Dec 26, 2012

Eat Your Way to Willpower...Sort Of

Ever heard of glucose? Maybe in connection with diabetics? Well, as it turns out it's not just important for them, but for all of us. So what exactly is it? According to the authors of Willpower, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney it is "...the simple sugar manufactured in the body from all kinds of foods, not just sweet ones." (p. 44) And as research has recently shown, it's vital to practicing self-control. Here are a few things you should keep in mind if you want to make sure you have enough glucose in your organism:

1) Feed the beast.
Meaning the potential demon inside you because of glucose depletion. Have a good breakfast, especially on days that you're stressed. Don't argue with your boss several hours after having had lunch. And I especially liked the authors' last example: "When you're on a romantic trip across Europe, don't drive into a walled medieval town at seven p.m. and try to navigate to your hotel on an empty stomach. Your car can probably survive the cobblestone maze, but your relationship might not." (p. 57) Nicely put.

Dec 19, 2012

One Step At A Time...

There are some things in life that take time; developing and improving your willpower is one of them. Most of us have at least one bad habit we would like to get rid of, but we keep making the same bad decisions, showing a lack of self-control and willpower. Why does this happen? There are probably several reasons, but let's start today's post with something called "ego depletion". Here's how John Tierney, one of the authors of Willpower. Why Self-Control is the Secret to Success describes it:
"Thus was born 'ego depletion,' Baumeister's term for describing people's diminished capacity to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and actions. People can sometimes overcome mental fatigue, but Baumeister found that if they had used up energy by exerting willpower (or by making decisions, another form of ego depletion that we'll discuss later), they would eventually succumb." (p. 28)

Dec 12, 2012

Uncovering The Secret To Success

That's what we'll be doing in the next few weeks, where we will be taking a closer look at a book entitled Willpower. Why Self-Control is the Secret to Success by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney, a psychologist and a science writer who have teamed up to show the importance of self-control in all of our lives. Their subtitle is a pretty bold proposition to make, but the authors are not ashamed to state their case right in the introduction to their book. According to them, psychologists all over the world

Dec 5, 2012

Failure Is Not The End...

...In fact it can be the beginning of success if you react to it correctly. At least that's what Tim Harford would have you believe, author of the book Adapt. Why Success Always Starts With Failure. It is mainly written from an economic point of view and talks about helping the poor, climate change and financial crises. But in the very last chapter, Harford applies it all to you and me. And he basically identifies three possible (and negative) reactions to failure: denial, loss-chasing and hedonic editing. Here's what they each mean in a nutshell:

Nov 28, 2012

Please Stop Neglecting Me!

That's what some of my posts are saying right now. It's nice to have a list of your most popular posts (on the right hand side, if you haven't noticed yet), but what about the ones that have been somewhat overlooked by a lot of you? Well, I thought they deserved a second chance :-) And that's why today I present to you the four most neglected posts:

It's All Up To You...Well Almost (on being great)

Why Loneliness Is Worse Than Smoking

Have You Been Brandwashed?

Of Bottles and Mugs

Nov 21, 2012

Why Sunshine Is (totally) Overrated

Sunshine is great. I love sunshine. I've recently moved to Spain, where I get to enjoy more of it than I normally would in my home country of Germany. And it's healthy too, providing the body with the important Vitamin D, which keeps our bones healthy (among other things). But as humans, we tend to overrate the importance of sunshine (and climate in general) in our lives when it comes to rating our own happiness.

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman relates an argument he had with his wife, in which she claimed that people in California are happier than those who live on the East Coast. He tried in vain to convince her that her intuitions about the importance of climate when considering someone's happiness were wrong, citing the Scandinavian countries as an example for some of the happiest people in the world. So what does a psychologist like him do when his wife won't listen to him? Of course, he sets up an experiment so he can prove it to her.

