Reflecting On Yourself Originally uploaded by Loose Wire. Why are people so easily absorbed by their own reflection? Is it narcissism, or do we tend to face the transport that we await? Is it easier to look at ourselves than at other people? Are people thinking about themselves when they look, or are they critically… Read More »
James Fallows casts a skeptic’s eye at traditional explanations for why the bigger elbows out the smaller in Chinese traffic. Of course, it’s not just China where this happens, and James is right to be skeptical about such explanations. It happens all across the developing world, from what I can see. Trucks elbow aside buses,… Read More »
Forgive me for any typos and errors for this posting. I’m typing this on a screen that is almost vertical so I can barely see it. it’s coach class on Philippines Airlines and of course I’m wedged behind the only person on the plane who seems to have spent the entire flight with her seat… Read More »
Bruce Schneier again talks sense, this time about phishing: Schneier on Security: Phishing Financial companies have until now avoided taking on phishers in a serious way, because it’s cheaper and simpler to pay the costs of fraud. That’s unacceptable, however, because consumers who fall prey to these scams pay a price that goes beyond financial… Read More »
Reading at the moment Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who mentions the trick German experimental physicist Heinz Maier-Leibnitz used to do in boring conferences to entertain himself and to measure the lengths of his trains of thought — microflows, in Csikszentmihalyi’s words. The passage is conveyed in full here: Professor Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, a German experimental physicist,… Read More »