Cashiers and Maths Prodigies
From Bounce: In 1896 Alfred Binet, a French psychologist, carried out a simple experiment to find out. He compared the performance of two calculating prodigies with cashiers from the Bon Marché department store in Paris. The cashiers had an average of fourteen years experience in the store but had showed no early gift for mathematics....
Dizzy Gillespie and The Muppets
Large chunk of cheerfulness here, via my newest latest favouritest site.
“Glob-bogeys” good for the brain
This [via @briankott] made me smile. “Chewing gum can and does help you focus and concentrate, not to mention relieve your boredom and tension. Hell, the military uses it to keep the soldiers sharp. It can also improve your memory for as much as 35 percent.“ Especially given this (not uncommon) view It’s repulsive stuff,...
Michelangelo quote on effort
If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all
Guardian’s Crossword Blog
Just subscribed to this. I get to use it in a sentence near a hedge.) Our interest here is not worthy slogging or slaving but the pleasure of solving: the culture of crosswords; the tactical experience; the feelings of frustration, fancy and fun. If you’re an interested newcomer, the blog is here to hold your […]
RSA: Smile or Die
I like this. A lot. And think the comment she makes about depression being equally delusional is equally important [via 3quarksdaily]
The Effects of School Are Overplayed
John Hattie’s book Visible Learning is a (dense) treasure trove of statistically backed educational research. He looks at 800 meta-analyses of school research and then analyses them for effect. The idea is essentially to try to come up with a way of measuring how much good various initiatives as compared to, say, a child’s...
The Weakest Pronoun
James Pennebaker has discovered some astonishing things about pronouns and how we use them. “Basically, we discovered that in any interaction, the person with the higher status uses I-words less (yes, less) than people who are low in status.” Strange. But then for those who don’t believe there is any gender inequality...
Workspace, Learnspace, Brainspace
I’ve just been watching Channel 4’s The Secret Life of Buildings. The presenter’s an acquired taste but there are some fascinating bits to it. The main take-aways for me are : buildings and spaces actually change the way the human brain works. (more complex, interactive spaces make for more engaged brains. Fred...