Nov 14, 2012

When Memory Trumps Experience

Ok, tell me this: have you ever shared an experience with someone (a friend, a family member, etc.) and afterwards had different memories of it? It was the exact same thing, but one of you thought it was amazing while the other still liked it, but maybe not as much. Why does that happen? I'm sure there are several reasons for it, but I'm only going to talk about one of them here: The truth of the two selves.

Now before you jump up and yell: "Hey, but I'm not schizophrenic!" (of course you're not), allow me to explain what that means... or you know what? I'll let someone do it who actually knows what he's talking about. Daniel Kahneman, author of the bestselling book Thinking, Fast and Slow talks about these two selves in the context of experiencing pain:

Nov 7, 2012

Would You Like A Frame With That?

I remember a time as a child (probably not more than a few months) when I used to enjoy playing marbles. What I did not realize at the time was that researchers apparently like to use marbles for their experiments as well. At least sometimes...

In one such experiment the participants were asked to draw a marble from one of two urns. If they drew a red one, they would win a prize:

Urn A contained 10 marbles, of which 1 is red.
Urn B contained 100 marbles, of which 8 are red.

Which urn would you have chosen? About 30% to 40% of the participants went with the urn that had the larger number of winning marbles (Urn B), instead of picking the one that gave them a better chance of winning (10% in Urn A, 8% in Urn B). Psychologist Paul Slovic calls this the denominator neglect. In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains why some people are susceptible to choosing Urn B:

Nov 4, 2012

How Honest Are You?

This post is just in passing. I thought the following link was really worth sharing. Maybe just something to think about at the beginning of the new week: in what ways am I being dishonest, just because "everybody's doing it"? 


P.S. His book on dishonesty is on my list of books to read. So you may find some posts on the topic here sometime in the future...

Oct 31, 2012

Of Bottles and Mugs

Have you ever noticed how much some of the things you own mean to you? That old watch you inherited from your grandpa, those Nike sneakers you just bought last week, or maybe that beat-up car you've been driving around with for years now. For how much would you be willing to sell these items? Or maybe you wouldn't sell them at all?

When the now famous American economist Richard Thaler was just a graduate student, he noticed some very irrational and "un-economic" behavior in one of his professors.

Oct 24, 2012

Beware The Anchor!

I'm going to assume that we all know what an anchor is. Nope, not the guy on TV, the original one. But just in case someone doesn't, I've added a picture below. An anchor makes sure that the ship it is attached to doesn't go floating off into the great, vast ocean. But anchoring doesn't just happen in naval contexts.

As Daniel Kahneman notes in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, the brain can easily be influenced by giving it an anchor:
"It is an anchoring effect. It occurs when people consider a particular value for an unknown quantity before estimating that quantity. What happens is one of the most reliable and robust results of experimental psychology: the estimates stay close to the number that people considered - hence the image of an anchor." (p. 119)

Oct 17, 2012

Just A Few Snippets

When I'm reading a book I'll sometimes come across a really interesting paragraph or maybe even just a single sentence. I underline it, but I know I won't be able to produce a full post with it. Nonetheless, I'd like to share some of these interesting bits with you and as always: if you want to know more, you'll have to buy the book ;-) Which one? Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman:

Oct 10, 2012

A Pretty Dangerous "Sport"

Take a look at the following picture for a few seconds.


What did you read and what images popped into your head? If you're like most people you read the left part as "ABC", the right part as "121314" and you pictured Ann heading to the building of a financial institution. Now look at it again.

You may just as well have read the first part as "A13C" and thought of Ann floating around in a canoe on a river. How come you didn't?

Oct 8, 2012

Looking for Books?

Some of you may have been wondering where I get all these wonderful and interesting books from. You don't have to wonder any longer. :-)

I discovered The Book Depository about 2 years ago and have been a regular customer ever since. They have a huge collection of books in the English language for reasonable prices and the best part: shipping is free, worldwide! So it doesn't matter if you're in Canada, Congo or Cambodia, you can order your books straight from their website. Just click on the image below and start reading more... Seriously, you need to start reading more ;-)


Oct 3, 2012

The Power of a Smile

Most of us like to think that we're pretty independent and rational beings: the decisions we make are not dependent on the people who surround us, nor are they influenced by the things that we're confronted with in our day-to-day lives. But if you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll probably agree with me that nothing could be further from the truth. It seems as if everything has an influence on us...

