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In this blog, teachers, students and all those who have some kind of interest in the English language will find useful, interesting, curious and funny things to be used in their classes or for their personal enjoyment.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
GRalInt-TED Talks-Prof.Tim Noakes: The Mindset to Succeed
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GRALINT-Dr. Carol Dweck on Fixed vs Growth Mindsets-Video
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GralInt/TEACH/LEARN-Introducing students with the growth mindset
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Other useful sources to find interesting information and activities to use growth mindsets:
www.teachit.so
classteaching.wordpress.com
Source: www.slideshare.net
Other useful sources to find interesting information and activities to use growth mindsets:
www.teachit.so
classteaching.wordpress.com
GralINt/TECH-TED Talks-Rodney Brooks: Why we will rely on robots
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GralInt/TEACHMATH-TED Talks-Arthur Benjamin does "Mathemagic"
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Transcript:
Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen.My name is Art Benjamin, and I am a "mathemagician."What that means is, I combine my loves of math and magic to do something I call "mathemagics."But before I get started, I have a quick question for the audience.By any chance, did anyone happen to bring with them this morning a calculator?Seriously, if you have a calculator with you, raise your hand, raise your hand.
I -- was -- your hand go up?Now bring it out, bring it out. Anybody else?I see, I see one way in the back.You sir, that's three,And anybody on this side here?OK, you over there on the aisle. Would the four of you with calculators please bring out your calculators, then join me up on stage.And let's give these volunteers a nice round of applause.
(Applause)
That's right. Now, since I haven't had the chance to work with these calculators, I need to make sure that they are all working properly.Would somebody get us started by giving us a two-digit number please?How about a two-digit number?
Audience: 22.
Arthur Benjamin: 22. And another two-digit number, Sir?
Audience: 47.
AB: Multiply 22 times 47, make sure you get 1,034,or the calculators are not working. Do all of you get 1,034? 1,034?
Woman: No.
AB: 594. Let's give three of them a nice round of applause there.
(Applause)
Would you like to try a more standard calculator, just in case?OK, great.What I'm going to try and do then --I notice that took some of you a little bit of time to get your answer.That's OK. I'll give you a shortcut for multiplying even faster on the calculator.There is something called the square of a number,which most of you know is taking a number and multiplying it by itself.For instance, five squared would be?
Audience: 25.
AB: 25. Now, the way we can square on most calculators --let me demonstrate with this one --is by taking the number, such as five,hitting "times" and then "equals,"and on most calculators that will give you the square.On some of these ancient RPN calculators,you've got an "x squared" button on it,will allow you to do the calculation even faster.What I'm going to try and do now is to square, in my head,four two-digit numbers faster than they can do on their calculators, even using the shortcut method.What I'll use is the second row this time, and I'll get four of you --one, two, three, four -- to each yell out a two-digit number,and if you would square the first number,and if you would square the second, the third and the fourth,I will try and race you to the answer. OK?So quickly, a two-digit number please.
Audience: 37.
AB: 37 squared, OK.
Audience: 23.
AB: 23 squared, OK.
Audience: 59.
AB: 59 squared, OK, and finally?
Audience: 93.
AB: 93 squared. Would you call out your answers, please?
Woman: 1369. AB: 1369.
Woman: 529.
AB: 529.
Man: 3481.
AB: 3481.
Man: 8649.
AB: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Let me try to take this one step further.I'm going to try to square some three-digit numbers this time.I won't even write these down --I'll just call them out as they're called out to me.Anyone I point to, call out a three-digit number.Anyone on our panel, verify the answer.Just give some indication if it's right.A three-digit number, sir, yes?
Audience: 987.
AB: 987 squared is 974,169.
(Laughter)
Yes? Good.Another, another three-digit --(Applause)-- another three-digit number, sir?
Audience: 457.
AB: 457 squared is 205,849.205,849?Yes?OK, another, another three-digit number, sir?
Audience: 321.AB: 321 is 103,041. 103,041.Yes? One more three-digit number please.
Audience: Oh, 722.AB: 722 is 500 -- ooh, that's a harder one.Is that 513,284?
Woman: Yes.
AB: Yes? Oh, one more, one more three-digit number please.
Audience: 162.162 squared is 26,244.Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Let me try to take this one step further.
(Laughter)
I'm going to try to square a four-digit number this time.Now you can all take your time on this; I will not beat you to the answer on this one,but I will try to get the answer right.To make this a little bit more random, let's take the fourth row this time,let's say, one, two, three, four.If each of you would call out a single digit between zero and nine,that will be the four-digit number that I'll square.
Audience: Nine.
AB: Nine.
Audience: Seven. AB: Seven.
Audience: Five. AB: Five.
Audience: Eight. AB: Eight.9,758, this will take me a little bit of time, so bear with me.95,218,564?
Woman: Yes.
AB: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Now, I would attempt to square a five-digit number --and I can --but unfortunately most calculators cannot.
(Laughter)
Eight-digit capacity -- don't you hate that?So, since we've reached the limits of our calculators --what's that? Does yours go --
Woman: I don't know.
AB: Does yours go higher?Oh -- yours does?
Man: I can probably do it.
AB: I'll talk to you later.In the meanwhile, let me conclude the first part of my show by doing something a little trickier.Let's take the largest number on the board here, 8649.Would you each enter that on your calculator?And instead of squaring it this time,I want you to take that number and multiply it by any three-digit number that you want,but don't tell me what you're multiplying by --just multiply it by any random three-digit number.So you should have as an answer eithera six-digit or probably a seven-digit number.How many digits do you have, six or seven?
Seven, and yours? Woman: Seven.
AB: Seven? Seven?And, uncertain.
Man: Yeah.
AB: Seven. Is there any possible way that I could know what seven digit numbers you have? Say "No."
(Laughter)
Good. Then I shall attempt the impossible --or at least the improbable.What I'd like each of you to do is to call out for meany six of your seven digits, any six of them,in any order you'd like.
(Laughter)
One digit at a time, I shall try and determine the digit you've left out.So, starting with your seven-digit number,call out any six of them please.
Woman: One, OK, 197042.
AB: Did you leave out the number 6?
Woman: Yes, AB: Good, OK, that's one.You have a seven-digit number, call out any six of them please.
Woman: 44875.
AB: I think I only heard five numbers. I -- wait -- 44875 --did you leave out the number 6?
Woman: Yes. AB: Same as she did, OK. You've got a seven-digit number --call out any six of them loud and clear.
Man: 079044.
AB: I think you left out the number 3?That's three. The odds of me getting all four of these right by random guessing would be one in 10,000: 10 to the fourth power.OK, any six of them.Really scramble them up this time, please.
Man: 263972.
AB: Did you leave out the number 7?And let's give all four of these people a nice round of applause.Thank you very much. (Applause)For my next number --(Laughter)while I mentally recharge my batteries,I have one more question for the audience.By any chance, does anybody here happen to know the day of the week that they were born on?If you think you know your birth day, raise your hand.Let's see, starting with -- let's start with a gentleman first,OK sir, what year was it, first of all? That's why I start with a gentleman first.What year?
Audience: 1953.
AB: 1953, and the month?
Audience: November. AB: November what?
Audience: 23rd.
AB: 23rd -- was that a Monday? Audience: Yes.Yes, good. Somebody else? Who else would like --see I don't -- haven't seen any women's hands up.OK, it's -- how about you, what year?
Audience: 1949. AB: 1949, and the month?
Audience: October. AB: October what?
Audience: Fifth.
AB: Fifth -- was that a Wednesday?Yes, my -- I'll go way to the back right now, how about you?Yell it out, what year? Audience: 1959.
AB: 1959, OK -- and the month?
Audience: February.
AB: February what? Audience: Sixth.
AB: Sixth -- was that a Friday? Audience: Yes.Good, how about the person behind her?Call -- call -- what year was it?
Audience: 1947. AB: 1947, and the month?
Audience: May. AB: May what?
Audience: Seventh. AB: Seventh -- would that be a Wednesday?
Audience: Yes.
AB: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Anybody here who'd like to know the day of the week they were born?We can do it that way.Of course, I could just make up an answer and you wouldn't know,so I come prepared for that.I brought with me a book of calendars.It goes as far back into the past as 1800, 'cause you never know.
(Laughter)
I didn't mean to look at you, sir --you were just sitting there.Anyway, Chris, you can help me out here, if you wouldn't mind.This is a book of calendars, and I'll ask --who was it that wanted to know their birth day? You sir? OK.What year was it, first of all?
Audience: 1966.
AB: '66 -- turn to the calendar with 1966 --and what month?
Audience: April. AB: April what?
Audience: 17th. AB: 17th -- I believe that was a Sunday.Can you confirm, Chris?
Chris Anderson: Yes. AB: Yeah, OK. I'll tell you what, Chris:as long as you have that book in front of you,do me a favor, turn to a year outside of the 1900s,either into the 1800s or way into the 2000s --that'll be a much greater challenge for me.What year, Chris, would you like?
CA: 1824.
AB: 1824, OK.And what month? CA: June.
AB: June what? CA: Sixth.
AB: Sixth -- was that a Sunday?
CA: It was. AB: And it was cloudy.Good, thank you very much.
(Applause)
But I'd like to wrap things up now by alluding to something from earlier in the presentation.There was a gentleman up here who had a 10-digit calculator.Where is he, would you stand up,10-digit guy?OK, well stand up for me just for a second,so I can see where you are.OK, oh, OK -- you have a 10-digit calculator, sir, as well?OK, what I'm going to try and do, is to square in my head a five-digit number requiring a 10-digit calculator.But to make my job more interesting for you, as well as for me,I'm going to do this problem thinking out loud.So you can actually, honestly hear what's going on in my mind while I do a calculation of this size.
Now, I have to apologize to our magician friend Lennart Green.I know as a magician we're not supposed to reveal our secrets,but I'm not too afraid that people are going to start doing my show next week, so --I think we're OK.So, let's see, let's take a --let's take a different row of people, starting with you.I'll get five digits: one, two, three, four --oh, I did this row already. Let's do the row before you,starting with you sir: one, two, three, four, five.Call out a single digit -- that will be the five-digit number that I will try to square. Go ahead.
Audience: Five. AB: Five.
Audience: Seven. AB: Seven.
Audience: Six. AB: Six.
Audience: Eight. AB: Eight.
Audience: Three. AB: Three.57,683 squared. Yuck.
Let me explain to you howI'm going to attempt this problem.I'm going to break the problem down into three parts.I'll do 57,000 squared,plus 683 squared,plus 57,000 times 683 times two.Add all those numbers together,and with any luck, arrive at the answer.Now, let me recap.Thank you.While I explain something else ---- I know, that you can use, right?While I do these calculation[s],you might hear certain words,as opposed to numbers, creep into the calculation.Let me explain what that is.This is a phonetic code,a mnemonic device that I use,that allows me to convert numbers into words.I store them as words, and later on retrieve them as numbers.I know it sounds complicated; it's not --I just don't want you to think you're seeing something out of "Rain Man" here.
(Laughter)
There's definitely a method to my madness --definitely, definitely. Sorry.
