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POPSTips from Thomas Edison on Living Optimistically Dr. Martin Seligman, the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, and author of Learned Optimism, has studied optimists and pessimists for 25 years. His research has found: Optimists * Less depression than pessimists * Better results than pessimists in most areas of life * Longer lifespan * Healthier than pessimists * Better than pessimists at work and in school * More friends and better social lives Pessimists * More depression than optimists * Inertia rather than activity in the face of setbacks * Feels bad subjectively–blue, down worried, anxious * Poor physical health * Self-fulfilling; pessimists don’t persist in the face of challenges and thus fail more frequently, even when success is attainable * Even when pessimists turn out to be right, they still feel worse than deluded optimists
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POPSTesla: The Lost Wizard Video The man who invented the 21st century will soon get his due. As the web puts this type of information at our fingertips, I have faith that more and more people will be exposed to the brilliance of Tesla.
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POPSSeveral handy web-based video tools I clipped this because it can convert a YouTube video (as well as videos from other sites) into an animated GIF. Which could come in handy someday, I guess. There are a couple other tools at the site. It looks pretty shady, but they seem to work.
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POPSWhy America Will Survive George W. Bush Otto von Bismarck saw how American blunders led to American power and allegedly said that God has a special providence for drunks, fools, and the United States of America. Walter Russell Mead (of the Council on Foreign Relations) puts Bush's 8-year stint in the White House into proper perspective. America's foreign policy has been short-sighted and often self-defeating from the get-go, alternately collaborative, passive, and interventionist. And, yet, miraculously, we always come out ahead. With the unstoppable rise of a global capitalist economy, Mead makes the case that America, for all its past and current faults, will continue to be the inevitable leader of this new international buoyancy. Not even our latest mistakes (unprecedented though they may be) can derail such a powerful incentive that is the modern American world trade system. Which means, more than ever, we're literally all in this together.
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POPSThe Faith Line Eboo Patel. It is long, but I highly recommend you give this guy a chance, amazing ideas and thoughts.
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POPSDon't like your adopted child? Trade her in for another one. Something about this strikes me as very wrong, but also very understandable and perhaps even rational. Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution . See also this New York Times piece written by a mother in a similar situation--she and her husband made a different decision than the New Jersey couple.
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POPSOh yeah, and don't trust yourself either! The Chinese philosopher Xun Zi said that human nature is not particularly good, but he went on to argue that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make it better. Too many people resign themselves to say "that's just the way things are" because that's easier than challenging their own beliefs. Before we can be an agent for change, our ideas must be relentlessly refined in the furnace of critical introspection. Follow the link to read all these cognitive hazards, and see where you find them in your life!
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