I've recently started reading a fascinating book by Daniel Kahneman entitled Thinking, Fast and Slow (which you can get here). Generally speaking, it's about the two ways of thinking every human engages in: The more intuitive thinking which happens very fast (what Kahneman calls System 1) and the slower, more in-depth thinking (System 2) with which we try to keep System 1 in check (at least sometimes). The interesting thing is how System 1 can be manipulated, a process called priming. Here's Kahneman's explanation:

Sep 26, 2012

Big Brother Is Watching You - Seriously!

One of the books I like to read and discuss with my English students is George Orwell's classic 1984, a novel which was written in 1948 and predicted a dark and depressing future. It describes a world in which everybody is manipulated by the creation of a new language (Newspeak), brainwashed into believing everything the government (called the Party) says and maybe most frightening of all - being watched at all times by devices called telescreens. Now while the gloomy picture that is painted by Orwell is - for the most part - very unrealistic in our part of the world, it does contain some ideas that are worth taking a closer look at. Because they might just have crept into our lives without us even taking notice...

Sep 19, 2012

I'll Buy What She's Buying

When you were a child, your parents decided what kind of clothes you'd wear.
When you were a teenager, your friends basically decided what kind of clothes you'd wear.
And now that you're an adult, you have finally become so independent that YOU decide what kind of clothes you'll wear. Right?

WRONG!

At least if you're willing to believe Martin Lindstrom, a marketing guru and expert on the human psychology of consumer decision-making. In his book Brandwashed, he goes so far as to compare us with the animal world in the way we copy the behavior of our fellow human beings and look towards them for guidance:

Sep 12, 2012

Who Still Needs Men?

That is the question asked by Greg Hampikian (yes, a man), a professor of biology and criminal justice and author of an article entitled Men, Who Needs Them? that I recently came across on the website of the New York Times. His main point is this:
"...women are both necessary and sufficient for reproduction, and men are neither. From the production of the first cell (egg) to the development of the fetus and the birth and breast-feeding of the child, fathers can be absent. They can be at work, at home, in prison or at war, living or dead."

Sep 9, 2012

Links of the Week XIV

The highlight of this weeks links are the so-called crop circles. Never heard of them? Then make sure to check them out, alongside a couple of other funny/weird links after the jump.

Sep 5, 2012

Why You Just Can't Quit

When you hear the word addiction, what do you think of?

Smoking? Alcohol? Maybe pornography?

While these are some of the most universal and most talked about addictions, lots of us have a different kind of addiction, one we may not even recognize as such: brand addiction. Have you ever wondered why you refuse to use any other toothpaste than Colgate, drink any other soda than Fanta, or use any other shampoo than Axe (fill in your own personal brand addiction here)?

Aug 29, 2012

Have You Been Brandwashed?

So how many different brands do you have and/or regularly use in your home?

5? 10? 50?

Fact of the matter is: we cannot escape brands. In today's society they're literally everywhere and we need at least some of them in order to live a healthy and comfortable life. Which means it's not a matter of what or how many brands you buy and use - the real question is this: how do you decide between all the different options?

According to Martin Lindstrom, marketing guru turned consumer advocate and author of the book Brandwashed. Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy, the marketing industry knows exactly how to "help" us make that decision time and time again. Two of the worst strategies they employ are marketing to babies (even before they are born!) and inciting fear in the consumer.

Aug 22, 2012

What makes a face beautiful...

When I was twenty years old, I had the opportunity to work as a volunteer in Venezuela for one year. It was a great experience for a number of reasons: learning a new language, getting to know new people, immersing myself in a different culture and also learning a lot about myself.

