Love this! From Cory Doctorow blog post on Boing Boing titled GET EXCITED AND MAKE THINGS: a "Keep calm and carry on" alternative for the econopocalypse. Great stuff.
Excellent and fact filled writeup on Overcoming Bias about getting people past the Planning Fallacy.
Basically, it says humans don't predict... we hope. Only past measures and outside observation can get you anywhere close to accurate timelines. Which in the software project business is the definition of margin. It's why most software development companies live in a rolling state of fail... they optimistically estimate project completion and then run into trouble when the ones they make promises to get angry and won't keep paying for the real time required.
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090306-music-emotion.html
That soulful singer and expressive guitarist really are more tapped
into their feelings than the rest of us. New research shows that
people with musical training are better at reading emotion in sound.
Heard a great piece on NPR's All Things Considered about our use of finances. Researcher Ryan Howell found that those that spent on experiences rather than things found greater happiness and satisfaction.Here's a section from an article he wrote for the Times of India:
Buying life experiences – such as going for vacations or going to the theatre – rather than material possessions leads to greater happiness for both the consumer and those around them, according to new study.The study, conducted by researchers at San Francisco State University, has shown that experiential purchases result in increased well-being because they satisfy higher order needs, specifically the need for social connectedness and vitality – a feeling of being alive.“These findings support an extension of basic need theory, where purchases that increase psychological need satisfaction will produce the greatest well-being,” said Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University.In the study, the researchers asked the participants write their reflections and answer questions about their recent purchases. Participants indicated that experiential purchases represented money better spent and greater happiness for both themselves and others. The results also indicate that experiences produce more happiness regardless of the amount spent or the income of the consumer.Experiences also lead to longer-term satisfaction. “Purchased experiences provide memory capital. We don’t tend to get bored of happy memories like we do with a material object,” Howell said.“People still believe that more money will make them happy, even though 35 years of research has suggested the opposite. Maybe, this belief has held because money is making some people happy some of the time, at least when they spend it on life experiences,” Howell added.
Heard a great piece on NPR's All Things Considered about our use of finances. Researcher Ryan Howell found that those that spent on experiences rather than things found greater happiness and satisfaction.Here's a section from an article he wrote for the Times of India:
Buying life experiences – such as going for vacations or going to the theatre – rather than material possessions leads to greater happiness for both the consumer and those around them, according to new study.The study, conducted by researchers at San Francisco State University, has shown that experiential purchases result in increased well-being because they satisfy higher order needs, specifically the need for social connectedness and vitality – a feeling of being alive.“These findings support an extension of basic need theory, where purchases that increase psychological need satisfaction will produce the greatest well-being,” said Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University.In the study, the researchers asked the participants write their reflections and answer questions about their recent purchases. Participants indicated that experiential purchases represented money better spent and greater happiness for both themselves and others. The results also indicate that experiences produce more happiness regardless of the amount spent or the income of the consumer.Experiences also lead to longer-term satisfaction. “Purchased experiences provide memory capital. We don’t tend to get bored of happy memories like we do with a material object,” Howell said.“People still believe that more money will make them happy, even though 35 years of research has suggested the opposite. Maybe, this belief has held because money is making some people happy some of the time, at least when they spend it on life experiences,” Howell added.
Listening to a GREAT program on NPR with Richard Florida who writes in an article for The Atlantic, that this crisis "marks the end of a chapter in American economic history, and indeed, the end of a whole way of life."HIGHLY recommended. He paints changes in our mobility as a workforce, moving as needed to where our talents are more valued. To a lifestyle less tied to the "single family dwelling" where we live in one place for 50 years, and to a more renter-focused market supporting our ability to move closer to our workplaces.Wonderful thoughtful article.