Along the eight-hundred-and-fifty mile border with China, everybody knows someone who knows someone who has been to China, and has heard the tales of the unimaginable riches on the other side. Barbara Demick For Americans […]
Category: Living
Are Night Owls Brighter, or Just Late-Night TV Watchers?
There are some things that really go oddly together, like sleep and intelligence. This week I saw several blog posts and tweets referring to Psychology Today article “Intelligence: The Evolution of Night Owls.” That people are talking about the article demonstrates the distressing power of the social Web. The article posted on Nov. 1, 2009, so it’s not exactly new. Matthew Hutson recounts—and without substantive details—a sleep and intelligence study.
Slower Reading on iPad is Good Thing
I got caught up in the U.S. Independence holiday and forgot to post (three days ago) about Jakob Nielsen’s “iPad and Kindle Reading Speeds.” Jakob is a user experience (UX) expert, who has published usability column “Alert Box” since 1995.
In the July 2nd column, he explains about usability testing comparing book reading to Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad. The results are based on 24 participants.
Fourth of July 2010
Happy Independence Day! However, on July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha in the History of America. I am apt […]
Apple of My Eye
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/12819723] Short film “Apple of My Eye” demonstrates how good storytelling isn’t about the tools but the storyteller. Michael Koerbel shot and edited this delightful video on an iPhone 4. No PC or other […]
Internet Attention Deficit Disorder
Nicholas Carr’s book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, may be the defining manuscript of the World Wide Web era; so far. I haven’t read the book yet, but I have followed Nicholas’ writings leading up to The Shallows. I get his point, because I’ve experienced it. He merely wraps research around the experience. The point: Interaction with the Web changes how we think, in part by rewiring how we consume information. Attention spans are shorter and tasks like reading a long magazine article or book are harder.
In June 2008, I read a short post by Nicholas linking to his Atlantic story “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
Tweet If You See a Tooting Llama
Mark Arm’s Tumblr post—photo of a Central Park animal—reminds me of a story. Summer 1980, I had just turned 21 and lived in a group house on New York’s Upper West Side. The Democratic National Convention convened at Madison Square Garden for about four days of mayhem.
‘Hey, Buddy, You Can’t Poop There’
While shaving this morning, I heard someone outside talking to his dog: “Hey, buddy, you can’t poop there”. Yeah, like the dog understands what the guy is saying. Owners’ actions—letting a dog do its business anywhere it pleases and then cleaning up the dodo with a baggie—reinforce the animal’s poop-anywhere behavior. Dogs are responsive to humans. This owner, and the many others I see here in California, train their animals to behave a certain way: Poop anytime, anywhere they want. Outside the residence, of course. 🙂
Busking for London Tube Contest
OK, now this cool. Yesterday, as part of the Rhythm of London festival, a busking competition concluded. Winners will get a free one-year license to busk in the London Tube. Competitors uploaded videos to YouTube (haha […]
Next Task for Health-Care Reform: Abolish Gene Patents
As a science geek, college biology major (decades ago) and pragmatist, I am appalled that any person or company is granted patents over genes. It’s simply unconscionable to grant ownership over laws of nature, which allowance defies centuries of sound legal prudence. If the Obama Administration and 111th Congress want to do some more meaningful health-care reform, abolishing gene patents would be the right place to start.
There is something so oddly together about where genes started and where they are today. In February 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson uncovered “the secret of life” when identifying the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, more widely known as DNA. Their pioneering work later led to the Human Genome Project, which when completed in 2003 identified “the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA,” according to official information.
Obama's Nuclear Summit Secrets
World leaders arriving in Washington for President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit must have felt for a moment that they had instead been transported to Soviet-era Moscow…Reporters for foreign outlets, admitted for the first time to the White House press pool, got the impression that the vaunted American freedoms are not all they’re cracked up to be…even the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, was more talkative with the press than Obama…The restrictions have become a common practice for the Obama White House.
Dan Milbank
Barack Obama’s Three Mistakes
I voted for Barack Obama and still have much hope for his presidency. But from my humble perspective, his priorities were out of order coming into office. Healthcare should have been second to financial reform. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearings now underway started more than a year too late.