One thing that intrigued me the most though, was how the Venezuelan beauty ideal differed from the one I was familiar with from my Central European background. Not only were the Venezuelan men attracted to women that were a bit chubbier on average, but skin color was an interesting issue. Almost all the girls I talked to admitted to envying the light complexion of my skin. Interestingly enough, where I come from we actually have solariums (aka tanning booths) to take care of the "problem" of our light complexion!

Now imagine my surprise when I read an article from the New York Times (which you can read here) that talks about a similar issue in China: women wearing face masks to the beach, so they won't lose the fair complexion of their skin - in their case, they want to keep the color of their skin, whereas Caucasians in Central Europe and Latinos in South America are not happy with the skin color God has given them! What a crazy world we live in...

All I can say is this: As an adult male, I have seen pretty female faces all over the world - because what makes a face beautiful is not its color. Let's just try to remember that...

Aug 15, 2012

Why Loneliness Is Worse Than Smoking

Everyone hates loneliness.

I'm not talking about being alone here. Every now and then we may choose to be alone - so we can think, reflect, ponder, pray, read or just enjoy the silence it brings. But nobody chooses to be lonely. Loneliness is that feeling of emptiness that overcomes you when you want to share something with somebody - an experience, an emotion - but nobody is there to share it with you...

Definitely bad for your emotional well-being, but as Daniel Goleman notes in his book Social Intelligence, the negative consequences go further than that:

Aug 8, 2012

"Making" The Ideal Partner

Chasing perfection.

We've probably all tried our hand at it at sometime or other: whether in the realm of sports, school, music, cooking, and the list could go on. There's something deep within us that longs to be able to play the perfect tennis match, score a perfect grade on that French test, sing with perfect pitch and cook the perfect meal in order to impress someone on a first date. Yet we fail miserably most of the time and realize once again that we live in a world where perfection just does not exist - we'll have to wait for the next world, the eternal one, to experience it fully.

Although we know this intellectually and are capable of applying it to all kinds of life situations, we tend to not want to accept it when it comes to finding the right partner - we want him/her to be perfect! (Disclaimer: I promise this will be the last post on relationships for a while ;-)) But as Daniel Goleman reminds us in his book Social Intelligence, that's just not going to happen:

Aug 5, 2012

Links of the Week XII

It was about time that I include a Piano Guys video in my links of the week. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Also in this week's links: why people are like Swiss Army Knives, dogs on skateboards and some very interesting cars...

Aug 1, 2012

A Short Blog Manual

Hi guys, I've decided to make a short video, in which I explain some of the old and new features of the blog. Enjoy! (It might be best to watch it in full screen mode).


P.S. Sorry for the bad quality of the video and the regular clearing of my throat... I'm still an amateur at making these kinds of videos! ;-) 

Jul 28, 2012

Links of the Week XI

Next time you go to New York, you might want to avoid traveling by bicycle. And you definitely should not write any text messages while walking around the city. Why? Check out this week's links to find out!

Jul 27, 2012

Thank You!


The magic number was reached sometime yesterday. I missed it, but someone gave my blog its 1000th pageview. Which is a great time to thank you - my dear blog visitors - for reading my posts!
And I thought this would be a great opportunity to share with you how diverse you guys are :-) Here's a screenshot of my blog statistics from the time I started it in April (don't get confused by the "May 2008" date, that has to do with an older blog that nobody ever looked at ;-)) until now. Just click on the smaller image to see it full-size.


P.S. I have never heard of the operating system BeOS and the browser SeaMonkey :-)

Jul 25, 2012

Are You Feeling Safe Or Suffocated?

A romantic relationship can be the best or worst thing that has ever happened to you. There are, of course, many different factors that play a role in how your relationship will turn out. I won't go into all that. To my mind, one of the most important questions every serious partnership needs to answer is this: Do I feel safe or suffocated?

Jul 18, 2012

Baby, I Love Your... Sweat!

A while back a good friend of mine was seeing a woman who openly confessed to him that she felt attracted to him when she could smell his sweat. (The reasons for the initial attraction were different... or at least I hope they were!) At the time I thought to myself: "Well, strange women are everywhere, so I'm not surprised!" But now I know that it's actually quite common and normal for women feel that way.

