April 2008

When most people discover a book that really connects for them, they can’t put it down. Me? I can’t keep it picked up!

Contrary, I know. But sometimes an author’s words hit all the right buttons, and my mental machinery gets all wound up and excited. It starts kicking out so many of its own ideas that I’m compelled to put the book down, pick up a pen and notepad, and scribble madly.

Brain Rules is one of those books. It sparked so many thoughts that I had trouble focusing on the book itself. My attempts to focus on a proper review have been even trickier. [click to continue...]

Without (much) further ado…
*Trumpet Flourish*

Tweak Me Now

(Pop up blockers off, please…
and you need to have the Flash player installed.)

And a big thanks to my friends at GhostDog(alpha)
for hosting this on their Dogpark!

The BackStory: [click to continue...]

Don’t try to deny it, I know you’ve had them - everyone does - those embarrassing instants of mind-numbing stupidity. You’re faced with a task, question or action that you’ve done a thousand times, and yet, you flub it. Even worse, you may even recognize the problem *as you make it*, you may know that you’re about to screw up colossally, and yet, you’re unable to stop it. Brain fart. <cue obnoxious sound file>

Turns out, it’s more than just a cutesy way of explaining away our embarrassment over mental glitches. Brain farts are real. No, the brain doesn’t actually belch noxious fumes, but still — they are real, measurable events in the brain, and even more interesting, they’re predictable. Here’s the deal:

Researchers were looking in the brain for cues that a mistake was being made - hoping to spot some sort of activity blip that signaled an error, perhaps an instantaneous loss of concentration.

[click to continue...]

Tell people you’re an artist, and their first response is usually "I can’t draw so much as a straight line!"  Well, you know…  I can’t draw a straight line, either.  I’ve got dreadful hand/eye coordination, and slightly shakey hands, so the pencil pretty much wavers all over the place.

Yet, I can do  this:

Straight lines are important to engineering, but not art. So what is it that makes the difference between someone who can produce a passable sketch, and the "I can’t draw a straight line!" protestors?

Artists know how
to "see" the world around them. 

[click to continue...]

The book Brain Rules is full of interesting stuff. Last night’s chapter (ironically read at 3am last night) dealt with the importance of sleep to our mental functioning.

“What’s that got do do with birds,” you ask?

Not a whole lot, really - except that their names provide nifty labels for our chronotypes: the sleep/alertness patterns that determine if we’re the type to chirp happily in the morning, or stay up all night staring at the stars. [click to continue...]