Is there an art of thought?
Recently I've been reading Graham Wallas's 1926 book The Art of Thought and his other works, and am now in the process of working it into Rest. Wallas is one
Learn how to be bored and brilliant
I was recently interviewed for a WNYC feature on technology, attention, boredom and creativity. The show will air sometime in late January, as part of a bigger "Bored and Brilliant:
More commuting and working: What Americans do instead of sleep
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has an article in the December issue of Sleep looking at how people who sleep less spend their extra waking time. Roughly "30
Words you don’t want to read in a review: “she just doesn’t seem to care whether she’s right”
I missed Martin Robbins' Guardian review of Mind Change, Susan Greenfield's latest book, but it's quite something. Granted, I shouldn't be surprised, since Robbins' review of Greenfield's novel
Put your phone away during hard tasks: “the mere presence of a cell phone may be distracting”
Researchers at the University of Southern Maine studying distraction and cellphones have discovered something interesting: not only does your ability to handle complicated cognitive tasks diminish when you
“One positive person can spread Happiness to more than 1,000 people, but through the power of technology we can reach out to millions”
I've recently been talking to people in locations as far-flung as Finland and Australia about designing programs that support mindfulness and flow, so I suspect there'll be a
“The trouble with ignorance is that it feels so much like expertise”
As a futurist I can get behind that quote. Cornell professor David Dunning, who's been studying confidence, ignorance, and self-knowledge for quite a while, has a nice article
“How can one look happy when he is thinking about the anomalous Zeeman effect?”
Yet another anecdote on walking and mind-wandering, this time from Chemistry World: In late 1922, Wolfgang Pauli took an aimless stroll through Copenhagen’s beautiful streets, deep in thought. Presently,
“mindlessness brings many benefits that are being overlooked”
In case you missed it, this Melissa Dahl piece talks about the emerging interest in the upside of mindlessness, or what cognitive scientists tend to call mind-wandering: Like
Complex jobs may aid long-term memory and thinking
Every now and then I’ll come across a study that really impresses me because of its use of amazing longitudinal data. There are now studies of the long-term