“What would happen if we all finally found happiness? Imagine if life’s little flaws – the way the car grumbles on the motorway, the fact that Tuscany is becoming too touristy – stopped nagging away at us, and we realised that things are fine just as they are? There are two good reasons to appreciate emotions other than happiness. The first is that few of us are likely to live our lives in bliss.”
Category: ideas
New Digital “Eyeball” Camera Eliminates Distortion
“Mimicking the curves of a human retina has enabled a digital image sensor to take wide-angle pictures without distortion. Conventional film and digital cameras use a flat surface to capture an image and as a result are unable to capture a wide field of view without distortion. Optics designed to correct such distortions can be complex and expensive.”
How We Get Smarter When We Sleep
“Whether deciding to go to a particular college, accept a challenging job offer or propose to a future spouse, ‘sleeping on it’ seems to provide the clarity we need to piece together life’s puzzles. But how does slumber present us with answers?”
Language, Shakespeare, And How Our Brains Work
“Up until now the main cognitive research done on the confusion of verbs and nouns has been to do with mistakes made by those who are brain-damaged. But hardly anybody appears to have investigated the neural processing of a ‘positive error’, such as functional shift in normal healthy people. We decided to try to see what happens when the brain comes upon these sudden new formulations in Shakespeare.”
Finding Context for Solzhenitsyn’s Message
“What link can we find to a figure like Solzhenitsyn today? The left compares America’s holding of enemy detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere to the Gulag…” John McCain, also a victim of internment, might disagree. According to one editorial, he “clearly comprehends the impact of Solzhenitsyn’s writings, of the power of words, of art, and of truth.”
Who’s Figured Out The World? Magicians
“At a major conference last year in Las Vegas, in a scientific paper published last week and another due out this week, psychologists have argued that magicians, in their age-old quest for better ways to fool people, have been engaging in cutting-edge, if informal, research into how we see and comprehend the world around us.”
Giving The Little Buggers Their Due
The Insectarium, “billed as the first major new institution to open in post-Katrina New Orleans, has been created in a section of the United States Custom House by the Audubon Nature Institute… An exhibit about the insects of New Orleans discusses the splattered bugs that coat cars in the mating months of May and September, and explains how the city’s history was scarred by diseases carried by uncontrolled mosquitoes.”
When Disciplines Diverge
Sanjoy Roy attended a recent panel discussion comprised of both dancers and visual artists, and was struck by the two groups’ inability to understand each other’s language. “Perhaps today’s chasm of incomprehension is because contemporary dance and contemporary visual arts have headed off in different directions; or perhaps it’s down to something deeper, an altogether different zeitgeist.”
Unintended Consequences
Britain’s class obsession has been on the wane for years now, as the UK embraces a less elitist reality in which one’s style, profession, and accent are not a mark of status. But by removing such class distinctions, are we left with only wealth and naked greed as a measure of success?
London Arts On £50 A Week
Times are tough, and lots of folks are pinching pennies. But culture doesn’t have to be expensive – a British journalist is attempting an entire week’s worth of arts-going on the cheap. His goal: spend no more than £50, “including food, drink and transport within central London – which also happens to be one of the most expensive cities in the world.”