michael pollak

suckers for irrelevancy

 
[Students are] people trying to pay attention but having to compete with various influences

Humans are incapable of ignoring surprising new information in our visual field.

The form and content of a Facebook update may be almost irresistible, but when combined with a visual alert in your immediate peripheral vision, it is—really, actually, biologically—impossible to resist.

Computers are not inherent sources of distraction — they can in fact be powerful engines of focus — but latter-day versions have been designed to be, because attention is the substance which makes the whole consumer internet go.

some parts of making your brain do new things are just hard

Über Multitasking, und warum diese ganzen Devices und ständige Ablenkung unsere Aufmerksamkeit in Anspruch nehmen. Großartiger Artikel von Clay Shirky.

no fun intended

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first orders a beer, the second orders half a beer, the third orders a quarter of a beer, and so on. … After the seventh order, the bartender pours two beers and says, “You fellas ought to know your limits.”

stirnholz

plant trees

don t wait

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

Eigentlich: Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.

– Jack London

all the choices

this poor economy