Category: ideas

“A lot of people on Twitter are dedicated readers. Twitter is like all of the other short forms that preceded it. It’s like the telegram. It’s like the smoke signal. … There is a guy out there who is writing 140-character short stories – I just followed him today … It’s sort of like haikus [and] prose,” Atwood said.

“Oh, the deception! The rank insincerity! It’s just like the Devil in Mutton Chops to promise an orgiastic communion fit for the gods, only to deliver a gospel of ‘self-conceit so intensely intellectual,’ as Melville complained, ‘that at first one hesitates to call it by its right name.'”

“In a tongue-in-cheek contest of microscopic mobility, a line of bone marrow stem cells from Singapore beat out dozens of competitors to claim the title of the world’s fastest cells.”

“The Web isn’t just a truly extraordinary invention, it is the apex of human evolution — and the ultimate evolutionary adaptation.” Whoa. For real? (Yes.)

“There’s a huge sucking sound, and that’s the erosion of mass as part of the media model. Fewer people buying movie tickets and hardcover books, more people engaging in free media.” But there’s hope! Read on.

“In a recent study by the American Psychological Association, the more creativity a person displayed, the more he or she was likely to cheat on a test for personal and monetary gain. Participants in the study, offered a financial reward for correct answers on a quiz, were more likely to copy the answers from an “accidentally” revealed answer key.”

“When I was in college I always got more out of lectures than out of the reading, and now I work in a trade, journalism, that is largely about listening to the spoken voice. And this, in turn, led me to wonder whether I’m wired in some way to listen rather than read.”

“It now appears watching eager young performers in action may have skewed our view of the competitive urge. Newly published research suggests the instinct to bet on the superiority of one’s skills peaks around age 50.”

“The same enterprising mind that allows creative people to consider new possibilities, generate original ideas, and resolve conflicts innovatively may be what also helps them justify their own dishonest behavior, said the authors of [a] new study.”

“Celebrating its 10th year of promoting neologisms,” the Festival XYZ has announced its Word of the Year: “attachiant(e) – a combination of attachant (captivating, endearing) and the slang word chiant (bloody nuisance) to denote someone you cannot live with but cannot live without.”