participants were told that the questions were developed either by a research institute located in California, "around 2,000 miles away" (distant condition), or in Indiana, "2 miles away," (near condition).  In a third, control group no information regarding location was mentioned. As expected, participants in the distant condition solved more problems than participants in the proximal condition and in the control condition. Because the problems seemed farther away, they were easier to solve.

This pair of studies suggests that even minimal cues of psychological distance can make us more creative. Although the geographical origin of the various tasks was completely irrelevant – it shouldn’t have mattered where the questions came from – simply telling subjects that they came from somewhere far away led to more creative thoughts.

These results build on previous studies which demonstrated that distancing in time – projecting an event into the remote future – and assuming an event to be less likely (that is, distancing on the probability dimension) can also enhance creativity.

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

In 1954, psychologist James Olds and his team were working in a laboratory at McGill University, studying how rats learned. They would stick an electrode in a rat's brain and, whenever the rat went to a particular corner of its cage, would give it a small shock and note the reaction. One day they unknowingly inserted the probe in the wrong place, and when Olds tested the rat, it kept returning over and over to the corner where it received the shock. He eventually discovered that if the probe was put in the brain's lateral hypothalamus and the rats were allowed to press a lever and stimulate their own electrodes, they would press until they collapsed.

There you go. If you didn't have actual work to do, you would keep hitting refresh on your twitter client until you collapsed. (It's true, isn't it?)

And, apparently, this little corner of the brain is not the pleasure center. The high that you get is not similar to the one you get after eating chocolate or after sex (or both). This is a different high, characterized not by euphoric satisfaction, but rather by excitement of finding something, and craving for more.

It is an emotional state Panksepp tried many names for: curiosity, interest, foraging, anticipation, craving, expectancy. He finally settled on seeking. Panksepp has spent decades mapping the emotional systems of the brain he believes are shared by all mammals, and he says, "Seeking is the granddaddy of the systems." It is the mammalian motivational engine that each day gets us out of the bed, or den, or hole to venture forth into the world. It's why, as animal scientist Temple Grandin writes in Animals Make Us Human, experiments show that animals in captivity would prefer to have to search for their food than to have it delivered to them.

For humans, this desire to search is not just about fulfilling our physical needs. Panksepp says that humans can get just as excited about abstract rewards as tangible ones. He says that when we get thrilled about the world of ideas, about making intellectual connections, about divining meaning, it is the seeking circuits that are firing.

And the best part is this:

Later experiments done on humans confirmed that people will neglect almost everything—their personal hygiene, their family commitments—in order to keep getting that buzz.

Exactly. Describes you perfectly, doesn't it, my dear twitter/rss/email/sms addict?

Read the full article, if you're scientifically, or neuroscientifically inclined.

I found this article via http://twitter.com/sandygautam, someone whose twitter and friendfeed stream you must follow (and refresh compulsively) if you liked this article.

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

@ngkabra: This account is used for general interesting information from around the web. Often it is about psychology, economy, funny stuff, India, etc. Most non-techies should follow this one.

@_navin: This is for technology tweets. Programming. Computer Science. Python. Maths and Statistics. Only geeks may venture here.

@ngkx: This is for general conversation. Restaurants I liked. What my kids are up to. Silly remarks. IM replacement. Only likely to be interesting for people who know me personally (and sometimes not interesting to even them!)

@punetech: This is the "official" twitter handle of http://punetech.com. All about technology in Pune – and nothing else. All techies in Pune are required by law to follow this.

@punetechlive: This is for live-tweeting tech events in Pune. During an event we often tweet 20 to 50 times in an hour, and that is too much stuff to foist on to regular readers of @punetech who might not be interested in the event. Live-tweeting of any event from this account is _always_ preceded with a tweet on the main @punetech account announcing that live-tweeting is going to commence. So, particularly discerning readers can start following @punetechlive just for events that they find interesting and unfollow when they are not interested in that event.

Why?

