warston

explore-blog: The Stanford researcher Cheri D. Mah found that...

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:15:44 +0200

The Stanford researcher Cheri D. Mah found that when she got male basketball players to sleep 10 hours a night, their performances in practice dramatically improved: free-throw and three-point shooting each increased by an average of 9 percent.

Daytime naps have a similar effect on performance. When night shift air traffic controllers were given 40 minutes to nap — and slept an average of 19 minutes — they performed much better on tests that measured vigilance and reaction time.

Longer naps have an even more profound impact than shorter ones. Sara C. Mednick, a sleep researcher at the University of California, Riverside, found that a 60- to 90-minute nap improved memory test results as fully as did eight hours of sleep.

Research confirms that, counterintuitively, relaxing makes you more productive. Of course, Thomas Edison knew that sleep is the key to success.

Artwork by Golden Cosmos

Go to sleep, relax.

We are all used to see Russian dash cams of exploding cars or...

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:30:41 +0200

We are all used to see Russian dash cams of exploding cars or incredible accidents and all.

Here is a video compilation of positive dash cams, where people help grandmas cross the street and save children from death.

Don’t forget: we see a lot of Russian inside-car videos because Russians use these videos to fight insurance fraud.

What philosophers think

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:45:41 +0200

What philosophers think:

PhilPapers conducted a survey back in 2009 asking faculty philosophers and graduate students what they thought about diverse matters. Follow the link for more results and the demographics of the survey, here are two interesting results:

Trolley problem (five straight ahead, one on side track, turn requires switching, what ought one do?): switch or don’t switch?

Accept or lean toward: switch 635 / 931 (68.2%)
Other 225 / 931 (24.2%)
Accept or lean toward: don’t switch 71 / 931 (7.6%)

Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?

Accept or lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible 331 / 931 (35.6%)
Other 234 / 931 (25.1%)
Accept or lean toward: metaphysically possible 217 / 931 (23.3%)
Accept or lean toward: inconceivable 149 / 931 (16.0%)

The History of Typography.

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:15:29 +0200

The History of Typography.

Why we’ll never meet aliens

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:30:21 +0200

Why we’ll never meet aliens:

Hint: it’s not because we don’t want to or they don’t exist.

If you combine all our current knowledge of statistics and astronomy, it’s nearly comical to believe we’re the only intelligent life in the universe. It’s easy to get lost in the numbers thrown around—there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers. Despite where this article might lead, it isn’t really about science. It’s about thinking big. Big enough to consider that if there are any aliens with the ability to come visit us, they would almost assuredly not care to.

"We’re cooking less and buying more prepared meals. Since the mid-sixties, the amount of time spent..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:45:22 +0200

“

We’re cooking less and buying more prepared meals. Since the mid-sixties, the amount of time spent preparing meals has fallen by half. While the global trend is the same, Americans lead the way. They spend less time cooking than any other country.

One thing we do more of, however, is talk about cooking. Celebrity chefs are everywhere with books and television shows. The sad reality is that we spend more time watching food shows than we do thinking about and preparing our own meals.

”

- On Farnam Street, an interesting look at Michael Pollan’s book, Food As Culture, of which he says that it connects us all. Indeed, meals are the first and most prevalent social network.

Michael Pollan: Food As Culture

Facebook's design team

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:16:08 +0200

Facebook's design team:

A thorough piece on Facebook’s design team by Alexis Madrigal for The Atlantic. Facebook is stacking up design talent in quite a hardcore mode:

The company clearly sees designers as a key to its future. Just look at how many they’ve snapped up. The spree began in June of 2011, when the company picked up Sofa, an Amsterdam-based design studio. Then, in August, they bought Push Pop press, which was seen as an acquihire of designers Kimon Tsinteris and Mike Matas, who designed several of key pieces of the iPhone interface. The next month, Maschmeyer joined up. In December, Facebook bought the check-in service Gowalla, largely for its design team. 2012’s haul got started with Elizabeth Windram, who helped design Google Search and was lead designer for Google Maps. Rdio’s head of design, Wilson Miner, was the next designer to fall in May of 2012, followed closely by the acquisition of the design research firm, Bolt Peters. In July, Justin Stahl, creator of The Font Game, came on board. In September, design researcher Marco De Sa came over from Yahoo. And finally, last month, Facebook bought Hot Studio, a design agency that had been independent for more than 15 years.

Tips for writing admission essays

Wed, 15 May 2013 15:30:25 +0200

Tips for writing admission essays:

Tips for writing college essays, in order not to sound too cliche. By Andrea van Niekerk, former associate director of admission at Brown. I’m sure the advice applies for all types of academic suggestions.

The road less traveled is oddly crowded. The problem with countless essays about courageously traveling off the beaten path and boldly exploring new places is not that admission readers will doubt the students’ sincerity, but rather the fact that teenagers usually lack the perspective to know that notwithstanding their desire to be different, others have already arrived at the same places, explored the same worlds, and wrote essays about it.

Poor but happy peasants. Summer trips and mission tours to exotic locales, both overseas and in the Deep South, have become grist for the college essays of both affluent Americans and their counterparts in countries like France and Singapore, where students still refer to their activities by blunt reference to “charity” work. However good their intentions, or those of the parents footing the big bills, these students’ essays often persuade readers that their experiences have been so sheltered that they return home with no deeper understanding of the impact of their unequal access to resources on those they went to serve.

I have overcome. Many students apply to US colleges having struggled against and having overcome astonishing odds. Such inspirational accounts leave those who have lived happy, secure lives casting around, however, for a hook on which to hang their own stories of growth and change. Admission officers will not doubt the sting a teenager felt on being overlooked for the varsity captaincy or on scoring a poor grade, but they can and do expect bright 17-year-olds to take the relative measure of their suffering.