(Laughter)
If you want to talk to me about ADHD afterwards,you can talk to me then. All right --by the way, one last instruction,for my judges with the calculators -- OK, you know who you are --there is at least a 50 percent chance that I will make a mistake here.If I do, don't tell me what the mistake is;just say, "you're close," or something like that, and I'll try and figure out the answer --which could be pretty entertaining in itself.If, however, I am right,whatever you do, don't keep it to yourself, OK?
(Laughter)
Make sure everybody knows that I got the answer right,because this is my big finish, OK.So, without any more stalling,here we go.I'll start the problem in the middle, with 57 times 683.Now, 57 times 68 is 3,400, plus 476 is 3876,that's 38,760 plus 171,38,760 plus 171 is 38,931.38,931; double that to get 77,862.77,862 becomes cookie fission,cookie fission is 77,822.That seems right, I'll go on. Cookie fission, OK.Next, I do 57 squared, which is 3,249, so I can say,three billion. Take the 249, add that to cookie, 249,oops, but I see a carry coming --249 --add that to cookie, 250 plus 77,is 327 million --fission, fission, OK, finally, we do 683 squared,that's 700 times 666, plus 17 squared is 466,489, rev up if I need it,rev up, take the 466,add that to fission, to get,oh gee --328,489.
Audience: Yeah!
AB: Good.
(Applause)
Thank you very much.I hope you enjoyed mathemagics. Thank you.
(Applause)
Transcript:
Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen.My name is Art Benjamin, and I am a "mathemagician."What that means is, I combine my loves of math and magic to do something I call "mathemagics."But before I get started, I have a quick question for the audience.By any chance, did anyone happen to bring with them this morning a calculator?Seriously, if you have a calculator with you, raise your hand, raise your hand.
I -- was -- your hand go up?Now bring it out, bring it out. Anybody else?I see, I see one way in the back.You sir, that's three,And anybody on this side here?OK, you over there on the aisle. Would the four of you with calculators please bring out your calculators, then join me up on stage.And let's give these volunteers a nice round of applause.
(Applause)
That's right. Now, since I haven't had the chance to work with these calculators, I need to make sure that they are all working properly.Would somebody get us started by giving us a two-digit number please?How about a two-digit number?
Audience: 22.
Arthur Benjamin: 22. And another two-digit number, Sir?
Audience: 47.
AB: Multiply 22 times 47, make sure you get 1,034,or the calculators are not working. Do all of you get 1,034? 1,034?
Woman: No.
AB: 594. Let's give three of them a nice round of applause there.
(Applause)
Would you like to try a more standard calculator, just in case?OK, great.What I'm going to try and do then --I notice that took some of you a little bit of time to get your answer.That's OK. I'll give you a shortcut for multiplying even faster on the calculator.There is something called the square of a number,which most of you know is taking a number and multiplying it by itself.For instance, five squared would be?
Audience: 25.
AB: 25. Now, the way we can square on most calculators --let me demonstrate with this one --is by taking the number, such as five,hitting "times" and then "equals,"and on most calculators that will give you the square.On some of these ancient RPN calculators,you've got an "x squared" button on it,will allow you to do the calculation even faster.What I'm going to try and do now is to square, in my head,four two-digit numbers faster than they can do on their calculators, even using the shortcut method.What I'll use is the second row this time, and I'll get four of you --one, two, three, four -- to each yell out a two-digit number,and if you would square the first number,and if you would square the second, the third and the fourth,I will try and race you to the answer. OK?So quickly, a two-digit number please.
Audience: 37.
AB: 37 squared, OK.
Audience: 23.
AB: 23 squared, OK.
Audience: 59.
AB: 59 squared, OK, and finally?
Audience: 93.
AB: 93 squared. Would you call out your answers, please?
Woman: 1369. AB: 1369.
Woman: 529.
AB: 529.
Man: 3481.
AB: 3481.
Man: 8649.
AB: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Let me try to take this one step further.I'm going to try to square some three-digit numbers this time.I won't even write these down --I'll just call them out as they're called out to me.Anyone I point to, call out a three-digit number.Anyone on our panel, verify the answer.Just give some indication if it's right.A three-digit number, sir, yes?
Audience: 987.
AB: 987 squared is 974,169.
(Laughter)
Yes? Good.Another, another three-digit --(Applause)-- another three-digit number, sir?
Audience: 457.
AB: 457 squared is 205,849.205,849?Yes?OK, another, another three-digit number, sir?
Audience: 321.AB: 321 is 103,041. 103,041.Yes? One more three-digit number please.
Audience: Oh, 722.AB: 722 is 500 -- ooh, that's a harder one.Is that 513,284?
Woman: Yes.
AB: Yes? Oh, one more, one more three-digit number please.
Audience: 162.162 squared is 26,244.Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Let me try to take this one step further.
(Laughter)
I'm going to try to square a four-digit number this time.Now you can all take your time on this; I will not beat you to the answer on this one,but I will try to get the answer right.To make this a little bit more random, let's take the fourth row this time,let's say, one, two, three, four.If each of you would call out a single digit between zero and nine,that will be the four-digit number that I'll square.
Audience: Nine.
AB: Nine.
Audience: Seven. AB: Seven.
Audience: Five. AB: Five.
Audience: Eight. AB: Eight.9,758, this will take me a little bit of time, so bear with me.95,218,564?
Woman: Yes.
AB: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Now, I would attempt to square a five-digit number --and I can --but unfortunately most calculators cannot.
(Laughter)
Eight-digit capacity -- don't you hate that?So, since we've reached the limits of our calculators --what's that? Does yours go --
Woman: I don't know.
AB: Does yours go higher?Oh -- yours does?
Man: I can probably do it.
AB: I'll talk to you later.In the meanwhile, let me conclude the first part of my show by doing something a little trickier.Let's take the largest number on the board here, 8649.Would you each enter that on your calculator?And instead of squaring it this time,I want you to take that number and multiply it by any three-digit number that you want,but don't tell me what you're multiplying by --just multiply it by any random three-digit number.So you should have as an answer eithera six-digit or probably a seven-digit number.How many digits do you have, six or seven?
Seven, and yours? Woman: Seven.
AB: Seven? Seven?And, uncertain.
Man: Yeah.
AB: Seven. Is there any possible way that I could know what seven digit numbers you have? Say "No."
(Laughter)
Good. Then I shall attempt the impossible --or at least the improbable.What I'd like each of you to do is to call out for meany six of your seven digits, any six of them,in any order you'd like.
(Laughter)
One digit at a time, I shall try and determine the digit you've left out.So, starting with your seven-digit number,call out any six of them please.
Woman: One, OK, 197042.
AB: Did you leave out the number 6?
Woman: Yes, AB: Good, OK, that's one.You have a seven-digit number, call out any six of them please.
Woman: 44875.
AB: I think I only heard five numbers. I -- wait -- 44875 --did you leave out the number 6?
Woman: Yes. AB: Same as she did, OK. You've got a seven-digit number --call out any six of them loud and clear.
Man: 079044.
AB: I think you left out the number 3?That's three. The odds of me getting all four of these right by random guessing would be one in 10,000: 10 to the fourth power.OK, any six of them.Really scramble them up this time, please.
Man: 263972.
AB: Did you leave out the number 7?And let's give all four of these people a nice round of applause.Thank you very much. (Applause)For my next number --(Laughter)while I mentally recharge my batteries,I have one more question for the audience.By any chance, does anybody here happen to know the day of the week that they were born on?If you think you know your birth day, raise your hand.Let's see, starting with -- let's start with a gentleman first,OK sir, what year was it, first of all? That's why I start with a gentleman first.What year?
Audience: 1953.
AB: 1953, and the month?
Audience: November. AB: November what?
Audience: 23rd.
AB: 23rd -- was that a Monday? Audience: Yes.Yes, good. Somebody else? Who else would like --see I don't -- haven't seen any women's hands up.OK, it's -- how about you, what year?
Audience: 1949. AB: 1949, and the month?
Audience: October. AB: October what?
Audience: Fifth.
AB: Fifth -- was that a Wednesday?Yes, my -- I'll go way to the back right now, how about you?Yell it out, what year? Audience: 1959.
AB: 1959, OK -- and the month?
Audience: February.
AB: February what? Audience: Sixth.
AB: Sixth -- was that a Friday? Audience: Yes.Good, how about the person behind her?Call -- call -- what year was it?
Audience: 1947. AB: 1947, and the month?
Audience: May. AB: May what?
Audience: Seventh. AB: Seventh -- would that be a Wednesday?
Audience: Yes.
AB: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Anybody here who'd like to know the day of the week they were born?We can do it that way.Of course, I could just make up an answer and you wouldn't know,so I come prepared for that.I brought with me a book of calendars.It goes as far back into the past as 1800, 'cause you never know.
(Laughter)
I didn't mean to look at you, sir --you were just sitting there.Anyway, Chris, you can help me out here, if you wouldn't mind.This is a book of calendars, and I'll ask --who was it that wanted to know their birth day? You sir? OK.What year was it, first of all?
Audience: 1966.
AB: '66 -- turn to the calendar with 1966 --and what month?
Audience: April. AB: April what?
Audience: 17th. AB: 17th -- I believe that was a Sunday.Can you confirm, Chris?
Chris Anderson: Yes. AB: Yeah, OK. I'll tell you what, Chris:as long as you have that book in front of you,do me a favor, turn to a year outside of the 1900s,either into the 1800s or way into the 2000s --that'll be a much greater challenge for me.What year, Chris, would you like?
CA: 1824.
AB: 1824, OK.And what month? CA: June.
AB: June what? CA: Sixth.
AB: Sixth -- was that a Sunday?
CA: It was. AB: And it was cloudy.Good, thank you very much.
(Applause)
But I'd like to wrap things up now by alluding to something from earlier in the presentation.There was a gentleman up here who had a 10-digit calculator.Where is he, would you stand up,10-digit guy?OK, well stand up for me just for a second,so I can see where you are.OK, oh, OK -- you have a 10-digit calculator, sir, as well?OK, what I'm going to try and do, is to square in my head a five-digit number requiring a 10-digit calculator.But to make my job more interesting for you, as well as for me,I'm going to do this problem thinking out loud.So you can actually, honestly hear what's going on in my mind while I do a calculation of this size.
Now, I have to apologize to our magician friend Lennart Green.I know as a magician we're not supposed to reveal our secrets,but I'm not too afraid that people are going to start doing my show next week, so --I think we're OK.So, let's see, let's take a --let's take a different row of people, starting with you.I'll get five digits: one, two, three, four --oh, I did this row already. Let's do the row before you,starting with you sir: one, two, three, four, five.Call out a single digit -- that will be the five-digit number that I will try to square. Go ahead.
Audience: Five. AB: Five.
Audience: Seven. AB: Seven.
Audience: Six. AB: Six.
Audience: Eight. AB: Eight.
Audience: Three. AB: Three.57,683 squared. Yuck.
Let me explain to you howI'm going to attempt this problem.I'm going to break the problem down into three parts.I'll do 57,000 squared,plus 683 squared,plus 57,000 times 683 times two.Add all those numbers together,and with any luck, arrive at the answer.Now, let me recap.Thank you.While I explain something else ---- I know, that you can use, right?While I do these calculation[s],you might hear certain words,as opposed to numbers, creep into the calculation.Let me explain what that is.This is a phonetic code,a mnemonic device that I use,that allows me to convert numbers into words.I store them as words, and later on retrieve them as numbers.I know it sounds complicated; it's not --I just don't want you to think you're seeing something out of "Rain Man" here.
