink argues that the american workforce needs to hedge it’s bet on the right brain abilities instead of the left, which we’ve relied on to get where we are now. He cites design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning as the six Ideas most important to the new “conceptual age” worker.

    Tell the truth, I hope I won’t have to work a day in my life. But this new sort of industry Pink says is coming out of the woodwork looks lots better to me than cashing people’s checks, or just sitting in front of a computer programming. I guess I’ll take what I can get.

    Notes

    Reading left to right exercises the left side of the brain, just as moving your right hand does. (Contralateralization). 18

    Left brain is sequential, the right simultaneous. 18

    Abundance has produced an ironic result: the very triumph of L-Directed thinking has placed a premium on less rational, more R-Directed sensibilities – beauty, spirituality, emotion. For businesses, it’s no longer enough to create a product that’s reasonably priced and adequately functional. It must also be beautiful, unique, and meaningful. 33

    In a study, patients recovering from surgery in adequately and naturally lit rooms required 21% less pain medication then those in traditional hospital beds. 82

    Games are the most elevated form of investigation. Albert Einstien quoted on 183

  4. 05 January 2006

    1099 days ago

    HOWTO: Be more productive (Aaron Swartz: The Weblog)

    Assigned problems are problems you’re told to work on. Numerous psychology experiments have found that when you try to “incentivize” people to do something, they’re less likely to do it and do a worse job. External incentives, like rewards and punishments, kills what psychologists call your “intrinsic motivation”—your natural interest in the problem. (This is one of the most thoroughly replicated findings of social psychology—over 70 studies have found that rewards undermine interest in the task.)[^kohn] People’s heads seem to have a deep avoidance of being told what to do.[^avo]

    via Kjell Olsen1099 days ago

  5. 26 October 2005

    1170 days ago

    Extreme thinking

    the most effective way of changing your own behaviour is to change your social role, if necessary, by creating social roles for ourselves that reinforce behaviours we want.

    via Kjell Olsen1170 days ago

  6. 23 February 2005

    Mind Hacks

    Tom Stafford & Matt Webb

    1415 days ago

    Mind Hacks is an interesting look at how we use our brains everyday in different situations. It’s a very active book, showing principles of brain psychology concretely in ways that anyone can try out by themselves or with neat tricks posted somewhere on the internet.

  7. Also somewhat recently

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