Month: June 2010
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The Argument for Parenthood
It is often suggested that having children has a negative net effect on the happiness of the parents. Economist Bryan Caplan disagrees, suggesting that studies have missed the evidence suggesting that parents sacrifice more than they need to and overestimate the long-term effects of parenting on a wide range of child outcomes (including education, morality,…
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Political Risk Assessments
“Safety is never allowed to trump all other concerns”, says Julian Baggini, and without saying as much governments must consistently put a price on lives and determine how much risk to expose the public to. In an article for the BBC, Baggini takes a comprehensive look at how governments make risk assessments and in the process discusses…
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Letting Go of Goals
Designed to help you find focus and tackle “the problems we face as we try to live and create in a world of overwhelming distractions” is focus : a simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction. This is Leo Babauta‘s latest book and he is producing it iteratively online. One issue I have is that…
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Scaling Success and Bright-Spot Analysis
When there is a large-scale and wide-ranging problem that needs a solution, we shouldn’t attempt to solve it with an equally large solution but instead attempt to break the issue down and find outlying successes to replicate. That’s the wisdom of Dan and Chip Heath–authors of Made to Stick and Switch–saying that to solve complex…
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Why Science Needs PR
Scientists needing to persuade society at large shouldn’t be relying on their data alone to persuade but instead should employ PR tactics, suggests Wired‘s Erin Biba (and a number of PR company employees, natch). I don’t totally agree with the idea (scientific integrity and all that jazz) but some of the thoughts/suggestions are entirely valid…
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Cryptic Crosswords and Face Identification
A study comparing the effects of various leisure activities on the recognition and identification of faces has concluded that eyewitnesses should not be permitted to do cryptic crossword puzzles prior to an identity parade. The study, conducted by Cardiff University’s Michael Lewis, compared logic puzzles (sudoku), crossword puzzles (both cryptic and standard) and mystery novels…
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Learning to Concentrate and Media Dieting
Stating that “one of the more embarrassing and self-indulgent challenges of our time is the task of relearning how to concentrate”, Alain de Botton‘s short essay for City Journal looks at our “obsession” with current events and how this distracts us from… everything. The obsession with current events is relentless. We are made to feel that…
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Media Consumption and Current Events
As part of their series on ‘media diets’, The Atlantic Wire is asking a number of media luminaries how they manage the deluge of information we all encounter online. Some names you’ll recognise include David Brooks, Ezra Klein, Tyler Cowen and the following from Clay Shirky discussing his distaste for ‘breaking news’: In general, there’s no real breaking…
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HTML5 Forms: A Fun Guide
It’s been a while since I’ve read a technical(ish) article that is as accessible and fun as Mark Pilgrim’s guide to using new HTML5 markup in web forms. I’m not sure if it’s the doing of ‘Professor Markup’ or this slightly nerdy quip, but I fell in love with Pilgrim’s style: Asking for a number…
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Steve Jobs’ View on the Web and Creativity (1996)
In 1996, while he was still the CEO of NeXT, Steve Jobs was interviewed by Wired writer Gary Wolf. The result was a sometimes quaint, occasionally prophetic and often pessimistic exchange. In this far-reaching (and somewhat lengthy) discussion with Steve Jobs, the two discuss the forthcoming ubiquity of “the web dial tone”, how technology doesn’t change…