danapalooza

The author:

When the first abysmal Star Wars Prequel was released the strong feelings against the film weren’t just those of disappointment at a bad movie. If it were that simple, we should also feel the same way about Police Academy 7.

Via @ftrain, a wonderful debate on the purpose of emotion in our lives and it’s roll in guiding our decision-making process

“Antoine Bechara, a psychology professor at USC, tells us about the case of Elliot, an accountant who, after having a tumor removed from his brain, became entirely rational.” …and unable to make the simplest decisions — from what to buy at the supermarket, to which pen to use to sign a contract — without endlessly weighing the pros and cons of each.

A Radiolab episode

Jonathan Price:

‘The cruel way to tell somebody,’ he said, ‘is try being less selfish.’

Hypothetically, if our 14 billion-year-old universe were scaled down to just 10 years (for the sake of comparison), dinosaurs would have been extinct 17 days ago

— “An Evolving Perspective”, Big Think

But I have a vision for what happens to us when we carve out the hard human parts of our stories’ subjects. Attached to our scalpel is a bar that connects to a smaller scalpel poised against our own flesh.

— “15 Minutes of Meaning for Jonah Lehrer”

Say it again. Notice that it’s difficult — almost impossible, in fact — to pronounce it neutrally. It’s got a sneer built into it, that word

— Sarah D. Bunting, “A Four Letter Word”

People are never irrational. They often act on memories and pressures that you’re unaware of, though.

— Seth Godin, Via James Hoffmann

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.

— Steve Jobs (via ekkehard) ¶ In non LEGO news. ¶ (via mattsbrickgallery) ¶ Question is: is giving us a 4” screen an example of “listening to what customers want”, and then giving it to us?

(via mattsbrickgallery)

Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you

— Robert Fulghum via “Zen Moments”

Mic Wright, for The Telegraph:

Psychologists explored theories of deindividuation – the slaking off of self-awareness and responsibility through anonymity – long before the web was a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye. In his 1895 work, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Gustave Le Bon suggests crowd behaviour becomes “unanimous, emotional and intellectually weak” and that anonymity leads to primitive and hedonistic behaviour.