“For the memory to remain accessible, my younger self had to remember those concepts in the same language-based way that my adult self remembers information. I formed earlier memories using more rudimentary, pre-verbal means, and that made those memories unreachable as the acquisition of language reshaped how my mind works, as it does for everyone.”
Category: ideas
When Hippie Musicians Are The Most Tech-Savvy In The Biz
“The Grateful Dead remains one of the most innovative and tech-savvy bands in pop history. Long before it became necessary (or cool) to do so, the band embraced a DIY ethos in everything from manufacturing its own gear to publishing its own music to fostering a decentralized music distribution system. The Dead’s obsession with technology was almost inseparable from the band’s psychedelic ambition and artistic independence.”
Maybe London, And Its Architecture, And Its Character, Aren’t Actually In Trouble?
“I am not a Londonphobe. I don’t hate the city. I am not planning to leave. I do not oppose all building – I don’t think we are building enough, or in the best ways.”
Are The Arts Dying Because Of Indifference?
“For while the fine arts can survive a hostile or ignorant public, or even a fanatically prudish one, they cannot long survive an indifferent one. And that is the nature of the present Western response to art, visual and otherwise: indifference.”
How Your Personality Affects Your Creativity
Researchers “found that focused attention generally decreased people’s creative performance, but focused individuals still did better than mind-wanderers when both personality types tried to solve problems analytically.”
Talent Spotting: Which Would You Trust, The Data Or The Hunch?
“The gift for talent-spotting is mysterious, highly prized and celebrated. We like to believe that certain people—sometimes ourselves—can just sense when a person has something special. But there is another method of spotting talent which doesn’t rely on hunches. In place of intuition, it offers data and analysis. Rather than relying on the gut, it invites us to use our heads. It tends not to make for such romantic stories, but it is effective—which is why, despite our affection, the hunch is everywhere in retreat.”
Why “Smart” Kids Often Don’t Turn Into Smart Adults
“When people perform well (academically or otherwise) at early ages and are labeled smart or gifted, they become less likely to challenge themselves. They become less likely to make mistakes, because they stay in their comfortable comfort zone and stop growing. And their fixed mindset persists through adulthood. The simple and innocent praising of a smart kid feeds an insidious problem that some researchers track all the way up to gender inequality in STEM careers.”
It’s Leap-Second Day. Do You Know Where Your Computer Is?
“About 50 years ago, we started keeping time with atomic clocks—clocks that operate according to the oscillations of a tiny atom.—and in order to keep these clocks in step with the earth, we add an extra second every now and again. The trouble is: the world’s computers, often running on ancient software code, aren’t always configured to accommodate this extra second. And that can cause problems.”
The Underfunded, Disorganized Plan To Save Earth From The Next Giant Asteroid
“Unfortunately for the future of the world, the recent 2005 Congressional mandate to find NEOs on the order of 140 meters or larger within the decade appears to be floundering due to organizational and funding challenges.”
London Is Eating Itself. What Will Be Left?
“The spaces for work that are an essential part of the city’s economy are being squeezed, its high streets diminished, its pubs and other everyday places closing. It is suffering a form of entropy whereby the distinctive or special is converted into property values. Its essential qualities, which are that it was not polarised on the basis of income, and that its best places were common property, are being eroded.”