Category: Uncategorized
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Running a Social Experiment on a City
WhenĀ academicĀ Antanas Mockus became mayor ofĀ BogotĆ” he used the opportunity to run a social experiment on a grand scale. Soon enough, crime was reduced, road deaths were down, and there were 400 trained mimesĀ improving both traffic and citizens’ behaviour. Seriously. “The distribution of knowledge is the key contemporary task,” Mockus said. “Knowledge empowers people. If people…
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Ā£1,000,000 for a ChemicalāFree Material
The Royal Society of Chemistry is offering Ā£1,000,000 to anyone who can produce a 100% chemicalāfree substance. Why? Because they have grown tired of the wordĀ chemicalĀ being used negatively, perpetuating the idea that anything containing ‘chemicals’ is inherently bad. The Royal Society of Chemistry is today reclaiming the word chemical from the advertising and marketing industries.…
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A More Positive View of McDonald’s
The Washington Post talks to Jim Skinner, the McDonald’s CEO, and presents a positive viewpoint of McDonald’s. McDonald’s exemplifies the role of small businesses in Americans’ upward mobility. The company is largely a confederation of small businesses: 85 percent of its U.S. restaurants — average annual sales, $2.2 million — are owned by franchisees. McDonald’s…
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The 90-9-1 Principle: Participation Inequality in Social Communities
Jakob Nielson, the leading usability consultant, discusses the participation inequality of social communities, in which: 90% of users are the “audience”, or lurkers. 9% of users are “editors”; or those who participate. 1% of users are “creators”. More information at 90-9-1: a website dedicated to this ‘principle’ where you can view, among other things, these…
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Raising Money for a StartUp Company
Jason Nazar, founder of DocStoc, digs up an old document on Raising Money for a StartUp Company Good information within on the ‘funding lifecycle’, bootstrapping, angel investors vs. venture capital, and valuation methods, amongst others. Entrepreneurs face a great deal of challenges in building a successful venture.Ā They have to identify a good opportunity, in…
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Five Physics Lessons for Obama
Foreign Policy presents five physics lessons for Obama, written by Richard Muller, lecturer and author of Physics for Future Presidents (the book, the website, the lecture series and podcast at UC Berkeley). There are lessons on terrorism, energy (oil), nuclear energy, space and global warming. via Kottke
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Scale of Stressful Life Events and The Misdiagnosis of Sadness
Mind Hacks points us to a recent article in Psychiatric News arguing that the current definition of ‘major depression’ has led to misdiagnoses of ‘normal sadness’. They argue that the diagnosis contains no qualifications about whether the reaction is appropriate in the context of the person’s life, meaning that people who have suffered unemployment, relationship…
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The “Broken Windows” Theory of Crime
The “broken windows” theory of crime, dating back to an article in The Atlantic from 1982 and more recently popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point and Rudy Giuliani (mayor, NYC), suggests that signs of petty crime, like littering and broken windows, trigger further criminal behaviour. Now, recent research is starting to suggest that…
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Experimenting with Ganzfeld Hallucinations
After reading a recent issue of Cortex, Mind Hacks goes into some detail discussing the Ganzfeld procedure: The Ganzfeld procedure exposes the participant to ‘unstructured’ sensations usually by placing half ping-pong balls over the eyes so they can only see diffuse white light and by playing white noise through headphones. It is probably best known…
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Blogs as Wunderkammern
Wunderkammer, or Cabinets of Curiosities/Wonder, could be classed as collections of objects that fascinate or interest the collector. I suppose you could say that Jay Walker’s personal library is a type of wunderkammer, and quite an impressive one at that. Heather McDougal suggests that blogs are a type of wunderkammer, and I’m inclined to agree.…