Clive Thompson
Clive Thompson
birthday expert fans favorite passionate retain subjects topic truly works
When you're an expert in a subject, you can retain new factoids on your favorite topic easily. This only works for the subjects you're truly passionate about, though. Baseball fans can reel off stats for their favorite players, then space out on their own birthday.
artistic huge seems truly work
Truly huge artistic collaboration on the Internet seems to work only if the gang has a well-defined objective.
lets produce thousands total truly
The Internet lets thousands of total strangers collaborate to produce a truly hivelike result.
age delightful kids screens split time
The things kids can do on screens can be really delightful - if they are age appropriate. But no, they shouldn't spend all their time on a screen; they should split up their time doing multiple, different things.
computer consumers files requiring tiny
Software is now so complex - requiring so many gazillions of tiny files all over your computer - that most consumers don't want to bother to know what's really going on.
compare people public
There is something about the ability to externalize our thoughts and compare them with other people in a public way that is really transformative for the average person.
mostly narcotic online
Why are online games so addictive? It's mostly the narcotic appeal of 'leveling.'
funny animal appreciate
That's the old ecological tale that explains humans' inability to fully appreciate global warming. To wit: if you drop a frog in a pan of hot water, it jumps out. If you drop it in a pan of cold water, then turn the heat up slowly, you can roast it to death.
thinking opposites data
PowerPoint presentations, the cesspool of data visualization that Microsoft has visited upon the earth. PowerPoint, indeed, is a cautionary tale in our emerging data literacy. It shows that tools matter: Good ones help us think well and bad ones do the opposite. Ever since it was first released in 1990, PowerPoint has become an omnipresent tool for showing charts and info during corporate presentations.
book reading serendipity
When you broadcast your book reading voluntarily, it creates moments of fascinating serendipity.
type pencils
Type as quickly as you can and always carry a pencil.
people tools computer
More than any other modern tool, computers are a total mystery to their users. Most people never open them up to fix them or to see how they work.
character world way
The humanitarian developers behind World of Warcraft have also discovered a way to bribe gamers into turning off their computers and going outside. If you log off for a few days, your character will be more rested when you resume playing, a mode that temporarily speeds up your leveling.
powerful thinking talking
A huge amount of our everyday thinking - powerful, creative, and resonant stuff - is done socially: talking to other people, arguing with them, relying on them to recall information for us.