His incredibly fascinating and pessimistic talk at something called the 34th Chaos Communication Congress in Germany last month. (Note: if you invite Charlie to something tagged as “an annual four-day conference on technology, society and utopia” and expect to be uplifted, you
The tale of the bloodthirsty pacifist
I hate war, violence, and even avoid killing bugs and insects. But damn it, I love to play war games. A rich contradiction that my wife wishes didn’t exist. She probably wishes that I passed on the violent video games,
Book review: Owning Our Future (by Marjorie Kelly)
Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution by Marjorie Kelly My rating: 5 of 5 stars I’ve been a fan of Marjorie Kelly since I read The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy. This book, Owning Our Future:
America to academics: Why don’t you make like a tree and get outta here
Whenever the US government passes major legislation with overwhelming majorities in rapid fashion, and the President signs it enthusiastically, it means one of two things has happened. Either we’ve been attacked by Japan and it’s 1941. Or the country has
Policy wonk Jedi mind tricks
Two months ago President Obama signed an executive order to encourage the use of evidence-based research in government policy. He also established a permanent Social and Behavioral Sciences Team to inject behavioral insights into a number of government programs. Or as they
Vox has 26 signs that everything is awesomer than you thought
For all of you smiling under a warm spring sun today, enjoying the blooming of blossoms and the greening of grass, here’s an extra happiness injection: it’s getting better. What is it? Life. This story from Vox is something that I
Got to give to live well?
I’m intrigued by research of what drives success, happiness, productivity and overall well-being. Conventional wisdom usually turns out to be wrong in these areas (money can’t buy happiness may be often said but is little believed). Knowing what really drives positive outcomes
My newsletter may improve your memory
UPDATE: I’m reposting this because I had problems with connecting to the various social media outlets. The Scoop, my newsletter, is now open to subscribers. The link should be right over on the right-hand side. It will include the news about all
So good you can’t ignore it
I am a big fan of Cal Newport’s side job of researching better ways to study. I say side job because he is a computer science professor at Georgetown University. In addition to his blog, Study Hacks, he has published several books
Future forms of government?
What? A representative, constitutional democracy may not be the last stop in improving self-governance? i09 has an article up about what future forms of government could be. Check it out. I’ll have more thoughts about this later.