Posts – page 38 of 74

Scott Adams thinks there should be a new kind of degree, a “certification that a student has completed a series of classes specified by a particular designer.”

The designer would not be limited to one college for specifying classes. For example, if Warrant Buffett designed the Warren Buffett Business Degree, he would specify the general type of classes that need to be completed, and the student would be free to find those classes across any number of institutions and sources, including online classes or work experience. A graduate who earns the Warren Buffett Business Degree might take a few classes at the local community college, spend a year in China learning Chinese, work for an Internet startup for a year, join Toastmasters International to practice public speaking, read a number of specific business books, and so on.

Everything Don Draper Said

How Do We Identify Good Ideas? » Wired Science

Screenshots of Despair

Here’s another reason for me to start learning Spanish again.

Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.

The article gives neurological reasons why knowing two languages makes you smarted and keeps your brain healthy. However, the sustained mental effort necessary to learn a second language probably provides the biggest brain boost.

We need writers to seek out fresh metaphors and turn on our brains. Annie Murphy Paul explains why.

[A] team of researchers from Emory University reported in Brain & Language that when subjects in their laboratory read a metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for perceiving texture through touch, became active. Metaphors like “The singer had a velvet voice” and “He had leathery hands” roused the sensory cortex, while phrases matched for meaning, like “The singer had a pleasing voice” and “He had strong hands,” did not.

Jeff Atwood’s article, Welcome to the Post PC Era, shows how the age of the onesizefitsalldoeverythingPC era has come to an end because of its own success. Smaller devices are able to do much of what we once needed full desktops to accomplish.

When was the last time you saw a desktop or a home without a computer? 2001? 2005? We’re long since past the point where Microsoft’s original BHAG was met, and even exceeded. PCs are absolutely ubiquitous. When you wake up one day to discover that you’ve completely conquered the world … what comes next?

I’m glad we got the Kindle and iPad instead of this 1933 imagining of a futuristic book reader.

via Boing Boing

The girl with the camera and mirror

LEGO: The Simpsons via Laughing Squid

Don Draper just had brunch where I had brunch. I had the grilled veggie omelette. He had a scotch, a steak, and any woman he wants.

— lonelysandwich. January, 2008. Just so we always remember where it all started. Because, as far as I know? This is where it all started. (via merlin)

Good ideas write themselves

I’ll bet it’s more accurate than the nightly news.

nevver:

This infographic provides some scientific backing for what you already know: You need more sleep.

The internet delivers only one medical diagnosis. via

Universities will shrink to coffee shops

A violin from the inside (via the Behance Network)

The myth of the overnight success

New Star Wars Identities Posters Shows What Characters Are Made Of

John Gruber’s review of the new iPad is enough to make anyone start checking their credit limit to see if they can afford the latest toy from Apple.

Pixels pixels pixels. Battery battery battery. Speed speed speed.

That’s the new iPad, a.k.a. (for comparison’s sake) the iPad 3. The retina display, significantly faster graphics, and the potential for startlingly fast cellular networking — all with the same renowned battery life (and standby time) as the original iPad and iPad 2.