(Laughter)
There's definitely a method to my madness --definitely, definitely. Sorry.
(Laughter)
If you want to talk to me about ADHD afterwards,you can talk to me then. All right --by the way, one last instruction,for my judges with the calculators -- OK, you know who you are --there is at least a 50 percent chance that I will make a mistake here.If I do, don't tell me what the mistake is;just say, "you're close," or something like that, and I'll try and figure out the answer --which could be pretty entertaining in itself.If, however, I am right,whatever you do, don't keep it to yourself, OK?
(Laughter)
Make sure everybody knows that I got the answer right,because this is my big finish, OK.So, without any more stalling,here we go.I'll start the problem in the middle, with 57 times 683.Now, 57 times 68 is 3,400, plus 476 is 3876,that's 38,760 plus 171,38,760 plus 171 is 38,931.38,931; double that to get 77,862.77,862 becomes cookie fission,cookie fission is 77,822.That seems right, I'll go on. Cookie fission, OK.Next, I do 57 squared, which is 3,249, so I can say,three billion. Take the 249, add that to cookie, 249,oops, but I see a carry coming --249 --add that to cookie, 250 plus 77,is 327 million --fission, fission, OK, finally, we do 683 squared,that's 700 times 666, plus 17 squared is 466,489, rev up if I need it,rev up, take the 466,add that to fission, to get,oh gee --328,489.
Audience: Yeah!
AB: Good.
(Applause)
Thank you very much.I hope you enjoyed mathemagics. Thank you.
(Applause)
GralINt/TEACHMATH-TED Talks-Arthur Benjamin´s formula for changing Math education
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Transcript:
Now, if President Obama invited me to be the next Czar of Mathematics,then I would have a suggestion for him that I think would vastly improve the mathematics education in this country.And it would be easy to implement and inexpensive.
The mathematics curriculum that we have is based on a foundation of arithmetic and algebra.And everything we learn after that is building up towards one subject.And at top of that pyramid, it's calculus.And I'm here to say that I think that that is the wrong summit of the pyramid ...that the correct summit -- that all of our students,every high school graduate should know --should be statistics:probability and statistics.(Applause)
I mean, don't get me wrong. Calculus is an important subject.It's one of the great products of the human mind.The laws of nature are written in the language of calculus.And every student who studies math, science, engineering, economics,they should definitely learn calculus by the end of their freshman year of college.But I'm here to say, as a professor of mathematics,that very few people actually use calculus in a conscious, meaningful way, in their day-to-day lives.On the other hand,statistics -- that's a subject that you could,and should, use on daily basis. Right?It's risk. It's reward. It's randomness.It's understanding data.
I think if our students, if our high school students --if all of the American citizens --knew about probability and statistics,we wouldn't be in the economic mess that we're in today. (Laughter) (Applause)Not only -- thank you -- not only that ...but if it's taught properly, it can be a lot of fun.I mean, probability and statistics,it's the mathematics of games and gambling.It's analyzing trends. It's predicting the future.Look, the world has changed from analog to digital.And it's time for our mathematics curriculum to change from analog to digital,from the more classical, continuous mathematics,to the more modern, discrete mathematics --the mathematics of uncertainty,of randomness, of data --that being probability and statistics.
In summary, instead of our students learning about the techniques of calculus,I think it would be far more significant if all of them knew what two standard deviations from the mean means. And I mean it.Thank you very much.(Applause)
Transcript:
Now, if President Obama invited me to be the next Czar of Mathematics,then I would have a suggestion for him that I think would vastly improve the mathematics education in this country.And it would be easy to implement and inexpensive.
The mathematics curriculum that we have is based on a foundation of arithmetic and algebra.And everything we learn after that is building up towards one subject.And at top of that pyramid, it's calculus.And I'm here to say that I think that that is the wrong summit of the pyramid ...that the correct summit -- that all of our students,every high school graduate should know --should be statistics:probability and statistics.(Applause)
I mean, don't get me wrong. Calculus is an important subject.It's one of the great products of the human mind.The laws of nature are written in the language of calculus.And every student who studies math, science, engineering, economics,they should definitely learn calculus by the end of their freshman year of college.But I'm here to say, as a professor of mathematics,that very few people actually use calculus in a conscious, meaningful way, in their day-to-day lives.On the other hand,statistics -- that's a subject that you could,and should, use on daily basis. Right?It's risk. It's reward. It's randomness.It's understanding data.
I think if our students, if our high school students --if all of the American citizens --knew about probability and statistics,we wouldn't be in the economic mess that we're in today. (Laughter) (Applause)Not only -- thank you -- not only that ...but if it's taught properly, it can be a lot of fun.I mean, probability and statistics,it's the mathematics of games and gambling.It's analyzing trends. It's predicting the future.Look, the world has changed from analog to digital.And it's time for our mathematics curriculum to change from analog to digital,from the more classical, continuous mathematics,to the more modern, discrete mathematics --the mathematics of uncertainty,of randomness, of data --that being probability and statistics.
In summary, instead of our students learning about the techniques of calculus,I think it would be far more significant if all of them knew what two standard deviations from the mean means. And I mean it.Thank you very much.(Applause)
Saturday, June 29, 2013
GralInt/HEALTH-TED Talks-Peter Attia: What if we are wrong about diabetes?
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Transcript:
I'll never forget that day back in the spring of 2006.I was a surgical resident at The Johns Hopkins Hospital,taking emergency call.I got paged by the E.R. around 2 in the morning to come and see a woman with a diabetic ulcer on her foot.I can still remember sort of that smell of rotting flesh as I pulled the curtain back to see her.And everybody there agreed this woman was very sick and she needed to be in the hospital.That wasn't being asked.The question that was being asked of me was a different one,which was, did she also need an amputation?
Now, looking back on that night,I'd love so desperately to believe that I treated that woman on that night with the same empathy and compassion I'd shown the 27-year-old newlywed who came to the E.R. three nights earlier with lower back pain that turned out to be advanced pancreatic cancer.In her case, I knew there was nothing I could do that was actually going to save her life.The cancer was too advanced.But I was committed to making sure that I could do anything possible to make her stay more comfortable. I brought her a warm blanket and a cup of a coffee.I brought some for her parents.But more importantly, see, I passed no judgment on her,because obviously she had done nothing to bring this on herself.So why was it that, just a few nights later,as I stood in that same E.R. and determined that my diabetic patient did indeed need an amputation,why did I hold her in such bitter contempt?
You see, unlike the woman the night before,this woman had type 2 diabetes.She was fat.And we all know that's from eating too much and not exercising enough, right?I mean, how hard can it be?As I looked down at her in the bed, I thought to myself,if you just tried caring even a little bit,you wouldn't be in this situation at this moment with some doctor you've never met about to amputate your foot.
Why did I feel justified in judging her?I'd like to say I don't know.But I actually do.You see, in the hubris of my youth,I thought I had her all figured out.She ate too much. She got unlucky.She got diabetes. Case closed.
Ironically, at that time in my life,I was also doing cancer research,immune-based therapies for melanoma, to be specific,and in that world I was actually taught to question everything,to challenge all assumptions and hold them to the highest possible scientific standards.Yet when it came to a disease like diabetes that kills Americans eight times more frequently than melanoma,I never once questioned the conventional wisdom.I actually just assmed the pathologic sequence of events was settled science.
Three years later, I found out how wrong I was.But this time, I was the patient.Despite exercising three or four hours every single day,and following the food pyramid to the letter,I'd gained a lot of weight and developed something called metabolic syndrome.Some of you may have heard of this.I had become insulin-resistant.
You can think of insulin as this master hormone that controls what our body does with the foods we eat,whether we burn it or store it.This is called fuel partitioning in the lingo.Now failure to produce enough insulin is incompatible with life.And insulin resistance, as its name suggests,is when your cells get increasingly resistant to the effect of insulin trying to do its job.Once you're insulin-resistant,you're on your way to getting diabetes,which is what happens when your pancreas can't keep up with the resistance and make enough insulin.Now your blood sugar levels start to rise,and an entire cascade of pathologic events sort of spirals out of control that can lead to heart disease,cancer, even Alzheimer's disease,and amputations, just like that woman a few years earlier.
With that scare, I got busy changing my diet radically,adding and subtracting things most of you would find almost assuredly shocking.I did this and lost 40 pounds, weirdly while exercising less.I, as you can see, I guess I'm not overweight anymore.More importantly, I don't have insulin resistance.
But most important, I was left with these three burning questions that wouldn't go away:How did this happen to me if I was supposedly doing everything right?If the conventional wisdom about nutrition had failed me,was it possible it was failing someone else?And underlying these questions,I became almost maniacally obsessed in trying to understand the real relationship between obesity and insulin resistance.
Now, most researchers believe obesity is the cause of insulin resistance.Logically, then, if you want to treat insulin resistance,you get people to lose weight, right?You treat the obesity.But what if we have it backwards?What if obesity isn't the cause of insulin resistance at all?In fact, what if it's a symptom of a much deeper problem,the tip of a proverbial iceberg?I know it sounds crazy because we're obviously in the midst of an obesity epidemic, but hear me out.What if obesity is a coping mechanism for a far more sinister problem going on underneath the cell?I'm not suggesting that obesity is benign,but what I am suggesting is it may be the lesser of two metabolic evils.
You can think of insulin resistance as the reduced capacity of ourselves to partition fuel,as I alluded to a moment ago,taking those calories that we take in and burning some appropriately and storing some appropriately.When we become insulin-resistant,the homeostasis in that balance deviates from this state.So now, when insulin says to a cell,I want you to burn more energy than the cell considers safe, the cell, in effect, says,"No thanks, I'd actually rather store this energy."And because fat cells are actually missing most ofthe complex cellular machinery found in other cells,it's probably the safest place to store it.So for many of us, about 75 million Americans,the appropriate response to insulin resistance may actually be to store it as fat, not the reverse,getting insulin resistance in response to getting fat.
This is a really subtle distinction,but the implication could be profound.Consider the following analogy:Think of the bruise you get on your shin when you inadvertently bang your leg into the coffee table.Sure, the bruise hurts like hell, and you almost certainly don't like the discolored look, but we all know the bruise per se is not the problem.In fact, it's the opposite. It's a healthy response to the trauma,all of those immune cells rushing to the site of the injury to salvage cellular debris and prevent the spread of infection to elsewhere in the body.Now, imagine we thought bruises were the problem,and we evolved a giant medical establishment and a culture around treating bruises:masking creams, painkillers, you name it,all the while ignoring the fact that people are still banging their shins into coffee tables.How much better would we be if we treated the cause --telling people to pay attention when they walk through the living room --rather than the effect?Getting the cause and the effect right makes all the difference in the world.Getting it wrong, and the pharmaceutical industry can still do very well for its shareholders but nothing improves for the people with bruised shins.Cause and effect.
So what I'm suggesting is maybe we have the cause and effect wrong on obesity and insulin resistance.Maybe we should be asking ourselves,is it possible that insulin resistance causes weight gain and the diseases associated with obesity,at least in most people?What if being obese is just a metabolic response to something much more threatening,an underlying epidemic,the one we ought to be worried about?
