Letters Remain

Category: interesting

  • Option Paralysis: The Quarterlife Crisis

    Kate Carraway sums up that modern existential angst experienced by countless twentysomethings: The Quarterlife Crisis, a somewhat disabling mix of akrasia, apathy and ennui brought on by a number of realisations. This phenomenon, known as the “Quarterlife Crisis,” is as ubiquitous as it is intangible. Unrelenting indecision, isolation, confusion and anxiety about working, relationships and…

  • Scams, Cons and the Psychology Behind Them

    Back in January Jason pointed to Wikipedia’s list of confidence tricks; an educational and amusing read. Now, the UK’s Office of Fair Trading has commissioned some research into why people fall victim to scams (pdf). According to the (260 page) report, here are the reasons why successful scams fool us: Appeals to trust and authority.…

  • The Future of the Calendar

    The calendar has the possibility to become “the biggest software revolution of the future”, says Scott Adams in an article looking at how crucial time and proximity are in making information (more) relevant. I also found myself agreeing with Adams’ thoughts on news: When I read the news, I’m generally most interested in how stories…

  • Superstition and Irrationality

    I’d like to class myself as a fairly rational being, but we all have our transgressions, right? So are we all maybe a bit superstitious? To answer this, Richard Wiseman offers this common thought experiment from Bruce Hood’s new book, Supersense: Imagine that you only have two objects in your house: 1) A £10 watch that was given to you by…

  • Deliberate Practice Breeds Genius

    I initially thought that this was just going to be another superfluous variation on the 10,000 hours theme (from Malcolm Gladwell’s latest, Outliers). OK, so while it actually is that, David Brooks’ look at how to forge modern creative genius is still fairly interesting. Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a…

  • Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

    Tongue-in-cheek, but parts of this ring true: the basic laws of human stupidity. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or…

  • Infographic Inspiration

    There’s not much I can say about this collection other than giving you its accurate title: 50 great examples of infographics. via @mikaarauz

  • UK Bank Holidays

    Today is the May Day Bank Holiday here in the UK, so I thought I would look at the history of why we have these public holidays. I was sure that the commonly held belief  of why ‘bank holidays’ are so called was incorrect, and it appears that Wikipedians confirm this assumption: “Bank holidays are often assumed to…

  • How to Win at Monopoly

    It appears that a couple of high-profile blogs linked to this a few years back, but it’s new to me: how to win at monopoly. Monopoly is a game of luck, strategy, and people skills. No strategy will guarantee you a win; that’s one of the reasons Monopoly is so interesting. In any given game,…

  • Raising Bill Gates

    While the article lacks in certain places, this brief look at Bill Gates Sr. and his relationship with his son is an interesting read with a few amusing anecdotes about the mostly elusive Gates family. [Bill Gates Sr.] and Mary brought their son to a therapist. “I’m at war with my parents over who is in…