Why all this segregation and complexity?

Basically, because I believe that twittering is not about what I want to say – rather it is about what my followers want to hear. I doubt that the seven hundred people who follow @ngkabra for interesting articles around the web, e.g. the people in Atlanta, or Portland, would really be interested my review of the @grubshup restaurant on Canal Road, Pune. Nor do the doctors and accountants following me have any interest in python debugging techniques.

And, the evidence appears to show that this segregation is working well. A quick analysis of the followers of these different accounts shows that the overlap between the various accounts is rather low, indicating that people are selectively following only some of my accounts.

But maybe I should find out the list of people following all my accounts and give them a prize of some sort!

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

For example, one exercise in the positive psychology asked students to list 3 good things that happened to them each day for a week – then the follow-up questions asked what the event meant to them and what can increase the likelihood of this happening again (kind of connecting the dots for the students).

…

The net result: positive thinking and resiliency training improved students' school outlook and engagement, improved classroom behavior and cooperation, resulted in more self-control, and more empathy. Not bad!

That's not all – think about this:

students who believed that intelligence was a fixed entity were more likely to show no improvement in their math achievement from 7th to 8th grade, more likely to withdraw or cheat, and less likely to demonstrate mastery-reactions to setbacks. Not surprisingly, the students who believed intelligence could be 'grown' – were more likely to persevere, show resiliency behaviors to setbacks, and improve performance.

See full article.

(Via: http://twitter.com/sandygautam)

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

I opened my mailbox today to find the following two comments in moderation on one of the posts on the http://punetech.com website. Please take a look.

Author : Patil G. (IP: 121.247.252.84 , 121.247.252.84.dynamic.pune.vsnl.net.in)
E-mail : sayaglobal@yahoo.co.in
URL    :
Whois  : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=121.247.252.84
Comment:
I recently visited a Residential Project at Sus, Pune called AAROHI by Tierth Developers, which is being designed by a big group of IT Professionals from various IT companies like Wipro, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Persistant, Cap Gemini etc. Its a very beautifully crafted projects with many 2 & 3 BR Flats, Row Houses & Bungalows with a superb Club House & Swimming Pool with almost all he games facilities. I thought evry IT professional must know about that. !

Approve it: http://punetech.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=mac&c=7646
Delete it: http://punetech.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&c=7646
Spam it: http://punetech.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&dt=spam&c=7646

——-

Author : Anand Shrivastava (IP: 121.247.252.84 , 121.247.252.84.dynamic.pune.vsnl.net.in)
E-mail : sanaish4@yahoo.com
URL    :
Whois  : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=121.247.252.84
Comment:
Well Mr. Patil, thanks for the info. Pl tell me How is the project located from Hinjewadi ? Pl mention the distances if possible. Our group is searching this kind of Project since last 6 months but we are unable to locate a good Project dedicated for IT Professsionals and one who is having Club House with all most all the sports facilities, as stated by you. Pl also state whether there is any School nearby that project? Thanks.

Approve it: http://punetech.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=mac&c=7647
Delete it: http://punetech.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&c=7647
Spam it: http://punetech.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&dt=spam&c=7647

Notice anything strange?
Points to be noted:

• Both comments are still in the moderation queue. Specifically, the first comment has not been approved yet. Which means that there is no way "Anand Shrivastava" could have seen "Mr. Patil's" comment.
• Also, they are posted from the same IP address.

I did not realize that the situation of Pune builders has become so desperate that they have to resort to astroturfing to get people interested.

I googled a bit, and found that they appear to do this in other places too. See for example the four or five comments at this link.

In anycase, the Aarohi project by Tierth Developers hires unscrupulous people. Not a good sign.