Let's look at some suggestive facts.We know that 30 million obese Americans in the United States don't have insulin resistance.And by the way, they don't appear to be at any greater risk of disease than lean people.Conversely, we know that six million lean people in the United States are insulin-resistant,and by the way, they appear to be at even greater risk for those metabolic disease I mentioned a moment ago than their obese counterparts.Now I don't know why, but it might be because,in their case, their cells haven't actually figured out the right thing to do with that excess energy.So if you can be obese and not have insulin resistance,and you can be lean and have it,this suggests that obesity may just be a proxy for what's going on.
So what if we're fighting the wrong war,fighting obesity rather than insulin resistance?Even worse, what if blaming the obese means we're blaming the victims?What if some of our fundamental ideas about obesity are just wrong?
Personally, I can't afford the luxury of arrogance anymore,let alone the luxury of certainty.I have my own ideas about what could be at the heart of this,but I'm wide open to others.Now, my hypothesis, because everybody always asks me,is this.If you ask yourself, what's a cell trying to protect itself from when it becomes insulin resistant,the answer probably isn't too much food.It's more likely too much glucose: blood sugar.Now, we know that refined grains and starches elevate your blood sugar in the short run,and there's even reason to believe that sugar may lead to insulin resistance directly.So if you put these physiological processes to work,I'd hypothesize that it might be our increased intake of refined grains, sugars and starches that's driving this epidemic of obesity and diabetes,but through insulin resistance,you see, and not necessarily through just overeating and under-exercising.
When I lost my 40 pounds a few years ago,I did it simply by restricting those things,which admittedly suggests I have a bias based on my personal experience.But that doesn't mean my bias is wrong,and most important, all of this can be tested scientifically.But step one is accepting the possibility that our current beliefs about obesity,diabetes and insulin resistance could be wrong and therefore must be tested.I'm betting my career on this.Today, I devote all of my time to working on this problem,and I'll go wherever the science takes me.I've decided that what I can't and won't do anymore is pretend I have the answers when I don't.I've been humbled enough by all I don't know.
For the past year, I've been fortunate enough to work on this problem with the most amazing team of diabetes and obesity researchers in the country,and the best part is,just like Abraham Lincoln surrounded himself with a team of rivals,we've done the same thing.We've recruited a team of scientific rivals,the best and brightest who all have different hypotheses for what's at the heart of this epidemic.Some think it's too many calories consumed.Others think it's too much dietary fat.Others think it's too many refined grains and starches.But this team of multi-disciplinary,highly skeptical and exceedingly talented researchers do agree on two things.First, this problem is just simply too important to continue ignoring because we think we know the answer.And two, if we're willing to be wrong,if we're willing to challenge the conventional wisdom with the best experiments science can offer,we can solve this problem.
I know it's tempting to want an answer right now,some form of action or policy, some dietary prescription --eat this, not that —but if we want to get it right,we're going to have to do much more rigorous science before we can write that prescription.
Briefly, to address this, our research program is focused around three meta-themes, or questions.First, how do the various foods we consume impact our metabolism, hormones and enzymes,and through what nuanced molecular mechanisms?Second, based on these insights,can people make the necessary changes in their diets in a way that's safe and practical to implement?And finally, once we identify what safe and practical changes people can make to their diet,how can we move their behavior in that direction so that it becomes more the default rather than the exception?Just because you know what to do doesn't mean you're always going to do it.Sometimes we have to put cues around people to make it easier, and believe it or not,that can be studied scientifically.
I don't know how this journey is going to end,but this much seems clear to me, at least:We can't keep blaming our overweight and diabetic patients like I did.Most of them actually want to do the right thing,but they have to know what that is,and it's got to work.I dream of a day when our patients can shed their excess pounds and cure themselves of insulin resistance,because as medical professionals,we've shed our excess mental baggage and cured ourselves of new idea resistance sufficiently to go back to our original ideals:open minds, the courage to throw out yesterday's ideas when they don't appear to be working,and the understanding that scientific truth isn't final,but constantly evolving.Staying true to that path will be better for our patients and better for science.If obesity is nothing more than a proxy for metabolic illness,what good does it do us to punish those with the proxy?
Sometimes I think back to that night in the E.R.seven years ago.I wish I could speak with that woman again.I'd like to tell her how sorry I am.I'd say, as a doctor, I delivered the best clinical care I could,but as a human being,I let you down.You didn't need my judgment and my contempt.You needed my empathy and compassion,and above all else, you needed a doctor who was willing to consider maybe you didn't let the system down.Maybe the system, of which I was a part,was letting you down.If you're watching this now,I hope you can forgive me.
(Applause)
Transcript:
I'll never forget that day back in the spring of 2006.I was a surgical resident at The Johns Hopkins Hospital,taking emergency call.I got paged by the E.R. around 2 in the morning to come and see a woman with a diabetic ulcer on her foot.I can still remember sort of that smell of rotting flesh as I pulled the curtain back to see her.And everybody there agreed this woman was very sick and she needed to be in the hospital.That wasn't being asked.The question that was being asked of me was a different one,which was, did she also need an amputation?
Now, looking back on that night,I'd love so desperately to believe that I treated that woman on that night with the same empathy and compassion I'd shown the 27-year-old newlywed who came to the E.R. three nights earlier with lower back pain that turned out to be advanced pancreatic cancer.In her case, I knew there was nothing I could do that was actually going to save her life.The cancer was too advanced.But I was committed to making sure that I could do anything possible to make her stay more comfortable. I brought her a warm blanket and a cup of a coffee.I brought some for her parents.But more importantly, see, I passed no judgment on her,because obviously she had done nothing to bring this on herself.So why was it that, just a few nights later,as I stood in that same E.R. and determined that my diabetic patient did indeed need an amputation,why did I hold her in such bitter contempt?
You see, unlike the woman the night before,this woman had type 2 diabetes.She was fat.And we all know that's from eating too much and not exercising enough, right?I mean, how hard can it be?As I looked down at her in the bed, I thought to myself,if you just tried caring even a little bit,you wouldn't be in this situation at this moment with some doctor you've never met about to amputate your foot.
Why did I feel justified in judging her?I'd like to say I don't know.But I actually do.You see, in the hubris of my youth,I thought I had her all figured out.She ate too much. She got unlucky.She got diabetes. Case closed.
Ironically, at that time in my life,I was also doing cancer research,immune-based therapies for melanoma, to be specific,and in that world I was actually taught to question everything,to challenge all assumptions and hold them to the highest possible scientific standards.Yet when it came to a disease like diabetes that kills Americans eight times more frequently than melanoma,I never once questioned the conventional wisdom.I actually just assmed the pathologic sequence of events was settled science.
Three years later, I found out how wrong I was.But this time, I was the patient.Despite exercising three or four hours every single day,and following the food pyramid to the letter,I'd gained a lot of weight and developed something called metabolic syndrome.Some of you may have heard of this.I had become insulin-resistant.
You can think of insulin as this master hormone that controls what our body does with the foods we eat,whether we burn it or store it.This is called fuel partitioning in the lingo.Now failure to produce enough insulin is incompatible with life.And insulin resistance, as its name suggests,is when your cells get increasingly resistant to the effect of insulin trying to do its job.Once you're insulin-resistant,you're on your way to getting diabetes,which is what happens when your pancreas can't keep up with the resistance and make enough insulin.Now your blood sugar levels start to rise,and an entire cascade of pathologic events sort of spirals out of control that can lead to heart disease,cancer, even Alzheimer's disease,and amputations, just like that woman a few years earlier.
With that scare, I got busy changing my diet radically,adding and subtracting things most of you would find almost assuredly shocking.I did this and lost 40 pounds, weirdly while exercising less.I, as you can see, I guess I'm not overweight anymore.More importantly, I don't have insulin resistance.
But most important, I was left with these three burning questions that wouldn't go away:How did this happen to me if I was supposedly doing everything right?If the conventional wisdom about nutrition had failed me,was it possible it was failing someone else?And underlying these questions,I became almost maniacally obsessed in trying to understand the real relationship between obesity and insulin resistance.
Now, most researchers believe obesity is the cause of insulin resistance.Logically, then, if you want to treat insulin resistance,you get people to lose weight, right?You treat the obesity.But what if we have it backwards?What if obesity isn't the cause of insulin resistance at all?In fact, what if it's a symptom of a much deeper problem,the tip of a proverbial iceberg?I know it sounds crazy because we're obviously in the midst of an obesity epidemic, but hear me out.What if obesity is a coping mechanism for a far more sinister problem going on underneath the cell?I'm not suggesting that obesity is benign,but what I am suggesting is it may be the lesser of two metabolic evils.
You can think of insulin resistance as the reduced capacity of ourselves to partition fuel,as I alluded to a moment ago,taking those calories that we take in and burning some appropriately and storing some appropriately.When we become insulin-resistant,the homeostasis in that balance deviates from this state.So now, when insulin says to a cell,I want you to burn more energy than the cell considers safe, the cell, in effect, says,"No thanks, I'd actually rather store this energy."And because fat cells are actually missing most ofthe complex cellular machinery found in other cells,it's probably the safest place to store it.So for many of us, about 75 million Americans,the appropriate response to insulin resistance may actually be to store it as fat, not the reverse,getting insulin resistance in response to getting fat.
This is a really subtle distinction,but the implication could be profound.Consider the following analogy:Think of the bruise you get on your shin when you inadvertently bang your leg into the coffee table.Sure, the bruise hurts like hell, and you almost certainly don't like the discolored look, but we all know the bruise per se is not the problem.In fact, it's the opposite. It's a healthy response to the trauma,all of those immune cells rushing to the site of the injury to salvage cellular debris and prevent the spread of infection to elsewhere in the body.Now, imagine we thought bruises were the problem,and we evolved a giant medical establishment and a culture around treating bruises:masking creams, painkillers, you name it,all the while ignoring the fact that people are still banging their shins into coffee tables.How much better would we be if we treated the cause --telling people to pay attention when they walk through the living room --rather than the effect?Getting the cause and the effect right makes all the difference in the world.Getting it wrong, and the pharmaceutical industry can still do very well for its shareholders but nothing improves for the people with bruised shins.Cause and effect.
So what I'm suggesting is maybe we have the cause and effect wrong on obesity and insulin resistance.Maybe we should be asking ourselves,is it possible that insulin resistance causes weight gain and the diseases associated with obesity,at least in most people?What if being obese is just a metabolic response to something much more threatening,an underlying epidemic,the one we ought to be worried about?
Let's look at some suggestive facts.We know that 30 million obese Americans in the United States don't have insulin resistance.And by the way, they don't appear to be at any greater risk of disease than lean people.Conversely, we know that six million lean people in the United States are insulin-resistant,and by the way, they appear to be at even greater risk for those metabolic disease I mentioned a moment ago than their obese counterparts.Now I don't know why, but it might be because,in their case, their cells haven't actually figured out the right thing to do with that excess energy.So if you can be obese and not have insulin resistance,and you can be lean and have it,this suggests that obesity may just be a proxy for what's going on.
So what if we're fighting the wrong war,fighting obesity rather than insulin resistance?Even worse, what if blaming the obese means we're blaming the victims?What if some of our fundamental ideas about obesity are just wrong?
