Random Thoughts
payaljs |
Just that I was recovering from a tooth ache and being lectured upon dental anesthetics, that I came across an interesting experiment on understanding pain.
I hope this can alleviate the pain levels you had been ignoring for some while.
calliope |
If I could do Calliope as a full-tilt project, not just a hobby venture, I would make it involve transmedia and gaming. As life goes, I had neither opportunity nor talent to come up with, say, the 'Urgent' synth riff. However, an enterprising fellow who did used that to (depending on which interview you read) either fund his first album, or buy his boat.
In both cases, this led to the Map of the Floating City. A project that mixes music, MMOing, and game-like open exploration. And social media. And, oh, heck, toss in any recent interesting concept. Not just a mix…
Today I turn 45 years of age.
Overall, physically I do not feel much different from, say, 15 years ago. I consider myself lucky, since I am generally in good health. Never have I had to sleep in a hospital bed, not a single night. I will spare you a list of all the minor health problems I had in my life, but the list would be very short anyway.
Yet I know this is bound to change. 45 years of age is roughly the time when some of our physical faculties start to decline at a faster rate than in the previous 20 years. One of the sharpest changes which occurs at this age in most individuals is…
antunes |
How much actual on-task work do you do on a typically work day? The myth is everyone produces 8 hours of useful, targetted work in an 8.5 hour work day (with unpaid lunch). Staying in the office extra hours, likewise, produces more useful work. I suggest you should measure this for yourself. Here's how to find out-- but you may want to hold off telling your boss quite yet.
As a freelancer, I have no salary or set work hours. I bill only for time spent on task. I use an electronic timer-- a stopwatch, really-- to track my time. Starting on a task? Timer on. Pause to check personal email or…
antunes |
You can read this story two different ways.
Enjoy science and beer, the combination meant to be together.
Or
Unpaid scientists give lectures at pubs, and don't even get free beer.
Science pubs?.
Sign me up, for audience or speaker!
Alex
Tuesdays at The Satellite Diaries and Friday at The Daytime Astronomer (twitter @skyday)
calliope |
Do you live for moments where "you're so absorbed by the task at hand that you lose track of time and place"? Some call this 'the zone', psychologists call it Flow, and I'll pointlessly coin a acronym, 'SPS' (super productive state). CSM guest blogger Trent Hamm has some insights on how to flip [your] mental switch and find 'the zone'. Why flip that switch?
"figure out how to get in the zone and do it as often as possible. If you can do that, everything else really is secondary. You will find success."
Successful productivity is not fully a matter of 'getting into the Zone…
Ed Chen |
Why I believe in marriage equality or no marriage at all.
I have to admit that gay marriage was once an issue I was against, for the reason that I felt it was an issue which unnecessarily divided the electorate, particularly in a time of war. I also felt, that like any interest group, the lgbt communities fixation on this issue only alienated potential supporters of domestic partnership and equal rights short of marriage. I myself once advocated to a group of my gay friends that they should be satisfied with something short of marriage, and perhaps another class of…
I used to work in chemical thermodynamics for quite a while. No doubt, I have heard of the informational entropy but I have always thought that it has nothing to do with the entropy in chemical thermodynamics.
Recently I have started reading papers on artificial life and it came to me as a complete surprise that so many people there consider that the thermodynamic entropy and the informational entropy are the same. Let me cite for example a few sentences from Christoph Adami "Introduction to Artificial Life":
p. 94 "Entropy is a measure of the disorder present in a system, or alternatively, a…
Ed Chen |
It is accepted wisdom that an increasing marginal rate on income taxes
serve to balance inequality in our society, while also funding the
massive entitlement programs created at the federal and state levels.
Indeed, the credo of so called progressives for solving the fiscal ills
of our public sector is to raise the marginal income tax rate, while
the credo of the republicans is to cut and borrow. however, as has
become patently obvious to any objective observer, both parties
ideologies have driven the state and federal debt obligations to
unsustainable levels, without…
Hank |
I'm not sure how many of you out there have Facebook - quite a few, I assume, given their huge participation numbers - but on a frequent basis they introduce changes designed to help us.
I can't argue with Mark Zuckerberg's instincts, since the valuation on Facebook is 10,000 times that of Science 2.0, but it doesn't always seem like the changes are good. I used to have a Home feed that gave me a cross section of new things from people on my friend list but now I can't figure out how it works - I get meaningless stuff from people I don't really know so I rarely use it…