This month’s selections.
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February 17 · Issue #5 · View online
A monthly curation for those of us who
• Think critically.
• Teach young minds how to think critically.
• Communicate critically assessed information to interested audiences.
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This month’s selections.
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PowerPoint Makes Us Stupid. Here Are 3 Smarter Alternatives
“People who know what they are talking about dont need PowerPoint.” – Steve Jobs
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'One more episode, please?' Why we can't stop binge-watching on Netflix
With the massive global expansion of streaming platforms like Netflix – which had more than 154 million subscribers in over 190 countries in 2019 – this practice of marathon viewing of televised content has gradually become a “new ritual” for many viewers. But not without a price.
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Does photographing a moment steal the experience from you? | Erin Sullivan
When we witness something amazing, many of us instinctively pull out our phones and snap pictures. Is this obsession with photographing everything impacting our experiences? In a meditative talk, Erin Sullivan reflects on how being more intentional with her lens enhanced her ability to enjoy the moment – and could help you do the same, too.
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Study: Can you tell a meaningful quote from ‘pseudo-profound bullsh*t’?
Some people can find deep meaning in thin air. It’s a skill that demonstrates the peculiarity of the human brain and its inclination to find patterns in the noise, even when none exist. Albert Einstein put it best when he said: “As beings of light we are local and non-local, time bound and timeless actuality and possibility.” Actually, Einstein never said that. In fact, those strung-together buzzwords are categorized as “pseudo-profound bullshit” in the psychological literature.
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A Self-Taught Indian Artist Sculpts Intricate Birds From Paper and Wire
In her modest studio in New Delhi, Niharika Rajput transforms simple materials like wire, epoxy, and paper into incredibly detailed sculptures that are exhibited or commissioned by wildlife organizations and art galleries around the world. Over the past five years, the Indian wildlife artist has built around a hundred species. In her creations, a hummingbird hovering in the air laps up nectar from a coneflower. Newborn bulbul chicks beg their mother for food. A male kingfisher offers fish to a female kingfisher, perched on a mossy piece of driftwood.
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The 1 Question the Most Interesting People Will Ask to Start Great Conversations
Use this powerful and disarming question to kill the small talk forever.
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“The only way to fight a false story told well is to tell a true story better.”
The way you tell a true story better is to fact check everything, which is not what the populists do. It’s really important, I feel, when we make these arguments to make sure that we’re aware of our own biases. People might argue with our statements or positions, but they can’t really argue with the numbers if you show the studies.
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Why we knock on wood
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Most people think it’s impossible to be both ethical and competent
PR agency Edelman has been measuring public trust in people and institutions for the past 20 years. Its latest survey, which polled more than 34,000 people in 28 countries, found that fear has eclipsed hope, no institution is seen as both competent and effective, and nobody has a vision for the future that a majority of people believe in.
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Why procrastination is about managing emotions, not time
Increasingly, however, psychologists are realising this is wrong. Experts like Tim Pychyl at Carleton University in Canada and his collaborator Fuschia Sirois at the University of Sheffield in the UK have proposed that procrastination is an issue with managing our emotions, not our time. The task we’re putting off is making us feel bad – perhaps it’s boring, too difficult or we’re worried about failing – and to make ourselves feel better in the moment, we start doing something else, like watching videos.
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How to boost your productivity by having an argument
Few of us enjoy confrontation and arguments, which is why many people actively avoid them. Unfortunately, ignoring an issue or withdrawing all together can hurt your career. A productive disagreement not only has the power to improve your output at work; it’s an exercise you should welcome.
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Our bodies are chronically in "threat mode"—but being kind recalibrates our nervous system
- The default “rest mode” of our brains is often taken over by a “threat mode” setting because of our stressful, “on-the-go” lifestyles. When we are chronically in threat mode, this leaves us with less capacity for compassion.
- Showing compassion or acting kind to others can actually change your physiology, taking you out of threat mode and putting you back into your natural “rest and digest” mode.
- Research by a well-known Stanford professor Dr. James Doty has shown that acts of kindness or compassion that put us back into our “rest mode” can have lasting positive impacts on our physical and mental health..
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Got Big Goals? Here's Why You Need to Think Small to Achieve Them
BJ Fogg is an experimental psychologist who founded the Stanford University Behavior Design Lab. Psychology Today quoted him as saying that tiny (micro) habits help you scale back bigger behaviors into really small behaviors. You then sequence them into your life where they can be easily accommodated. “These micro habits rely less on willpower and motivation and more on redesigning your life little by little, so over time, these small shifts create dramatic results,” he said.
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How You Parent Probably Doesn't Matter as Much as You Think
As someone who writes about parenting a lot and with the exact goal of helping to make all aspects of this monstrous, daunting task a little easier, I did a little double-take when I saw this headline in Today’s Parent: Does Parenting Even Matter? It better matter! Otherwise, why am I sitting here writing about potty…
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Death: can our final moment be euphoric?
It is often assumed that life wages a battle to the last against death. But is it possible, as you suggest, to come to terms with death?
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10 Great Essays about Work
Why Big Companies Squander Good Ideas by Tim Harford - Organisations from newspapers to oil majors to computing giants have persistently struggled to embrace new technological opportunities, or recognise new technological threats, even when the threats are mortal or the opportunities are golden…
Phoning It In by Stanley Bing - She gave me this long and involved story about a huge slight that was inflicted on her operation by some other entity someplace, and I was looking out the window and thinking, whoa, look at that BMW Z8
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