When I was twelve, my father recommended I read a book. It is the only book one I can think of that he has ever made to me. But, I have to say, it was probably the best recommendation anyone has ever made to me. See, when I was a kid, I loved space technology…
Our attention is the product for Facebook and Twitter. They make money by selling advertising. The more time we spend on the site, the more ads they put in front of us, the more money they make. Outrage makes them the most money. We are more likely to share what outrages us. We have tribalized…
Common sense is not so common. At least not in the sense that what we think are common sense behaviors are universal agreed upon across all of humanity. An example: In a western culture, we tend to value the individual, so we think it common sense that we do things that benefit us. In an…
What makes you, you? Psychologists like to talk about our traits, or defined characteristics that make us who we are. But Brian Little is more interested in moments when we transcend those traits — sometimes because our culture demands it of us, and sometimes because we demand it of ourselves. Join Little as he dissects…
In reading a recent article about the issue with #MeToo (a viral campaign where women posted about their experience with sexual harassment or abuse), I also read the Nature article by Dr. Molly Crockett Moral outrage in the digital age. It also led me to watch the below fascinating TED Talk. If the above fails to…
What’s six miles wide and can end civilization in an instant? An asteroid — and there are lots of them out there. With humor and great visuals, Phil Plait shows us all the ways asteroids can kill us (yipes), and what we must do to avoid them.
I loved Adam Grant’s book, Originals. The below video is essentially the TL;DR version. How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies “originals”: thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals — including…
A friend invited others to her parent’s house inside the totality. It was fantastic placement very near the center of totality, so we got to see it for a couple minutes rather than a few seconds just inside totality. [Photo album] I experienced the annular eclipses in 1984 and 1994. I was a kid…
Found it especially weird that podcasts advertising Zip Recruiter tend to talk about how they found people to work for them without using Zip Recruiter. We are supposed to believe that even though they did not use it, we should not leave it to chance to find a good employee like they did. These bothered me…