Yup, in case you're not sure you just misread or misunderstood that, let me repeat it again:

Apparently women are attracted to a man's sweat. 

To be more exact, to its odor. Nice, huh?

Jul 11, 2012

What To Do With All Your Money ;-)

Have you ever wondered what you should do with all that money sitting in your bank account? No?

Well, then you're like me and not exactly the definition of wealthy! But does that make us less happy than our affluent fellow human beings? Money doesn't buy happiness, right? As it turns out, it's not quite that simple.

Jul 8, 2012

Links of the Week X

They're back... the links of the week. Been too busy to collect any lately, but with the school-year ending, I was able to find a few interesting videos this past week. Make sure you check out Danny MacAskill and his amazing biking skills! That and more after the jump.

Jul 4, 2012

3 Ways To Check If You're Socially Intelligent

This is a special post, because it is a mix of different things I've recently learned from reading Social Intelligence (which you can get here) by Daniel Goleman. These are not necessarily new to me, but it's always nice to hear it from a guy who actually studies this kind of stuff and knows what he's talking about ;-)

1) If you're socially intelligent, you won't worry too much about your own problems, but will be more likely to feel empathy and compassion for others...
"In short, self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action." (p. 54)

Jun 26, 2012

There's Just Something About Him...

Have you ever met a person and almost instantly sensed that he or she meant trouble? Maybe you even mentioned this "gut-feeling" to someone else, even though you weren't capable of explaining it or giving any rational reasons for it. You just knew that there was something wrong with him...

I've recently started reading Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, a book that claims to explore a new science - namely how we interact with each other as human beings. IMHO, it's a pretty fascinating subject and I assume that this will not be my last post inspired by the pages of this book.

Jun 20, 2012

Staying Skinny By Sitting?

Journalist love to use intriguing titles in order to get their readers' interest up and entice them into actually reading the article. Well, I'm one of those readers and their "trick" usually works on me. So naturally I couldn't resist when I recently saw this title:


Not that I have weight problems, but it sounded like an interesting suggestion. So I decided to read on.

Jun 13, 2012

It's All Up To You...Well, Almost

If you're like me, you will agree that sometimes it can feel really good to be able to say: "Well, I guess I'm just not talented at that. That's why I'm not good at it and there's nothing I can do about it."
That way you are relieved of any pressure to perform in a certain area and can move on with your life, concentrating on those things that come easy to you, i.e. the ones you're talented at. Have you ever thought that way? I know I have...

In his book The Genius In All Of Us, David Shenk explains why we like this thought process so much:
"A belief in inborn gifts and limits is much gentler on the psyche. The reason you aren't a great opera singer is because you can't be one. That's simply the way you were wired. Thinking of talent as innate makes our world more manageable, more comfortable. It relieves a person of the burden of expectation." (p. 99)

Jun 10, 2012

Links of the Week VIII

Today's links are a wild mix, so I'm not even going to try to find a common theme.

Here they are:

Jun 7, 2012

How To Become Great (Part II)

For those of you who are seriously interested in becoming great at something, I've decided to post the 5 things you should keep in mind on your quest to greatness (according to David Shenk in his book The Genius in All of Us):
1. Practice changes your body. Researchers have recorded a constellation of physical changes (occurring in direct response to practice) in the muscles, nerves, hearts, lungs and brains of those showing profound increases in skill level in any domain.

Jun 6, 2012

How To Become Great

Jerry Rice is one of the best wide receivers to ever play the game of football, some even claim he was the greatest of all time (also referred to as the G.O.A.T). He holds a number of NFL records, including most career receptions, most career yards, and most career touchdowns, that will probably stand for a very long time. (And if you don't have a clue about American football, let me assure you that these are pretty impressive records).