Personally, I can't afford the luxury of arrogance anymore,let alone the luxury of certainty.I have my own ideas about what could be at the heart of this,but I'm wide open to others.Now, my hypothesis, because everybody always asks me,is this.If you ask yourself, what's a cell trying to protect itself from when it becomes insulin resistant,the answer probably isn't too much food.It's more likely too much glucose: blood sugar.Now, we know that refined grains and starches elevate your blood sugar in the short run,and there's even reason to believe that sugar may lead to insulin resistance directly.So if you put these physiological processes to work,I'd hypothesize that it might be our increased intake of refined grains, sugars and starches that's driving this epidemic of obesity and diabetes,but through insulin resistance,you see, and not necessarily through just overeating and under-exercising.
When I lost my 40 pounds a few years ago,I did it simply by restricting those things,which admittedly suggests I have a bias based on my personal experience.But that doesn't mean my bias is wrong,and most important, all of this can be tested scientifically.But step one is accepting the possibility that our current beliefs about obesity,diabetes and insulin resistance could be wrong and therefore must be tested.I'm betting my career on this.Today, I devote all of my time to working on this problem,and I'll go wherever the science takes me.I've decided that what I can't and won't do anymore is pretend I have the answers when I don't.I've been humbled enough by all I don't know.
For the past year, I've been fortunate enough to work on this problem with the most amazing team of diabetes and obesity researchers in the country,and the best part is,just like Abraham Lincoln surrounded himself with a team of rivals,we've done the same thing.We've recruited a team of scientific rivals,the best and brightest who all have different hypotheses for what's at the heart of this epidemic.Some think it's too many calories consumed.Others think it's too much dietary fat.Others think it's too many refined grains and starches.But this team of multi-disciplinary,highly skeptical and exceedingly talented researchers do agree on two things.First, this problem is just simply too important to continue ignoring because we think we know the answer.And two, if we're willing to be wrong,if we're willing to challenge the conventional wisdom with the best experiments science can offer,we can solve this problem.
I know it's tempting to want an answer right now,some form of action or policy, some dietary prescription --eat this, not that —but if we want to get it right,we're going to have to do much more rigorous science before we can write that prescription.
Briefly, to address this, our research program is focused around three meta-themes, or questions.First, how do the various foods we consume impact our metabolism, hormones and enzymes,and through what nuanced molecular mechanisms?Second, based on these insights,can people make the necessary changes in their diets in a way that's safe and practical to implement?And finally, once we identify what safe and practical changes people can make to their diet,how can we move their behavior in that direction so that it becomes more the default rather than the exception?Just because you know what to do doesn't mean you're always going to do it.Sometimes we have to put cues around people to make it easier, and believe it or not,that can be studied scientifically.
I don't know how this journey is going to end,but this much seems clear to me, at least:We can't keep blaming our overweight and diabetic patients like I did.Most of them actually want to do the right thing,but they have to know what that is,and it's got to work.I dream of a day when our patients can shed their excess pounds and cure themselves of insulin resistance,because as medical professionals,we've shed our excess mental baggage and cured ourselves of new idea resistance sufficiently to go back to our original ideals:open minds, the courage to throw out yesterday's ideas when they don't appear to be working,and the understanding that scientific truth isn't final,but constantly evolving.Staying true to that path will be better for our patients and better for science.If obesity is nothing more than a proxy for metabolic illness,what good does it do us to punish those with the proxy?
Sometimes I think back to that night in the E.R.seven years ago.I wish I could speak with that woman again.I'd like to tell her how sorry I am.I'd say, as a doctor, I delivered the best clinical care I could,but as a human being,I let you down.You didn't need my judgment and my contempt.You needed my empathy and compassion,and above all else, you needed a doctor who was willing to consider maybe you didn't let the system down.Maybe the system, of which I was a part,was letting you down.If you're watching this now,I hope you can forgive me.
(Applause)
GralInt/Fun-TED Talks-Bob Mankoff: Anatomy of a New Yorker cartoon
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Transcript:
I'm going to be talking about designing humor,which is sort of an interesting thing, but it goes to some of the discussions about constraints,and how in certain contexts, humor is right,and in other contexts it's wrong.
Now, I'm from New York,so it's 100 percent satisfaction here.Actually, that's ridiculous, because when it comes to humor,75 percent is really absolutely the best you can hope for.Nobody is ever satisfied 100 percent with humor except this woman.
(Video) Woman: (Laughs)
Bob Mankoff: That's my first wife.(Laughter)That part of the relationship went fine.(Laughter)
Now let's look at this cartoon.One of the things I'm pointing out is that cartoons appear within the context of The New Yorker magazine,that lovely Caslon type, and it seems like a fairly benign cartoon within this context.It's making a little bit fun of getting older,and, you know, people might like it.
But like I said, you cannot satisfy everyone.You couldn't satisfy this guy.
"Another joke on old white males. Ha ha. The wit.It's nice, I'm sure to be young and rude,but some day you'll be old, unless you drop dead as I wish."
(Laughter)
The New Yorker is rather a sensitive environment,very easy for people to get their nose out of joint.And one of the things that you realize is it's an unusual environment.Here I'm one person talking to you.You're all collective. You all hear each other laugh and know each other laugh.In The New Yorker, it goes out to a wide audience,and when you actually look at that,and nobody knows what anybody else is laughing at,and when you look at that the subjectivity involved in humor is really interesting.
Let's look at this cartoon.
"Discouraging data on the antidepressant."
(Laughter)
Indeed, it is discouraging.Now, you would think, well, look,most of you laughed at that.Right? You thought it was funny.In general, that seems like a funny cartoon,but let's look what online survey I did.Generally, about 85 percent of the people liked it.A hundred and nine voted it a 10, the highest. Ten voted it one.But look at the individual responses.
"I like animals!!!!!" Look how much they like them.(Laughter)"I don't want to hurt them. That doesn't seem very funny to me."
This person rated it a two."I don't like to see animals suffer -- even in cartoons."
To people like this, I point out we use anesthetic ink.Other people thought it was funny.That actually is the true nature of the distribution of humor when you don't have the contagion of humor.
Humor is a type of entertainment.All entertainment contains a little frisson of danger,something that might happen wrong,and yet we like it when there's protection.That's what a zoo is. It's danger. The tiger is there.The bars protect us. That's sort of fun, right?That's a bad zoo.(Laughter)It's a very politically correct zoo, but it's a bad zoo.But this is a worse one.(Laughter)So in dealing with humor in the context of The New Yorker,you have to see, where is that tiger going to be?Where is the danger going to exist?How are you going to manage it?My job is to look at 1,000 cartoons a week.But The New Yorker only can take 16 or 17 cartoons,and we have 1,000 cartoons.Of course, many, many cartoons must be rejected.Now, we could fit more cartoons in the magazine if we removed the articles.(Laughter)But I feel that would be a huge loss,one I could live with, but still huge.
Cartoonists come in through the magazine every week.The average cartoonist who stays with the magazine does 10 or 15 ideas every week.But they mostly are going to be rejected.That's the nature of any creative activity.Many of them fade away. Some of them stay.
Matt Diffee is one of them.Here's one of his cartoons.(Laughter)
Drew Dernavich. "Accounting night at the improv.""Now is the part of the show when we ask the audience to shout out some random numbers."
Paul Noth. "He's all right. I just wish he were a little more pro-Israel."(Laughter)
Now I know all about rejection,because when I quit -- actually, I was booted out of -- psychology school and decided to become a cartoonist, a natural segue,from 1974 to 1977 I submitted 2,000 cartoons to The New Yorker,and got 2,000 cartoons rejected by The New Yorker.At a certain point, this rejection slip, in 1977 --[We regret that we are unable to use the enclosed material. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it.] —magically changed to this.[Hey! You sold one. No shit! You really sold a cartoon to the fucking New Yorker magazine.](Laughter)Now of course that's not what happened,but that's the emotional truth.And of course, that is not New Yorker humor.
What is New Yorker humor?Well, after 1977, I broke into The New Yorker and started selling cartoons.Finally, in 1980, I received the revered New Yorker contract,which I blurred out parts because it's none of your business.
From 1980. "Dear Mr. Mankoff, confirming the agreement there of -- " blah blah blah blah -- blur --"for any idea drawings."
With respect to idea drawings, nowhere in the contract is the word "cartoon" mentioned.The word "idea drawings," and that's the sine qua non of New Yorker cartoons.So what is an idea drawing? An idea drawing is something that requires you to think.Now that's not a cartoon. It requires thinking on the part of the cartoonist and thinking on your part to make it into a cartoon.(Laughter)
Here are some, generally you get my cast of cartoon mind.
"There is no justice in the world. There is some justice in the world. The world is just."
This is What Lemmings Believe.
(Laughter)
The New Yorker and I, when we made comments,the cartoon carries a certain ambiguity about what it actually is.What is it, the cartoon? Is it really about lemmings?No. It's about us.You know, it's my view basically about religion,that the real conflict and all the fights between religion is who has the best imaginary friend.(Laughter)
And this is my most well-known cartoon."No, Thursday's out. How about never — is never good for you?"It's been reprinted thousands of times, totally ripped off.It's even on thongs,but compressed to "How about never — is never good for you?"
Now these look like very different forms of humor but actually they bear a great similarity.In each instance, our expectations are defied.In each instance, the narrative gets switched.There's an incongruity and a contrast.In "No, Thursday's out. How about never — is never good for you?"what you have is the syntax of politeness and the message of being rude.That really is how humor works. It's a cognitive synergy where we mash up these two things which don't go together and temporarily in our minds exist.He is both being polite and rude.In here, you have the propriety of The New Yorker and the vulgarity of the language.Basically, that's the way humor works.
So I'm a humor analyst, you would say.Now E.B. White said, analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog.Nobody is much interested, and the frog dies.Well, I'm going to kill a few, but there won't be any genocide.But really, it makes me —Let's look at this picture. This is an interesting picture,The Laughing Audience.There are the people, fops up there,but everybody is laughing, everybody is laughing except one guy.This guy. Who is he? He's the critic.He's the critic of humor,and really I'm forced to be in that position,when I'm at The New Yorker, and that's the danger that I will become this guy.
Now here's a little video made by Matt Diffee, sort ofhow they imagine if we really exaggerated that.
(Video) Bob Mankoff: "Oooh, no.Ehhh.Oooh. Hmm. Too funny.Normally I would but I'm in a pissy mood.I'll enjoy it on my own. Perhaps.No. Nah. No.Overdrawn. Underdrawn.Drawn just right, still not funny enough.No. No.For God's sake no, a thousand times no.
(Music)
No. No. No. No. No. [Four hours later]Hey, that's good, yeah, whatcha got there?
Office worker: Got a ham and swiss on rye? BM: No.
Office worker: Okay. Pastrami on sourdough? BM: No.
Office worker: Smoked turkey with bacon? BM: No.
Office worker: Falafel? BM: Let me look at it.Eh, no.Office worker: Grilled cheese? BM: No.Office worker: BLT? BM: No.
Office worker: Black forest ham and mozzarella with apple mustard? BM: No.
Office worker: Green bean salad? BM: No.
