34
POPSEtymology Dictionary I clipped this some time ago, however it never really took off, so to speak. IMO this is a great resource and one can spend quite a bit of time learning, and even being surprised. So here it is again.
28
POPSAvoid Ad Hominem on Clipmarks Having seen this logical fallacy used on Clipmarks several times, I thought it would be a good idea to point it out to everyone so that we can avoid this in the future.
26
POPSThrough Gritted Teeth "This concept of grit is not just perseverance, it's also about keeping relevant long-term goals in mind. When psychologists have researched 'goal-directed action' in the past, they've almost always been thinking about the here and now. Reaching, immediate problem solving and short-term achievement. This is slowly starting to change and some cognitive scientists are now attempting to understand the psychology and neuroscience of what we might call 'life goals'.
24
POPSNew Research On Octopuses Sheds Light On Memory It is not completely understood how these two systems are interconnected, if at all. However, the organization in the octopus demonstrates a sophistication that was not described yet in other animals. In the octopus, the short-term and long-term systems are working in parallel, but not independently. This is so because the long-term memory area -- in addition to its capacity to store long-term memories -- also regulates the rate at which the short-term memory system acquires short-term memories. This regulatory mechanism is probably useful in cases where faster learning is significant for the octopus' survival in emergency or risky situations.
22
POPS10 Important Differences Between Brains and Computers "These differences may be crucial to understanding the mechanisms of neural information processing, and ultimately for the creation of artificial intelligence. Below, I review the most important of these differences (and the consequences to cognitive psychology of failing to recognize them)".
22
POPSGrief addiction Long-term grief can activate pleasure areas of the brain, creating the risk of addiction
21
POPSYour brain lies to you This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true. With time, this misremembering gets worse. A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength.
20
POPSCan You Catch Up on Lost Sleep? The good news is that, like all debt, with some work, sleep debt can be repaid—though it won't happen in one extended snooze marathon. Tacking on an extra hour or two of sleep a night is the way to catch up. For the chronically sleep deprived, take it easy for a few months to get back into a natural sleep pattern, says Lawrence J. Epstein, medical director of the Harvard-affiliated Sleep HealthCenters. Go to bed when you are tired, and allow your body to wake you in the morning (no alarm clock allowed). You may find yourself catatonic in the beginning of the recovery cycle: Expect to bank upward of ten hours shut-eye per night. As the days pass, however, the amount of time sleeping will gradually decrease.
20
POPSLink more easily to Clipmarks search results Just a quick note for anyone wanting an easier way to link to search results pages. Simply wrap the term in double square brackets term ] ], and the comments parser will now turn it into a link. I had a few minutes free today, and skiff had suggested it, so we added it. (hint: see source for more bbcode tips, like how you can do the same with links to clipper pages) Enjoy the weekend!
20
POPSFascism: How It's System And Society Works In this article, we'll look closely at fascism, find out what the term really means and how the ideology has been used to unite nations and divide the world. Prominent Fascist Regimes * Fatherland Front, led by Engelbert Dollfuss, Austria (1934-1938) * National Fascist Party, led by Benito Mussolini (1924-1943) * National Socialist German Workers (NAZI) Party, led by Adolf Hitler, Germany (1933-1945) * National Union, led by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, Portugal (1934-1968) Fascist regimes use violent suppression to maintain control of the State. Mussolini inspects the "Shock Troops" of the Fascist Militia during celebrations in Rome.
19
POPSSpore - A Computer Game to Teach our Children Long Term Thinking This game is about evolution and exploring our universe at all scales from the microscopic to the galactic. It is about the 'Big Picture' of life, and how to think about it in a multilevel multiscale fashion. It will give a real grasp of the complexity and interconnectedness of life, and will educate the players holistic long term thinking and planning. Watch the fascinating presentation of Will Wright in TED. Toys may change the world by changing us. I am all for it, and can't wait playing :-)
19
POPSSelectively Deleting Memories "One thing that we're really intrigued by is that this is a selective erasure," Tsien says. "We know that erasure occurred very quickly, and was initiated by the recall itself." "But people are very interested in devising a way where you could come up with a drug to expedite a way to do that," he says. That kind of treatment could change a memory by scrambling things up just in the neurons that are active during the specific act of the specific recollection. "That would be a very powerful thing," Mayford says. But the puzzle is an incredibly complex one, and getting to that point will take a vast amount of additional research. "Human memory is so complicated, and we are just barely at the foot of the mountain," Tsien says.
19
POPS"I don't want everybody to vote!" Conservative activist Paul Weyrich in 1980 lays out long-term strategy to suppress voting, insisting "our leverage in the elections...goes up as the voting populace goes down.
19
POPSThe 7 habits of highly effective propagandists citing a qualified source is a good way to emphasize a legitimate idea. But you should consider whether or not the source being cited is really qualified to make judgments about a particular issue. 5. PLAIN FOLKS The “Plain Folks” technique is at work whenever a speaker promotes the idea that he or she is “of the people,” just an Average Joe despite the fact that he or she may go home to a mansion at the end of the day. 6. CARD STACKING “Stacking the deck” is a gimmick used by magicians where a deck of cards appears to be randomly shuffled but is in fact arranged in a specific way. The IPA borrowed the term to describe a technique where only one side of a topic is favored, or another side is ignored or played down. 7. BANDWAGON The idea behind the Bandwagon technique is that, since everyone else is doing it, so too should you.