Posted via email from Navin’s posterous

If I close
my eyes
i can see

As a child
prancing
to school

Dangling
onto
Pappa’s hand

The swaying palms
the washed out blue
Of an empty sky

I remember the joy
of rain bubbles
going `plink’

Delighting for hours
in rainbows
in the oil slick

But that was
aeons ago
And today, i’m wiser

I think I know
these little joys
are impermanent

I seek important
`big’ reasons
to be happy

Reasons
less ephemeral
than rain bubbles

Reasons
less elusive than
the smell of new earth

I continue in
my quest for
a permanent rainbow

My very own
that nothing, no one
can take away from me

But then why …

Do little nothings
of long ago
still gladden my heart

While I have
no memories
of yesterday or day before ?

In my search
for `meaningful’ joy
am I forgetting

To conceive today
the smiles
for tomorrow ?

Does happiness
know
the difference

Between
rainbows in oilslick
and rainbows in the sky ?

- deePa

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The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent
– John Maynard Keynes

Source: Wikipedia. See also this relevant article, about the US government bailout of financial institutions in September 2008.

Quotes of Kenneth Boundling, economist, which sound strangely more relevant after the global financial meltdown:

Mathematics brought rigor to Economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis

Nothing fails like success because we don’t learn from it. We learn only from failure.

Source: Wikipedia
Switching a little:

There you have it. Admiration for raw, undirected cleverness winning over a questioning of fundamental importance. I wish there’d been someone in the room like Fight Club’s Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt), who responds to a smart remark by Edward Norton’s narrator character with, “Clever. How’s that working out for you, being clever?”

Source: RibbonFarm.com

But let’s not worry so much about the crisis. Paul Graham points out that now is the best time to start a startup. However, many people think of doing startups, but not are not willing to quit their current job yet:

People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.
- Marcel Proust

Source: BrainyQuotes

But where do ideas for startups come from? Proust again:

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Enough about money. Let’s focus on love and happiness. Here’s Proust again:

Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.

We only really think when distressed, we shouldn’t worry about striving for happiness so much as “pursuing ways to be properly and productively unhappy.”
- Publisher’s Review weekly paraphrasing Proust

Source: How Proust can Change your life

Darwin never warned against crossing black cats, walking under ladders or stepping on cracks in the pavement, but his theory of natural selection explains why people believe in such nonsense.

The tendency to falsely link cause to effect – a superstition – is occasionally beneficial, says Kevin Foster, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University.

For instance, a prehistoric human might associate rustling grass with the approach of a predator and hide. Most of the time, the wind will have caused the sound, but “if a group of lions is coming there’s a huge benefit to not being around,” Foster says.

Foster and colleague Hanna Kokko, of the University of Helsinki, Finland, sought to determine exactly when such potentially false connections pay off.
Simplified behaviour

Rather than author just-so stories for every possible superstition – from lucky rabbit’s feet to Mayan numerology – Foster and Kokko worked with mathematical language and a simple definition for superstition that includes animals and even bacteria.

The pair modelled the situations in which superstition is adaptive. As long as the cost of believing a superstition is less than the cost of missing a real association, superstitious beliefs will be favoured.

Read the full article.

Reflecting on the misinformation, half-truths, and weasel-words that form the bulk of political-campaign speecifying, I conclude that listening to politicians’ campaign speeches yields about as much information as listening to insects buzzing: in both cases you’re made aware that annoying, and possibly dangerous, pests are nearby.

Source: Cafe Hayek

“Faith is Hope given too much credit.”

– Matt Tuozzo

Source: Overcoming Bias

NBC Universal, which is trying to block a public bike path from traversing its property along the waterway…
One bike advocate said Universal executives told him they feared that people would use the path to lob unsolicited screenplays onto the studio’s nearby production lot — something that apparently happens at other spots when a Universal film scores big at the box office.

Source: boing-boing.

Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying.

Persistence is having the same goal over and over.

Source: Seth Godin.

As usual, the idealists are 100% right in principle and, as usual, the pragmatists are right in practice.

Source: Joel on Software

In a relationship, you are not meant to make someone else happy; you want to be happy *with* that someone else.

Source: Solitary Dreamer (3rd comment)