(Music)
No. No.Definitely no. [Several hours after lunch]
(Siren)
No. Get out of here.
(Laughter)
That's sort of an exaggeration of what I do.
Now, we do reject, many, many, many cartoons,so many that there are many books called "The Rejection Collection.""The Rejection Collection" is not quite New Yorker kind of humor.And you might notice the bum on the sidewalk here who is boozing and his ventriloquist dummy is puking.See, that's probably not going to be New Yorker humor.It's actually put together by Matt Diffee, one of our cartoonists.
So I'll give you some examples of rejection collection humor.
"I'm thinking about having a child."
(Laughter)
There you have an interesting -- the guilty laugh,the laugh against your better judgment.
(Laughter)
"Ass-head. Please help."
(Laughter)
Now, in fact, within a context of this book,which says, "Cartoons you never saw and never will see in The New Yorker," this humor is perfect.I'm going to explain why.There's a concept about humor about it being a benign violation.In other words, for something to be funny, we've got to think it's both wrong and also okay at the same time.If we think it's completely wrong, we say, "That's not funny."And if it's completely okay, what's the joke? Okay?And so, this benign, that's true of "No, Thursday's out. How about never — is never good for you?"It's rude. The world really shouldn't be that way.Within that context, we feel it's okay.So within this context, "Asshead. Please help"is a benign violation.
Within the context of The New Yorker magazine ..."T-Cell Army: Can the body's immune response help treat cancer?" Oh, goodness.You're reading about this smart stuff,this intelligent dissection of the immune system.You glance over at this, and it says,"Asshead. Please help"? God.So there the violation is malign. It doesn't work.There is no such thing as funny in and of itself.Everything will be within the context and our expectations.
One way to look at it is this.It's sort of called a meta-motivational theory about how we look,a theory about motivation and the mood we're in and how the mood we're in determines the things we like or dislike.When we're in a playful mood, we want excitement.We want high arousal. We feel excited then.If we're in a purposeful mood, that makes us anxious."The Rejection Collection" is absolutely in this field.You want to be stimulated. You want to be aroused.You want to be transgressed.It's like this, like an amusement park.
Voice: Here we go. (Screams)
He laughs. He is both in danger and safe,incredibly aroused. There's no joke. No joke needed.If you arouse people enough and get them stimulated enough,they will laugh at very, very little.
This is another cartoon from "The Rejection Collection.""Too snug?"That's a cartoon about terrorism.The New Yorker occupies a very different space.It's a space that is playful in its own way, and also purposeful,and in that space, the cartoons are different.
Now I'm going to show you cartoons The New Yorker did right after 9/11, a very, very sensitive area when humor could be used.How would The New Yorker attack it?It would not be with a guy with a bomb saying, "Too snug?"Or there was another cartoon I didn't show because actually I thought maybe people would be offended.The great Sam Gross cartoon, this happened after the Muhammad controversy where it's Muhammad in heaven,the suicide bomber is all in little pieces,and he's saying to the suicide bomber,"You'll get the virgins when we find your penis."
(Laughter)
Better left undrawn.
The first week we did no cartoons.That was a black hole for humor, and correctly so.It's not always appropriate every time.But the next week, this was the first cartoon.
"I thought I'd never laugh again. Then I saw your jacket."
It basically was about, if we were alive,we were going to laugh. We were going to breathe.We were going to exist. Here's another one.
"I figure if I don't have that third martini, then the terrorists win."
These cartoons are not about them. They're about us.The humor reflects back on us.The easiest thing to do with humor, and it's perfectly legitimate,is a friend makes fun of an enemy.It's called dispositional humor.It's 95 percent of the humor. It's not our humor.
Here's another cartoon.
"I wouldn't mind living in a fundamentalist Islamic state."
(Laughter)
Humor does need a target.But interestingly, in The New Yorker, the target is us.The target is the readership and the people who do it.The humor is self-reflective and makes us think about our assumptions.Look at this cartoon by Roz Chast, the guy reading the obituary.
"Two years younger than you, 12 years older than you,three years your junior, your age on the dot,exactly your age."
That is a deeply profound cartoon.And so The New Yorker is also trying to, in some way,make cartoons say something besides funny and something about us. Here's another one.
"I started my vegetarianism for health reasons,Then it became a moral choice, and now it's just to annoy people."
(Laughter)
"Excuse me — I think there's something wrong with this in a tiny way that no one other than me would ever be able to pinpoint."
So it focuses on our obsessions, our narcissism,our foils and our foibles, really not someone else's.
The New Yorker demands some cognitive work on your part,and what it demands is what Arthur Koestler,who wrote "The Act of Creation" about the relationship between humor, art and science,is what's called bisociation.You have to bring together ideas from different frames of reference,and you have to do it quickly to understand the cartoon.If the different frames of reference don't come together in about .5 seconds, it's not funny,but I think they will for you here.Different frames of reference.
"You slept with her, didn't you?"
(Laughter)
"Lassie! Get help!!"
(Laughter)
It's called French Army Knife.
(Laughter)
And this is Einstein in bed. "To you it was fast."
(Laughter)
Now there are some cartoons that are puzzling.Like, this cartoon would puzzle many people.How many people know what this cartoon means?The dog is signaling he wants to go for a walk.This is the signal for a catcher to walk the dog.That's why we run a feature in the cartoon issue every year called "I Don't Get It: The New Yorker Cartoon I.Q. Test."(Laughter)
The other thing The New Yorker plays around with is incongruity, and incongruity, I've shown you,is sort of the basis of humor.Something that's completely normal or logical isn't going to be funny.But the way incongruity works is, observational humor is humor within the realm of reality.
"My boss is always telling me what to do." Okay?That could happen. It's humor within the realm of reality.
Here, cowboy to a cow:"Very impressive. I'd like to find 5,000 more like you."
We understand that. It's absurd. But we're putting the two together.
Here, in the nonsense range:
"Damn it, Hopkins, didn't you get yesterday's memo?"
Now that's a little puzzling, right? It doesn't quite come together.In general, people who enjoy more nonsense,enjoy more abstract art,they tend to be liberal, less conservative, that type of stuff.But for us, and for me, helping design the humor,it doesn't make any sense to compare one to the other.It's sort of a smorgasbord that's made all interesting.
So I want to sum all this up with a caption to a cartoon,and I think this sums up the whole thing, really,about The New Yorker cartoons.
"It sort of makes you stop and think, doesn't it."
(Laughter)
And now, when you look at New Yorker cartoons,I'd like you to stop and think a little bit more about them.
Thank you.
(Applause)Thank you. (Applause)
Transcript:
I'm going to be talking about designing humor,which is sort of an interesting thing, but it goes to some of the discussions about constraints,and how in certain contexts, humor is right,and in other contexts it's wrong.
Now, I'm from New York,so it's 100 percent satisfaction here.Actually, that's ridiculous, because when it comes to humor,75 percent is really absolutely the best you can hope for.Nobody is ever satisfied 100 percent with humor except this woman.
(Video) Woman: (Laughs)
Bob Mankoff: That's my first wife.(Laughter)That part of the relationship went fine.(Laughter)
Now let's look at this cartoon.One of the things I'm pointing out is that cartoons appear within the context of The New Yorker magazine,that lovely Caslon type, and it seems like a fairly benign cartoon within this context.It's making a little bit fun of getting older,and, you know, people might like it.
But like I said, you cannot satisfy everyone.You couldn't satisfy this guy.
"Another joke on old white males. Ha ha. The wit.It's nice, I'm sure to be young and rude,but some day you'll be old, unless you drop dead as I wish."
(Laughter)
The New Yorker is rather a sensitive environment,very easy for people to get their nose out of joint.And one of the things that you realize is it's an unusual environment.Here I'm one person talking to you.You're all collective. You all hear each other laugh and know each other laugh.In The New Yorker, it goes out to a wide audience,and when you actually look at that,and nobody knows what anybody else is laughing at,and when you look at that the subjectivity involved in humor is really interesting.
Let's look at this cartoon.
"Discouraging data on the antidepressant."
(Laughter)
Indeed, it is discouraging.Now, you would think, well, look,most of you laughed at that.Right? You thought it was funny.In general, that seems like a funny cartoon,but let's look what online survey I did.Generally, about 85 percent of the people liked it.A hundred and nine voted it a 10, the highest. Ten voted it one.But look at the individual responses.
"I like animals!!!!!" Look how much they like them.(Laughter)"I don't want to hurt them. That doesn't seem very funny to me."
This person rated it a two."I don't like to see animals suffer -- even in cartoons."
To people like this, I point out we use anesthetic ink.Other people thought it was funny.That actually is the true nature of the distribution of humor when you don't have the contagion of humor.
Humor is a type of entertainment.All entertainment contains a little frisson of danger,something that might happen wrong,and yet we like it when there's protection.That's what a zoo is. It's danger. The tiger is there.The bars protect us. That's sort of fun, right?That's a bad zoo.(Laughter)It's a very politically correct zoo, but it's a bad zoo.But this is a worse one.(Laughter)So in dealing with humor in the context of The New Yorker,you have to see, where is that tiger going to be?Where is the danger going to exist?How are you going to manage it?My job is to look at 1,000 cartoons a week.But The New Yorker only can take 16 or 17 cartoons,and we have 1,000 cartoons.Of course, many, many cartoons must be rejected.Now, we could fit more cartoons in the magazine if we removed the articles.(Laughter)But I feel that would be a huge loss,one I could live with, but still huge.
Cartoonists come in through the magazine every week.The average cartoonist who stays with the magazine does 10 or 15 ideas every week.But they mostly are going to be rejected.That's the nature of any creative activity.Many of them fade away. Some of them stay.
Matt Diffee is one of them.Here's one of his cartoons.(Laughter)
Drew Dernavich. "Accounting night at the improv.""Now is the part of the show when we ask the audience to shout out some random numbers."
Paul Noth. "He's all right. I just wish he were a little more pro-Israel."(Laughter)
Now I know all about rejection,because when I quit -- actually, I was booted out of -- psychology school and decided to become a cartoonist, a natural segue,from 1974 to 1977 I submitted 2,000 cartoons to The New Yorker,and got 2,000 cartoons rejected by The New Yorker.At a certain point, this rejection slip, in 1977 --[We regret that we are unable to use the enclosed material. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it.] —magically changed to this.[Hey! You sold one. No shit! You really sold a cartoon to the fucking New Yorker magazine.](Laughter)Now of course that's not what happened,but that's the emotional truth.And of course, that is not New Yorker humor.
What is New Yorker humor?Well, after 1977, I broke into The New Yorker and started selling cartoons.Finally, in 1980, I received the revered New Yorker contract,which I blurred out parts because it's none of your business.
From 1980. "Dear Mr. Mankoff, confirming the agreement there of -- " blah blah blah blah -- blur --"for any idea drawings."
With respect to idea drawings, nowhere in the contract is the word "cartoon" mentioned.The word "idea drawings," and that's the sine qua non of New Yorker cartoons.So what is an idea drawing? An idea drawing is something that requires you to think.Now that's not a cartoon. It requires thinking on the part of the cartoonist and thinking on your part to make it into a cartoon.(Laughter)
Here are some, generally you get my cast of cartoon mind.