In his book The Genius in All of Us, David Shenk includes a chapter entitled The End of 'Giftedness' (and the True Source of Talent) in which he gives the reader some tips on how to become great. Using the story of the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as an example, he convincingly shows that becoming very good at something doesn't have anything to do with the genes you inherited.

Jun 3, 2012

Links of the Week VII

A week that I spent (for the most part) in the physical state we call "being sick", is over and there was only one intriguing storyline that I came across.

So here you have it: First in German, then in English - the solution to the ketchup problem:

May 30, 2012

Fiction - A Blessing Or A Curse?

As you probably know by now, I really like reading. And I make sure to always take some time during the week to read a chapter or two of the book that I'm currently going through. Most of those books are non-fictional and end up being "discussed" by myself on this blog :)
But I also enjoy burying myself in a good fictional book that keeps my imagination going and has a storyline that somehow touches my heart. That way I can always have a good balance between stimulating the intellect (non-fiction) and the emotions (fiction).

So naturally, I was intrigued when I recently came across an article by Jonathan Gottschall entitled Why Fiction Is Good For You (published online at boston.com). I had always thought that fiction was good for me in the sense of entertaining me, kind of like curling up on the couch to watch a nice movie. Well, that's not what this man is talking about.

May 27, 2012

Links of the Week VI

Baby's day out? No, just a little Chinese kid on a toy motorcycle... in the middle of a busy intersection!

Also in today's links of the week: a stuntman decides to jump off the helicopter without a parachute, a man decides to rescue golf balls from a watery grave, and you should decide to be more optimistic ;-)

May 23, 2012

Do Smart Parents Beget Smart Children?

As a teacher you tend to figure out the level of intelligence each one of your new students has within the first few hours that you spend with them in a classroom. That can be an advantage, telling you how much you can expect from them and especially who will probably need more help and explaining than the rest. But it's also a very dangerous thing, because it may lead you to believe that some students will not be able to pass your class or exceed a certain grade at the end of the school year.

And now David Shenk has written a book entitled The Genius In All Of Us, that has recently got me thinking some things over. In a chapter called Intelligence Is a Process, Not a Thing, he argues that we've had the wrong idea of intelligence for way too long. We like to believe that some kids are just smarter than others, because their parents are smart and passed on these smart genes to their children. Not so, says Shenk.

May 20, 2012

Links of the Week V

A British girl has a scientifically perfect face, Asian kids don't spend enough time outdoors and an American acrobat is preparing for the walk of his life...

All that and more in today's links of the week.

May 19, 2012

It's All A Matter Of Interpretation

I love me some Cliff Goldstein every now and then. If the whole 28 minutes is too long for you, at least check out the last few minutes (starting at the 25 minute mark), where he makes his point. But if you're as fascinated by language as I am, you might want to watch the whole thing...



So, what do you think? How can we know if our interpretation is correct?

May 16, 2012

Why You Can Learn How To Juggle

I learned to juggle with three balls when I was about ten years old. My family was staying in Israel for a few months and I didn't have to go to school, leaving me with loads of free time and not sure what to do with it. So I decided to learn how to juggle. Pretty soon I was able to keep the three tennis balls aloft for quite some time...


Recently, I've started reading a new book called The Genius in All of Us written by David Shenk (you can get the book here). As the title already suggests, the author's main argument seems to be that we all have the capacity of becoming really, really good at something - so good that others might even think we're geniuses.

May 13, 2012

Links of the Week IV

Two short videos that fascinated me this past week. The English videos are not the same as the German ones, but the topic of each is the same. So if you know both languages, just watch all 4 clips ;-)

German:
Ach, das erinnert mich an meine Kindheit...
Ob sich dieses Auto durchsetzen wird?

English:
Paper plane world championship in Salzburg :-) 
Inside Google's self-driving car...

May 8, 2012

All You Need Is A Canoe

Emotions.

We all have them, we all have to live with them.
And we have to make sure that they don't influence us in a negative way. That may sound easier than it actually is, as a study by Dan Ariely seems to show (I say "seem" because of what I wrote in my post "Why Don't You Prove It?", which you can check out here).