Take me to your leader. Given their recruitment pitches, admission officers often have only themselves to blame when they are deluged by essays in which students treat leadership not as a process in which they participate and their hard work is reflected in the regard of their peers, but as a trophy to achieve and display on the mantle piece that is a college resume.

The psychology of conspiracy theories

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:45:22 +0200

The psychology of conspiracy theories:

Salon’s Sander Van Der Linden published an interesting article, copied from Scientific American, about new studies conducted about the psychology of conspiracy theories.

One interesting finding is that conspiracists often believe in contradictory theories:

For example, the conspiracy-belief that Osama Bin Laden is still alive was positively correlated with the conspiracy-belief that he was already dead before the military raid took place. This makes little sense, logically: Bin Laden cannot be both dead and alive at the same time. An important conclusion that the authors draw from their analysis is that people don’t tend to believe in a conspiracy theory because of the specifics, but rather because of higher-order beliefs that support conspiracy-like thinking more generally. A popular example of such higher-order beliefs is a severe “distrust of authority.” The authors go on to suggest that conspiracism is therefore not just about belief in an individual theory, but rather an ideological lens through which we view the world.

A good case in point is Alex Jones’s recent commentary on the Boston bombings. Jones, (one of the country’s preeminent conspiracy theorists) reminded his audience that two of the hijacked planes on 9/11 flew out of Boston (relating one conspiracy theory to another) and moreover, that the Boston Marathon bombing could be a response to the sudden drop in the price of gold or part of a secret government plot to expand the Transportation Security Administration’s reach to sporting events. Others have pointed their fingers to a ‘mystery man’ spotted on a nearby roof shortly after the explosions. While it remains unsure whether or not credence is given to only some or all of these (note: contradicting) conspiracy theories, there clearly is a larger underlying preference to support conspiracy-type explanations more generally. Interestingly, belief in conspiracy theories has recently been linked to the rejection of science.

Conspiracists also tend to refuse to believe scientific facts:

In a paper published in Psychological Science, Stephen Lewandowsky and colleagues investigated the relation between acceptance of science and conspiracist thinking patterns. While the authors’ survey was not representative of the general population, results suggest that (controlling for other important factors) belief in multiple conspiracy theories significantly predicted the rejection of important scientific conclusions, such as climate science or the fact that smoking causes lung cancer. Yet, rejection of scientific principles is not the only possible consequence of widespread belief in conspiracy theories. Another recent study indicates that receiving positive information about or even being merely exposed to conspiracy theories can lead people to become disengaged from important political and societal topics. For example, in their study, Daniel Jolley and Karen Douglas clearly show that participants who received information that supported the idea that global warming is a hoax were less willing to engage politically and also less willing to implement individual behavioral changes such as reducing their carbon footprint.

If Super Mario characters were hipsters.

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:16:00 +0200

If Super Mario characters were hipsters.

Minbox

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:30:35 +0200

Minbox:

Minbox is a lightweight menubar app that lets you send files to the right people faster than Dropbox.

It was made by the guys behind Penzu, a secret journal.

You should check it out.

Google Glass app lets you simply wink to take a photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:11:59 +0200

Google Glass app lets you simply wink to take a photo:

And so it begins.

How Muslims see Women’s rights around the world. A survey...

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:45:30 +0200

How Muslims see Women’s rights around the world. A survey conducted by Pew, courtesy of The Atlantic.

On Brain Computer Interfaces

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:45:45 +0200

On Brain Computer Interfaces:

Nick Bilton:

In a couple of years, we could be turning on the lights at home just by thinking about it, or sending an e-mail from our smartphone without even pulling the device from our pocket. Farther into the future, your robot assistant will appear by your side with a glass of lemonade simply because it knows you are thirsty.

Google Glass is only the beginning.

"For years, psychologists thought we instantly label each other by ethnicity. But one intriguing..."

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:16:04 +0200

“For years, psychologists thought we instantly label each other by ethnicity. But one intriguing study proposes this is far from inevitable, with obvious implications for tackling racism.”

- Interesting.

Race perception isn’t automatic « Mind Hacks

Mars One

Sun, 12 May 2013 15:30:41 +0200

Mars One:

Megan Garber for The Atlantic:

If you are at least 18 years of age and curious and capable and resourceful, with a capacity for self-reflection, an ability to trust other people, and a deep sense of purpose, then you can to go to Mars. Maybe. The Mars One project, which is planning to send a group of people to colonize the Red Planet, has officially opened its applications process to public voting. If you are one of the people ultimately selected for the program, if all goes according to plan, you will depart Earth in 2023 to follow in the epic footsteps of Magellan and Gagarin and Armstrong, staking a claim for humanity’s extension into a new and unknown world.

The only catch? You will not be coming back.

Amazing.

"Quattrone has been sitting quietly at the end of the table. He clears his throat and speaks: “Buy..."

Sun, 12 May 2013 13:45:39 +0200

“

Quattrone has been sitting quietly at the end of the table. He clears his throat and speaks:

“Buy Intel.”

”

- Jean-Louis Gassée offers 7 reasons for Apple to buy Intel in what is not such a far-fetched idea.

Apple Buys Intel | Monday Note

Behind the scenes photos of Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes...

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:16:00 +0200

Behind the scenes photos of Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back.

Update: here’s the source link.

An interesting Japanese hairstyle: Ripe Tomato.

Fri, 10 May 2013 17:15:45 +0200

An interesting Japanese hairstyle: Ripe Tomato.

Pavlovian reactions aren’t just for dogs and learn about...

Fri, 10 May 2013 15:30:48 +0200

Pavlovian reactions aren’t just for dogs and learn about taste aversion, or why you should nail the dinner you’re cooking for your date.