"There is no justice in the world. There is some justice in the world. The world is just."
This is What Lemmings Believe.
(Laughter)
The New Yorker and I, when we made comments,the cartoon carries a certain ambiguity about what it actually is.What is it, the cartoon? Is it really about lemmings?No. It's about us.You know, it's my view basically about religion,that the real conflict and all the fights between religion is who has the best imaginary friend.(Laughter)
And this is my most well-known cartoon."No, Thursday's out. How about never — is never good for you?"It's been reprinted thousands of times, totally ripped off.It's even on thongs,but compressed to "How about never — is never good for you?"
Now these look like very different forms of humor but actually they bear a great similarity.In each instance, our expectations are defied.In each instance, the narrative gets switched.There's an incongruity and a contrast.In "No, Thursday's out. How about never — is never good for you?"what you have is the syntax of politeness and the message of being rude.That really is how humor works. It's a cognitive synergy where we mash up these two things which don't go together and temporarily in our minds exist.He is both being polite and rude.In here, you have the propriety of The New Yorker and the vulgarity of the language.Basically, that's the way humor works.
So I'm a humor analyst, you would say.Now E.B. White said, analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog.Nobody is much interested, and the frog dies.Well, I'm going to kill a few, but there won't be any genocide.But really, it makes me —Let's look at this picture. This is an interesting picture,The Laughing Audience.There are the people, fops up there,but everybody is laughing, everybody is laughing except one guy.This guy. Who is he? He's the critic.He's the critic of humor,and really I'm forced to be in that position,when I'm at The New Yorker, and that's the danger that I will become this guy.
Now here's a little video made by Matt Diffee, sort ofhow they imagine if we really exaggerated that.
(Video) Bob Mankoff: "Oooh, no.Ehhh.Oooh. Hmm. Too funny.Normally I would but I'm in a pissy mood.I'll enjoy it on my own. Perhaps.No. Nah. No.Overdrawn. Underdrawn.Drawn just right, still not funny enough.No. No.For God's sake no, a thousand times no.
(Music)
No. No. No. No. No. [Four hours later]Hey, that's good, yeah, whatcha got there?
Office worker: Got a ham and swiss on rye? BM: No.
Office worker: Okay. Pastrami on sourdough? BM: No.
Office worker: Smoked turkey with bacon? BM: No.
Office worker: Falafel? BM: Let me look at it.Eh, no.Office worker: Grilled cheese? BM: No.Office worker: BLT? BM: No.
Office worker: Black forest ham and mozzarella with apple mustard? BM: No.
Office worker: Green bean salad? BM: No.
(Music)
No. No.Definitely no. [Several hours after lunch]
(Siren)
No. Get out of here.
(Laughter)
That's sort of an exaggeration of what I do.
Now, we do reject, many, many, many cartoons,so many that there are many books called "The Rejection Collection.""The Rejection Collection" is not quite New Yorker kind of humor.And you might notice the bum on the sidewalk here who is boozing and his ventriloquist dummy is puking.See, that's probably not going to be New Yorker humor.It's actually put together by Matt Diffee, one of our cartoonists.
So I'll give you some examples of rejection collection humor.
"I'm thinking about having a child."
(Laughter)
There you have an interesting -- the guilty laugh,the laugh against your better judgment.
(Laughter)
"Ass-head. Please help."
(Laughter)
Now, in fact, within a context of this book,which says, "Cartoons you never saw and never will see in The New Yorker," this humor is perfect.I'm going to explain why.There's a concept about humor about it being a benign violation.In other words, for something to be funny, we've got to think it's both wrong and also okay at the same time.If we think it's completely wrong, we say, "That's not funny."And if it's completely okay, what's the joke? Okay?And so, this benign, that's true of "No, Thursday's out. How about never — is never good for you?"It's rude. The world really shouldn't be that way.Within that context, we feel it's okay.So within this context, "Asshead. Please help"is a benign violation.
Within the context of The New Yorker magazine ..."T-Cell Army: Can the body's immune response help treat cancer?" Oh, goodness.You're reading about this smart stuff,this intelligent dissection of the immune system.You glance over at this, and it says,"Asshead. Please help"? God.So there the violation is malign. It doesn't work.There is no such thing as funny in and of itself.Everything will be within the context and our expectations.
One way to look at it is this.It's sort of called a meta-motivational theory about how we look,a theory about motivation and the mood we're in and how the mood we're in determines the things we like or dislike.When we're in a playful mood, we want excitement.We want high arousal. We feel excited then.If we're in a purposeful mood, that makes us anxious."The Rejection Collection" is absolutely in this field.You want to be stimulated. You want to be aroused.You want to be transgressed.It's like this, like an amusement park.
Voice: Here we go. (Screams)
He laughs. He is both in danger and safe,incredibly aroused. There's no joke. No joke needed.If you arouse people enough and get them stimulated enough,they will laugh at very, very little.
This is another cartoon from "The Rejection Collection.""Too snug?"That's a cartoon about terrorism.The New Yorker occupies a very different space.It's a space that is playful in its own way, and also purposeful,and in that space, the cartoons are different.
Now I'm going to show you cartoons The New Yorker did right after 9/11, a very, very sensitive area when humor could be used.How would The New Yorker attack it?It would not be with a guy with a bomb saying, "Too snug?"Or there was another cartoon I didn't show because actually I thought maybe people would be offended.The great Sam Gross cartoon, this happened after the Muhammad controversy where it's Muhammad in heaven,the suicide bomber is all in little pieces,and he's saying to the suicide bomber,"You'll get the virgins when we find your penis."
(Laughter)
Better left undrawn.
The first week we did no cartoons.That was a black hole for humor, and correctly so.It's not always appropriate every time.But the next week, this was the first cartoon.
"I thought I'd never laugh again. Then I saw your jacket."
It basically was about, if we were alive,we were going to laugh. We were going to breathe.We were going to exist. Here's another one.
"I figure if I don't have that third martini, then the terrorists win."
These cartoons are not about them. They're about us.The humor reflects back on us.The easiest thing to do with humor, and it's perfectly legitimate,is a friend makes fun of an enemy.It's called dispositional humor.It's 95 percent of the humor. It's not our humor.
Here's another cartoon.
"I wouldn't mind living in a fundamentalist Islamic state."
(Laughter)
Humor does need a target.But interestingly, in The New Yorker, the target is us.The target is the readership and the people who do it.The humor is self-reflective and makes us think about our assumptions.Look at this cartoon by Roz Chast, the guy reading the obituary.
"Two years younger than you, 12 years older than you,three years your junior, your age on the dot,exactly your age."
That is a deeply profound cartoon.And so The New Yorker is also trying to, in some way,make cartoons say something besides funny and something about us. Here's another one.
"I started my vegetarianism for health reasons,Then it became a moral choice, and now it's just to annoy people."
(Laughter)
"Excuse me — I think there's something wrong with this in a tiny way that no one other than me would ever be able to pinpoint."
So it focuses on our obsessions, our narcissism,our foils and our foibles, really not someone else's.
The New Yorker demands some cognitive work on your part,and what it demands is what Arthur Koestler,who wrote "The Act of Creation" about the relationship between humor, art and science,is what's called bisociation.You have to bring together ideas from different frames of reference,and you have to do it quickly to understand the cartoon.If the different frames of reference don't come together in about .5 seconds, it's not funny,but I think they will for you here.Different frames of reference.
"You slept with her, didn't you?"
(Laughter)
"Lassie! Get help!!"
(Laughter)
It's called French Army Knife.
(Laughter)
And this is Einstein in bed. "To you it was fast."
(Laughter)
Now there are some cartoons that are puzzling.Like, this cartoon would puzzle many people.How many people know what this cartoon means?The dog is signaling he wants to go for a walk.This is the signal for a catcher to walk the dog.That's why we run a feature in the cartoon issue every year called "I Don't Get It: The New Yorker Cartoon I.Q. Test."(Laughter)
The other thing The New Yorker plays around with is incongruity, and incongruity, I've shown you,is sort of the basis of humor.Something that's completely normal or logical isn't going to be funny.But the way incongruity works is, observational humor is humor within the realm of reality.
"My boss is always telling me what to do." Okay?That could happen. It's humor within the realm of reality.
Here, cowboy to a cow:"Very impressive. I'd like to find 5,000 more like you."
We understand that. It's absurd. But we're putting the two together.
Here, in the nonsense range:
"Damn it, Hopkins, didn't you get yesterday's memo?"
Now that's a little puzzling, right? It doesn't quite come together.In general, people who enjoy more nonsense,enjoy more abstract art,they tend to be liberal, less conservative, that type of stuff.But for us, and for me, helping design the humor,it doesn't make any sense to compare one to the other.It's sort of a smorgasbord that's made all interesting.
So I want to sum all this up with a caption to a cartoon,and I think this sums up the whole thing, really,about The New Yorker cartoons.
"It sort of makes you stop and think, doesn't it."
(Laughter)
And now, when you look at New Yorker cartoons,I'd like you to stop and think a little bit more about them.
Thank you.
(Applause)Thank you. (Applause)
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Source: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/if-superpowers-were-real-body-mass-joy-lin
Source: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/if-superpowers-were-real-body-mass-joy-lin
GRalInt-Video:If superpowers were real: Invisibility by Joy Lin
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
GRalINt-29 de junio: Día del Sumo Pontífice
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
29 de junio Día del Sumo Pontífice
El 29 de junio la Iglesia celebra la Solemnidad de San Pedro y San Pablo, en este día se festeja el día del Sumo Pontífice en recuerdo del sucesor de San Pedro, primer Papa de la historia y vicario de Cristo en la Tierra. El papado tiene su origen en los Evangelios, donde Jesús constituye a su apóstol Pedro como cabeza visible de su Iglesia.
ORACIÓN POR EL PAPA
Oh Jesús, Rey y Señor de la Iglesia: renuevo en tu presencia mi adhesión incondicional a tu Vicario en la tierra, el Papa. En él Tú has querido mostrarnos el
camino seguro y cierto que debemos seguir en medio de la desorientación, la inquietud y el desasosiego.
Creo firmemente que por medio de él Tú nos gobiernas, enseñas y santificas, y bajo su cayado formamos la verdadera Iglesia: una, santa, católica y apostólica.
Concédeme la gracia de amar, vivir y propagar como hijo fiel sus enseñanzas. Cuida su vida, ilumina su inteligencia, fortalece su espíritu, defiéndelo de las
calumnias y de la maldad. Aplaca los vientos erosivos de la infidelidad y la desobediencia, y concédenos que, en torno a él, tu Iglesia se conserve unida, firme
en el creer y en el obrar, y sea así el instrumento de tu redención. Amén
Fuente: www.consudec.net/Google Images
29 de junio Día del Sumo Pontífice
El 29 de junio la Iglesia celebra la Solemnidad de San Pedro y San Pablo, en este día se festeja el día del Sumo Pontífice en recuerdo del sucesor de San Pedro, primer Papa de la historia y vicario de Cristo en la Tierra. El papado tiene su origen en los Evangelios, donde Jesús constituye a su apóstol Pedro como cabeza visible de su Iglesia.
