Month: June 2010
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Near-Far Bias (Construal-Level Theory)
Robin Hanson has written much over the last few months on ‘construal-level theory‘ (also known as the near-far bias) and I’ve been slowly following along, taking notes. The theory, according to Wikipedia, “describes the relation between psychological distance and how abstract an object is represented in someone’s mind. The general idea is that the more…
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Understanding Wisdom
In a review of Stephen Hall’s Wisdom, Bookslut’s Jessa Crispin asks ‘Can we understand wisdom?’ and looks at the evidence for and against. Wisdom is not the same as knowledge, and so it seems odd it has attracted the attention of science. There is such a thing as “wisdom studies” now, and in his book…
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Facebook’s ‘Like’ and Conspicuous Consumption
Wondering why we freely and often make our tastes public (specifically, our brand preferences through Facebook’s ‘Like’ mechanism), Nicolas Baumard discusses how we purchase goods to display our good taste: In a way, Facebook can be seen as a handy device to send a lot of very precise signals about your opinion and your values!…
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Medicine, Specialism, and the Scientific Education
In the commencement speech he delivered to the graduates of Stanford’s School of Medicine earlier this year, Atul Gawande eloquently (as ever) examined the state of modern medicine (in the U.S. specifically, the world generally), the problem with specialism, and the problem of specialists trying to fit into a system not necessarily designed for it.…
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The Technological Timeline and Science Education
In this brief profile of the Czech-Canadian academic Vaclav Smil–dubbed as Bill Gates’ tutor–we are treated to his thoughts on “the main things we should be worrying about (or not)” from his latest book and his opinion on science education and the maturation timeline of new technologies: [Vaclav Smil] is (almost) resigned to the fact that…
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The Role of Good Progress Bars
For the increasingly complex applications that we deal with on a daily basis, progress bars are an important feature in order to provide users with a constant experience of progression, efficiency and engagement. After explaining the benefits of progress bars (see above!), Gavin Davies then delves deeper into the topic, looking specifically at the role of…
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Competition Increases Cheating, Not Performance
By increasing the competitiveness of a task–by rewarding top performers, for example–performance levels do not improve and instead the rate of cheating increases among the worst performers. That’s what researchers discovered when they used a maze-based computer task to determine how increasing competitive pressure influences cheating and performance levels. Half the students were paid according…
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The Business of Invention
By separating invention from manufacture we can create a strong “capital market for inventions”, says former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold*, and this will bring about greater creativity and rewards for all concerned. Myhrvold is currently the CEO and cofounder of Intellectual Ventures (a company he freely admits as being “reviled as a patent troll”) and…
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The World as the Extended Mind
That the tools and technologies we use act as extensions to our brains is nothing new: this is the extended mind theory. Indeed, last year I pointed to Carl Zimmer arguing that Google–and thus the Internet as a whole–was an extended mind. However, Scott Adams’ take on the ‘exobrain’ is simultaneously the most concise and…
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Gradual Sleep Deprivation, Obesity and Cognitive Impairment
By getting less than our required amount of sleep over an extended period of time (two weeks, for example) we are increasing our risk of obesity and impairing our cognitive abilities without even being aware of it. That’s the conclusion from a short article summarising the surprising effects of gradual sleep deprivation: Researchers […] restricted…