According to FirstRead,
the Iraq war’s effect on American politics can’t be understated, even 10 years later
So, according to that, anything that can be said is overstating the effect. One can’t state anything less about the effect.
Of course, they mean “should not be understated” rather than “can’t be understated”. But they could probably care less.
Google just announced that Reader will be unavailable as of July 1. Damn!
This makes me think that I should never rely on Google products for anything important. Docs, calendar, etc. Time to start looking for alternatives to each.
For the last month I’ve been trying the Perfect Health Diet and I’m pleased. My weight has remained low where it had dropped when I was sick. My strength is mostly back to where it was before I fell ill. It feels like my energy level is improved and my attention span is perhaps better than it was.
At first the name of the diet seemed pretentious but I get that it’s a play on how the authors, a husband and wife team, both have PhDs.
New Scientist mag has a May 2007 article on “Top 10 ways to make better decisions“. Here is what I got from it.
Don’t fear the consequences
> Rather than looking inwards and imagining how a given outcome might make you feel, try to find someone who has made the same decision or choice, and see how they felt. Remember also that whatever the future holds, it will probably hurt or please you less than you imagine.
From “Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth” by Diener and Biswas-Diener, 2008:
There are several predictable thinking errors people commonly make that lead them to incorrectly predict their own future emotions in general, and future happiness in particular:
Focusing on a single salient feature or period of time in a choice, rather than looking at the big picture. Overestimating the long-term impact of our choices. Forgetting that happiness is an ongoing process, not a destination Paying too much attention to external information while overlooking personal preferences and experience.
From Disorderly genius: How chaos drives the brain
your brain operates on the edge of chaos. Though much of the time it runs in an orderly and stable way, every now and again it suddenly and unpredictably lurches into a blizzard of noise.
systems on the edge of chaos are said to be in a state of “self-organised criticality“. These systems are right on the boundary between stable, orderly behaviour – such as a swinging pendulum – and the unpredictable world of chaos, as exemplified by turbulence.
From Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:
[According to Princeton economist Alan Blinder] the labor market of the next decades won’t necessarily be divided between the highly educated and the less-educated: “The critical divide in the future may instead be between those types of work that are easily deliverable through a wire (or via wireless connections) with little or no diminution in quality and those that are not.” Binder goes on to summarize his own take: “You can’t hammer a nail over the Internet.
From In Defense of Distraction:
“Where you allow your attention to go ultimately says more about you as a human being than anything that you put in your mission statement,” [Merlin Mann] continues. “It’s an indisputable receipt for your existence. And if you allow that to be squandered by other people who are as bored as you are, it’s gonna say a lot about who you are as a person.”
From What Makes Us Happy?:
… positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.
