ialas.net

My online notebook. I also have an essay blog and music blog.
Partitioning is a great way to control consumption rates of resources, like food and money.

Interruption makes good experiences even more pleasurable (and bad ones even worse).

Nostalgia makes you feel less lonely.

“Always start where the energy is. If you’re feeling very world-weary—and sometimes we’re all in that boat—you have to sit down with something that’s going to engage you. That doesn’t mean you just switch on the TV and watch a cartoon, but it does mean asking, What would be fun? Maybe take a piece of paper and a pencil and start drawing silly things. Go for a walk. Just sit very quietly watching your breathing. Anything. Just allow the whim to get you going. Now, you can’t do this all of the time; it’s too disconnected. But I think in that particular frame of mind, when you run out of energy and motivation, I think you have to go right down to the instinct, right down to a whim.”
— John Cleese on creativity: - Barking up the wrong tree

“It may be possible to tactically use disfluency to improve our own everyday lives, as well. Schwarz has found that the ease or difficulty of thinking something can sometimes neutralize the actual content of the thoughts themselves. Along with Lawrence Sanna of the University of North Carolina, Schwarz has looked at fluency and self-confidence. The two found that, if the goal was to boost college students’ confidence before an exam, getting them to list a few reasons why they were going to succeed was more effective than getting them to list many reasons. Because it was harder, the students who were asked to think of more ways to succeed were actually less confident, even though they ended up with longer lists. And Schwarz and Sanna found a converse effect when they asked students to think of reasons they would not do well: Students asked to come up with a longer list of reasons they would fail reported feeling more confident than those asked for a shorter list. Indeed, they reported feeling as confident as the students who had been asked to come up with the short list of ways to succeed - by the authors’ calculation, thinking of 12 ways to fail had the same effect as thinking of three ways to succeed.”
— Easy = True

“For the researchers the conclusion is inescapable: the genetic code must have arisen in an earlier evolutionary phase dominated by horizontal gene transfer. Goldenfeld admits that pinning down the details of that early process remains a difficult task. However the simulations suggest that horizontal gene transfer allowed life in general to acquire a unified genetic machinery, thereby making the sharing of innovations easier. Hence, the researchers now suspect that early evolution may have proceeded through a series of stages before the Darwinian form emerged, with the first stage leading to the emergence of a universal genetic code. “It would have acted as an innovation-sharing protocol,” says Goldenfeld, “greatly enhancing the ability of organisms to share genetic innovations that were beneficial.” Following this, a second stage of evolution would have involved rampant horizontal gene transfer, made possible by the shared genetic machinery, and leading to a rapid, exponential rise in the complexity of organisms. This, in turn, would eventually have given way to a third stage of evolution in which genetic transfer became mostly vertical, perhaps because the complexity of organisms reached a threshold requiring a more circumscribed flow of genes to preserve correct function.”
— Horizontal and vertical: The evolution of evolution - life - 26 January 2010 - New Scientist

“Instead of devoting your energy to pretending you feel fine—and explaining why it may seem otherwise—let yourself feel what you feel. And let people think what they want. They’re going to do it anyway. It’s just what people do. Instead of explaining why you don’t seem perfect, or thinking you need to forgive yourself for it, let yourself be human without apologies. Everyone else is, too. No one is always together.”
— Do Happy: Stop Explaining | tinybuddha.com

“People who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen. Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re less motivated to do the hard work needed.”
— Shut up! Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them. | Derek Sivers

“Scientific research has found that tears produced by emotional crying, may be one of the ways that the body disposes of toxic substances. Dr. William Frey II, Ph.D., biochemist, and tear expert at the Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota has discovered that reflex tears are 98% water, while emotional tears contain much more protein, which includes stress hormones. Dr. Frey and his research team spent many years studying the composition of tears. Their conclusion was that emotional tears released harmful chemicals that had built up in the body, due to stress. Additional studies hypothesized that crying may stimulate the release of endorphins, substances that elevate our mood and are natural pain killers.”
— Why Crying is Good for You - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com

“The ideal life [is] not only accomplished but thoroughly enjoyed.”
— The Serious Pursuit of Fun « Scott H Young

What's more persuasive: fiction or non-fiction?:

Fiction. Marketers, take note. Bonding with characters makes people lower their guard.

“Applying brainstorming techniques to new product development works best when the collaboration employs participants from varied specialties gathering to develop a less complex product. When new products will be highly technical, a better way to develop them is for specialists to do their work in private and collaborate through ‘nominal’ groups, the study says.”
— When to brainstorm and when not to: - Barking up the wrong tree

What motivates workers?

Making progress:

Having just completed a multiyear study tracking the day-to-day activities, emotions, and motivation levels of hundreds of knowledge workers in a wide variety of settings, we now know what the top motivator of performance is—and, amazingly, it’s the factor those survey participants ranked dead last. It’s progress. On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak. On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.

“Women who have sex with bilaterally symmetrical men report more orgasms; men with attractive faces have higher quality sperm; the length of the index finger in relation to the ring finger is related to verbal fluency, spatial ability, and the risk of autism; women with an hourglass figure have more regular menstrual cycles and are more fertile; and the sound of a person’s voice predicts his or her sexual behavior.”
— What does your body’s appearance tell others about you sexually?: - Barking up the wrong tree

How To Live (Comfortably) on $36 A Month For Food | Andrew Hyde - Organization of Chaos