May 2008
85 posts
Daniel Gilbert Interview →
People who are clinically depressed often seem to lack the ability to reframe events. That suggests that if the rest of us didn’t have this, we might be depressed as well.
April 2008
132 posts
Working
If it wasn’t for the fact that I really like working at my part-time job, I would have stopped by now. I could really use another 20 hours a week, and the money is nice to have, but not really necessary. It’s almost too bad that I enjoy it so much. Something tells me that maybe grad school isn’t worth it, but I’ve always been the type to just tough it out.
2008 Cherry Blossom Timelapse →
Start watching halfway through if you’re impatient.
Handwriting
An abnormal number of people have been commenting on my handwriting lately (at least three people in the last week, that I can remember). It’s been the same for at least the past 3 years, so I don’t get it. What’s changed?
boymeetslove: Lydia - Stay Awake New favorite...
Eight Pages of Beauty and Heartbreak →
A short comic about a bookseller that has every book in the world… except one. (via WaxyLinks)
Whats the Smartest Way to Spend Your Rebate? →
One response to the question: grad student —-> means I won’t have to donate blood this month. :-)
Intuitive Interfaces →
My subject was an intelligent, computer-literate, university-trained teacher visiting from Finland who had not seen a mouse or any advertising or literature about it. With the program running, I pointed to the mouse, said it was “a mouse”, and that one used it to operate the program. Her first act was to lift the mouse and move it about in the air. She discovered the ball on the...
Why Things Cost $19.95 →
“Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.”
– Calvin (and Hobbes) (via affremblequotes)
“And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every...”
– Cognitive Surplus
“[W]hen you chew something too hard, the vibrations fire up those crunchwaves,...”
– Steve Carell on How to Act Brilliant
Everything I know about women →
6. Let them do it Whatever “it” is. No matter how ridiculous it may seem to you, let her do it. When Lou-Lou gets an idea into her mind, there’s no talking her out of it. In fact, be supportive, encourage her even. Then sit back and hope she discovers for herself that it was a stupid idea. The downside is that she might decide it was an excellent idea. One day, I found myself playing dolls’ tea...
Mini Moscow →
Early Warning System →
So, if EEG features can be found that correspond to the change in brain activity which the researchers have observed, then a hat that gives warning of an imminent mistake might one day become reality.
Learning and Longevity →
The researchers report in a forthcoming edition of Evolution that although learning ability could be bred into a population of fruit flies, it shortened their lives by 15%. When the researchers compared their learned flies to colonies selectively bred to live long lives, they found even greater differences. Whereas learned flies had reduced life spans, the long-lived flies learned less well than...
Your genes are not your fate (video) →
Another great TED talk.
Amazing Snowglobes →
Office Perils →
The best friend you can make in an office is the person with the most food stashed in their desk drawers. Unfortunately, I think that person might be me…
Butter shortage? →
I don’t get it. Why is it a butter shortage and not a milk shortage? It says that raw milk production is down, but isn’t pasteurized milk also made from raw milk, just heated? So why are they not short on drinking milk?
Five Computers →
You know the quote from IBM that says “I think there is a world market for about five computers”? Apparently, it’s taken out of context. The Yale Book of Quotations quotes an I.B.M. source that this “… is a misunderstanding of remarks made at I.B.M.’s annual stockholders meeting on April 28, 1953. In referring specifically and only to the I.B.M. 701 Electronic Data Processing...
Cooking Without Electricity →
Without electricity, everything is fresh. …He baked his bread and cakes in a gas oven. There was NO waste: no cartons, no cans. Everything was fresh, and leftovers went to the compost pile.
For the time traveller →
IF YOU’D BOUGHT 3,298 Shares of Apple Stock IN 1998, FOR… $99,995, at $30.32 a share IT WOULD NOW BE WORTH $1,997,797Nice advice, if you can use it…
Chopping Heads →
What’s the first thing you typically look at in a portrait? The eyes, right? I know I do. So when that element is taken away, you are forced to take notice of other details. Interesting. I think I’d be a little creeped out by headless pictures of me though…
Audrina Patridge's Pork Fried Rice →
*face palm*
Horde By Numbers →
Brilliant. I want a smaller version of this for my desk.
“Contentment as far as I’m concerned comes with old age … because you...”
– Happiness Increases with Age
“As a general rule, if you don’t need something, it’s better for the environment...”
– Dan (via marco)
Doeo →
You have 40 seconds to gather 100 Doeos. It reminds me of Katamari. (via Metafilter)
28 Hours in Jyväskylä →
28 hours in 16 minutes of video from around the city. Some of the scenes are really pretty, like the one over some expanse of water. (via Metafilter)
MGMT - Time To Pretend Opening song to the movie...
Cellphones →
Rather than sending someone like Chipchase to Vietnam or India as an emissary for the company — loaded with products and pitch lines, as a marketer might be — the idea is to reverse it, to have Chipchase, a patently good listener, act as an emissary for people like the barber or the shoe-shop owner’s wife, enlightening the company through written reports and PowerPoint presentations on how they...
Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox →
There is a second issue here that has led to mistaken inferences: a tendency to confuse absence of evidence for a proposition as evidence of its absence. Thus, when early researchers could not isolate a statistically reliable association between G.D.P. and happiness, they inferred that this meant the two were unrelated, and a paradox was born. Also, very cool accompanying graphic here.
Dowd’s Inhuman Flash Exploit →
Great article, but may be too technical for some.
Passionless Pre-Professionals →
I called these “side projects”. But in reality, school was the side project.… You’re the only person who decides how you’re going to spend your life, so invest the time to discover your passion. Don’t accept the path laid out before you by others—just figure out what you enjoy doing and do it. Excellent advice. I’m tired of school.
Why Does the Post Office Deliver Mail That Has No... →
Therac-25 paper (PDF) →
I had to read this paper for class, but it actually turned out to be a really interesting article. It’s very non-technical, and basically describes a series of incidents where race conditions in software that controlled a machine being used for radiation treatments lead to massive radiation overdose, and death in almost all cases. One thing that really bothers me: For one case, the operator...
