Wednesday, April 23, 2008

How to Think Before Speaking - wikiHow

I've blogged this for two reasons:

1. I like what it says: a how-to for the "cortico-thalamic pause", or counting to ten, as my mother used to say. It makes good sense to do so, and the article offers some reasonable, concise ways to learn this invaluable skill.

2. I like the delivery mechanism, or at least the idea of it: Wiki-how, "The How-to Manual That You Can Edit". Another use of the wiki technology, which I have written about elsewhere.

Of course, as with all the wiki stuff I have seen, it behooves one to maintain a certain skepticism about the information, especially where it borders on "common sense". After all, "common sense is that which tells us the world is flat." (Stuart Chase, quoted in S. I. Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Action.)

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Outsourcing the Self

Alexander J. Hartman, a student of biology at University of South Carolina, draws cartoons in class and thinks pretty deeply about How Life Works, including this, to me, intriguing reverie on "outsourcing".