In his book The Upside of Irrationality he writes about the problem of negative feelings and how they tend to influence our behavior (and especially decision-making) in a chapter entitled The Long-Term Effects of Short-Term Emotions. 

May 1, 2012

How Much Is Too Much?

An easy answer is usually not readily available when someone asks: "How much is too much?"

When it comes to things that are known to be bad - smoking cigarettes, for example - we tend to say that one (cigarette) is already too much (which is probably true). When it comes to things that are good - e.g. eating good and healthy food - things get a little more complicated. How are we supposed to know when to stop eating because our bodies can no longer deal efficiently (there's probably a more scientific way of saying that, but you know what I mean :-)) with the amount of food we're putting into it?

Nevertheless, the question of "how much is too much" really becomes interesting the moment we start talking about something that is apparently neutral, i.e. neither good nor bad in and of itself: information.

Apr 29, 2012

Links of the Week II

Dogs, frogs, owls and chickens... this week's links are full of animals!

Oh, and don't forget to check out some of the world's best beards ;-)




German:
Snoopy als Trauzeuge? Ja, warum denn nicht!
Internationale Deutsche Bartmeisterschaft in BaWü
Der "Skywalker" von Moskau und sein Ausblick (Fotostrecke)
Jetzt weiß ich, was ich beim nächsten Italien-Urlaub unbedingt machen muss!

English: 
The inflation of everything
Japanese woman defies gravity (I highly recommend looking at the photos in full-screen mode)
Sometimes frogs need to chill too!
An owl as mother of chickens

Quote of the week:
"Texting and e-mail and posting let us present the self we want to be. This means we can edit. And if we wish to, we can delete. Or retouch: the voice, the flesh, the face, the body. Not too much, not too little - just right. Human relationships are rich; they're messy and demanding. We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology." (taken from Sherry Turkle's article The Flight From Conversation in the online version of the NY Times)

Apr 27, 2012

What American Football and Dating Have in Common

I've never tried online dating. I don't think I ever will.
But if you had asked me why I don't want to give it a try, I would not have had a very reasonable answer for you. It was just a feeling, a hunch that I wouldn't really enjoy it, that it wouldn't lead to finding a long-term partner anyway. I couldn't explain it... until now.


Apr 24, 2012

Why Don't You Prove It?

We all like proof. Come on, admit it. How many times have you asked someone to "prove it"? Especially when they're telling you something that just doesn't sound like it could actually be true.

"No, I can't believe that! Seriously? ... Prove it!" 


As it turns out, asking for proof might not always be such a good idea. I recently came across Jonah Lehrer's article The Truth Wears Off, which was published in The New Yorker in December of 2010. In it, he writes about the so-called 'decline effect', which has recently become a heavily debated issue within the scientific community. 

Apr 16, 2012

How to Enjoy the Hot Tub

I love reading. People who know me well can confirm that, I'm sure. Recently I started reading a book called The Upside of Irrationality (The unexpected benefits of defying logic at work and at home) by Dan Ariely and yesterday I stumbled on a - in my opinion - very interesting chapter entitled On Adaptation. The subtitle says Why We Get Used to Things (but Not All Things, and Not Always), which intrigued me right from the start, because I'm usually good at adapting. I tend to see myself as a pretty "flexible" person that doesn't have too much trouble adapting to new surroundings, new people, etc. So I was curious to find out if there was something new I could learn about adaptation and especially if it is always a good thing. 

Welcome to My Blog!

Hi and welcome to my blog!
If you've arrived here, you have at least a slight curiosity as to what exactly is on my mind. Well, you've come to the right place...
Feel free to look around, read, reflect and comment on everything I write. Who knows, maybe you'll find yourself thinking about things that you didn't even know existed just a few minutes ago.
And if you realize that what's on my mind is so far removed from what's on your mind that you couldn't care less about it... don't worry, there won't be any hard feelings on my part - I promise!

Sincerely Yours,
Carsten