February 2008
15 posts
Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social... →
It’s like proprioception, your body’s ability to know where your limbs are. That subliminal sense of orientation is crucial for coordination: It keeps you from accidentally bumping into objects, and it makes possible amazing feats of balance and dexterity. Twitter…
January 2008
17 posts
A Kiss Is Just A Kiss - Or Is It? →
Who says there’s no romance anymore? Not Scientific American: Of the 12 or 13 cranial nerves that affect cerebral function, five are at work when we kiss, shuttling messages from our lips, tongue, cheeks and nose to a brain that…
Tools Extend the Body Map →
I’ve written a lot about body maps and brain plasticity here, and it still never ceases to amaze me. A new study reenforces the idea that tools can become an extension of the body maps. Nicholas Carr, an IT guy,…
Hey, I Know That Guy! →
Sometimes you get an unexpected surprise when reading your RSS feeds. Today it was a link to a story about phantom limbs on NPR. Being interested in anything to do with brain plasticity, I surfed over to the NPR site…
The Universe Is Conspiring to Help Us - Really →
If you want cut yourself some slack, take a little time to read Kevin Kelly’s Christmas essay on the This I Believe portion of the NPR site. Here’s just one eloquently-put piece of it to whet the appetite. We are…
Breathing, Attention and Exercise →
I’ve changed my mind about how much attention to pay to my breathing patterns and how important it is to remember to breathe when I’m using a computer, PDA or cell phone. I’ve discovered that the more consistently I tune…
Where New Television Comes From →
One of the perks of working in broadcast television is, well … you can watch TV while you work. Usually it’s video that you’re working on for later broadcast. But sometimes it’s easy to stray into other territory. So in…
Book Learnin' Don't Always Work →
Here’s one idea about why it’s so difficult to learn or master physical skills for most of us: In a way, “Just do it” is profoundly counter-cultural. Westerners are used to learning from the outside in. Our motto would be…
Thinking and Feeling Out of Kilter →
Like most of us, blogger Dave Winer finds lots of discomfort in the plunging stock market. He wrote a nice bit about it on his blog today. In particular, I like what he says about the unsettling difference between knowledge…
Kindapple? →
Here’s John Gruber’s take on Apple CEO Steve Job’s comments on the Kindle: So, either (a) Jobs think the Kindle is a bad concept; or (b) Apple is working on a portable e-book reader. Probably (b), wouldn’t you think?
The Opportunity Offered by Mad Men →
Roger Von Oech likes Mad Men, the AMC series that centers around advertising guys in 1960. Me, too. One of his comments refers to something like nostalgia: I was twelve in 1960 and it was interesting to re-enter that world…
Monkey See, Robot Do →
One of the cool things about the human nervous system is that we can learn to manipulate objects as if they were part of our own bodies. Stuff like shovels, rakes, skis, tennis rackets, golf clubs, what have you. And…
Kindle, Anyone. Anyone? →
Steve Jobs, as quoted in the New York Times, joins many other pundits in saying the Amazon Kindle bookreader is doomed. But it’s got nothing to do with anything technical. Nope. There’s not much demand because people don’t read! Jobs…
Sarah and Dr. Kimble →
The Sarah Connor Chronicles Pilot: Gnothi Seauton - Film.com goes on about a new TV show based on the Terminator film franshise. Seems there may be certain issues about how this show’s plot and characters mesh or not with the…
“In the embodied view, if you’re going to explain cognition it’s not...”
– Don’t just stand there, think - The Boston Globe
Here's an article about tumblelogging and... →
Wii: Good for Exercise, Good for Learning →
Visiting twin 7-year-old boys can really shatter the peacefulness of a quiet home. But not so much if you have a [Nintendo Wii][1] around to laser focus their attention and keep the little buggers occupied for hours on end. You’d…