ORACIÓN POR EL PAPA
Oh Jesús, Rey y Señor de la Iglesia: renuevo en tu presencia mi adhesión incondicional a tu Vicario en la tierra, el Papa. En él Tú has querido mostrarnos el
camino seguro y cierto que debemos seguir en medio de la desorientación, la inquietud y el desasosiego.
Creo firmemente que por medio de él Tú nos gobiernas, enseñas y santificas, y bajo su cayado formamos la verdadera Iglesia: una, santa, católica y apostólica.
Concédeme la gracia de amar, vivir y propagar como hijo fiel sus enseñanzas. Cuida su vida, ilumina su inteligencia, fortalece su espíritu, defiéndelo de las
calumnias y de la maldad. Aplaca los vientos erosivos de la infidelidad y la desobediencia, y concédenos que, en torno a él, tu Iglesia se conserve unida, firme
en el creer y en el obrar, y sea así el instrumento de tu redención. Amén
Fuente: www.consudec.net/Google Images
GRALINT/THE WORLD- MY WORLD2015 Survey (United Nations)
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Vote for the changes that would make the most difference to your world
The United Nations and partners want to hear from YOU!
MY World is a global survey asking you to choose your priorities for a better world.
Results will be shared with world leaders in setting the next global development agenda.
Tell us about the world you want, because your voice matters..
Which of these are most important for you and your family?
Choose 6
click for details
check to vote.
Better healthcare .
Affordable and nutritious food .
Access to clean water and sanitation .
Better job opportunities .
Action taken on climate change .
Phone and internet access .
Support for people who can’t work .
A good education .
Protection against crime and violence .
Political freedoms .
Freedom from discrimination and persecution .
Better transport and roads .
An honest and responsive government .
Equality between men and women .
Protecting forests, rivers and oceans .
Reliable energy at home .
Suggest a priority (optional).
Lastly, please tell us a little about yourself.
Your votes will remain anonymous, but this basic data will help us understand you better.
I am gender Male Female, age
and live in country
My education level is education Some primary Finished primary Finished secondary Beyond secondary
By filling this out, I pledge that this is my single vote in the MY World global survey.
I will not vote more than once. .
My Priorities
0/6
Select 6 more
About MY World
MY World is a United Nations global survey for citizens. Working with partners, we aim to capture people’s voices, priorities and views, so world leaders can be
informed as they begin the process of defining the next set of global goals to end poverty.
To join the global conversation and post-2015 debate go to:
This initiative has been developed by:
United Nations
World Wide
Web Foundation
Overseas Development
Institute
Ipsos Mori
With the support of partners across the world -
See more at: http://www.myworld2015.org/#sthash.sVC48UZW.dpuf
********************************************************************************************************************************
¿Qué cambiarías para mejorar el mundo?
La ONU propone una encuesta interactiva para delinear la agenda de desarrollo después de 2015; cómo participar.
Combatir el hambre, la prioridad de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio que vencen en 2015. Foto: AFP
El trabajo, la educación, el acceso a las tecnologías o a la salud. Estas son algunas de las opciones que ofrece la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) en el menú de posibles prioridades de los ciudadanos del mundo, que serán contempladas en la creación de una nueva agenda global.
A través de la encuesta Mi Mundo 2015, que se puede contestar por Internet, la ONU se basa en la interactividad para crear, en conjunto con ciudadanos de todo el mundo, la agenda de desarrollo para usar de guía después de 2015, año en que vence el plazo de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio fijados al comienzo de la década pasada.
"El objetivo es captar la opinión, las prioridades y los puntos de vista de la ciudadanía e informar a los líderes mundiales, en el marco de definición de la nueva agenda global de la lucha contra la pobreza en el mundo", explican desde el organismo multilateral en el sitio oficial de la encuesta.
El proceso para emitir la opinión de cada uno es simple. Las personas deberán elegir seis ámbitos de actuación -de un total de 16- que, para ellos, supondrían una mayor prioridad en el objetivo de mejorar su calidad de vida. La encuesta es anónima, por lo que al finalizar el proceso, sólo hay que ingresar el género, la edad y la nacionalidad.
Las 16 opciones fueron elaboradas a partir de las prioridades expresadas en investigaciones y encuestas anteriores por las poblaciones más carenciadas del planeta, y de las informaciones provenientes de los debates técnicos y políticos sobre la futura agenda de lucha contra la pobreza.
Además de completar el formulario por Internet, la encuesta puede realizarse por teléfono, mensajes de texto o incluso en papel, gracias al apoyo de una extensa red de organizaciones de base, organizaciones religiosas, grupos de juventud, entidades del sector privado y ONG's colaboradoras que la ONU desplegó alrededor del globo.
En la Argentina, particularmente, se cuenta con el apoyo de la Organización Argentina de Jóvenes por Naciones Unidas (Oajnu), así como el de Mediacom, su principal socio a nivel global para comunicaciones.
¿Qué hacen con las respuestas?
En primera instancia, los resultados de esta encuesta serán enviados al Grupo de Alto Nivel del Secretario General para la agenda de desarrollo post-2015, de cara al informe que este grupo presentará al Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas en junio de 2013.
Esto no significa, no obstante, el final del proyecto. Posteriormente, Mi Mundo continuará recopilando opiniones ciudadanas y los resultados se compartirán con el Secretario General y los líderes mundiales en el proceso de preparación de la próxima agenda de desarrollo..
Para participar de la encuesta entrá a: http://www.myworld2015.org/?lang=es
Fuente: www.lanacion.com.ar
Vote for the changes that would make the most difference to your world
The United Nations and partners want to hear from YOU!
MY World is a global survey asking you to choose your priorities for a better world.
Results will be shared with world leaders in setting the next global development agenda.
Tell us about the world you want, because your voice matters..
Which of these are most important for you and your family?
Choose 6
click for details
check to vote.
Better healthcare .
Affordable and nutritious food .
Access to clean water and sanitation .
Better job opportunities .
Action taken on climate change .
Phone and internet access .
Support for people who can’t work .
A good education .
Protection against crime and violence .
Political freedoms .
Freedom from discrimination and persecution .
Better transport and roads .
An honest and responsive government .
Equality between men and women .
Protecting forests, rivers and oceans .
Reliable energy at home .
Suggest a priority (optional).
Lastly, please tell us a little about yourself.
Your votes will remain anonymous, but this basic data will help us understand you better.
I am gender Male Female, age
and live in country
My education level is education Some primary Finished primary Finished secondary Beyond secondary
By filling this out, I pledge that this is my single vote in the MY World global survey.
I will not vote more than once. .
My Priorities
0/6
Select 6 more
About MY World
MY World is a United Nations global survey for citizens. Working with partners, we aim to capture people’s voices, priorities and views, so world leaders can be
informed as they begin the process of defining the next set of global goals to end poverty.
To join the global conversation and post-2015 debate go to:
This initiative has been developed by:
United Nations
World Wide
Web Foundation
Overseas Development
Institute
Ipsos Mori
With the support of partners across the world -
See more at: http://www.myworld2015.org/#sthash.sVC48UZW.dpuf
********************************************************************************************************************************
¿Qué cambiarías para mejorar el mundo?
La ONU propone una encuesta interactiva para delinear la agenda de desarrollo después de 2015; cómo participar.
Combatir el hambre, la prioridad de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio que vencen en 2015. Foto: AFP
El trabajo, la educación, el acceso a las tecnologías o a la salud. Estas son algunas de las opciones que ofrece la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) en el menú de posibles prioridades de los ciudadanos del mundo, que serán contempladas en la creación de una nueva agenda global.
A través de la encuesta Mi Mundo 2015, que se puede contestar por Internet, la ONU se basa en la interactividad para crear, en conjunto con ciudadanos de todo el mundo, la agenda de desarrollo para usar de guía después de 2015, año en que vence el plazo de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio fijados al comienzo de la década pasada.
"El objetivo es captar la opinión, las prioridades y los puntos de vista de la ciudadanía e informar a los líderes mundiales, en el marco de definición de la nueva agenda global de la lucha contra la pobreza en el mundo", explican desde el organismo multilateral en el sitio oficial de la encuesta.
El proceso para emitir la opinión de cada uno es simple. Las personas deberán elegir seis ámbitos de actuación -de un total de 16- que, para ellos, supondrían una mayor prioridad en el objetivo de mejorar su calidad de vida. La encuesta es anónima, por lo que al finalizar el proceso, sólo hay que ingresar el género, la edad y la nacionalidad.
Las 16 opciones fueron elaboradas a partir de las prioridades expresadas en investigaciones y encuestas anteriores por las poblaciones más carenciadas del planeta, y de las informaciones provenientes de los debates técnicos y políticos sobre la futura agenda de lucha contra la pobreza.
Además de completar el formulario por Internet, la encuesta puede realizarse por teléfono, mensajes de texto o incluso en papel, gracias al apoyo de una extensa red de organizaciones de base, organizaciones religiosas, grupos de juventud, entidades del sector privado y ONG's colaboradoras que la ONU desplegó alrededor del globo.
En la Argentina, particularmente, se cuenta con el apoyo de la Organización Argentina de Jóvenes por Naciones Unidas (Oajnu), así como el de Mediacom, su principal socio a nivel global para comunicaciones.
¿Qué hacen con las respuestas?
En primera instancia, los resultados de esta encuesta serán enviados al Grupo de Alto Nivel del Secretario General para la agenda de desarrollo post-2015, de cara al informe que este grupo presentará al Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas en junio de 2013.
Esto no significa, no obstante, el final del proyecto. Posteriormente, Mi Mundo continuará recopilando opiniones ciudadanas y los resultados se compartirán con el Secretario General y los líderes mundiales en el proceso de preparación de la próxima agenda de desarrollo..
Para participar de la encuesta entrá a: http://www.myworld2015.org/?lang=es
Fuente: www.lanacion.com.ar
Friday, June 28, 2013
GralINt-El Papa Francisco/Pope Francis
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Presentations-10 Powerful Body Language Tips for your Presentation-22slides
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Source: www.slideshare.net
Source: www.slideshare.net
Monday, June 24, 2013
GRalINt/BUS-Presentations: 23 Sure-Fire Ways To Improve Your Presentations
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
23 Sure-Fire Ways To Improve Your Presentations
I've had repeated requests for a checklist of techniques to make presentations more effective. Here's that list, along with links to Sales Machine posts that have more detailed suggestions and a step-by-step method.
BEFORE YOU START RULE #1: Research your audience's preconceptions, desires and fears. Why: Every audience has its unique driver.
RULE #2: Focus on the decision you want the audience to make. Why: That's why you're giving a presentation.
RULE #3: Compile information that has emotional punch. Why: Decision making is an emotional act, justified by facts.
RULE #4: Eliminate opinions that can't be backed with quantifiable facts. Why: Opinions simply tell the audience you're opinionated.
RULE #5: Build a story, ideally with the audience as the heroes. Why: Your audience are interested in themselves, not you or your firm.
RULE #6: Plan to build a presentation that is half as long as you first think it should be. Why: Most presentations are WAY too long.
WHEN YOU BUILD YOUR SLIDES RULE #7: Use a simple, single color background for your slides. Why: a busy background distracts the audience from your message.
RULE #8: Use large fonts in simple faces (like Ariel); avoid boldface, italics and UPPERCASE. Why: small fonts in funny faces are hard to read.
RULE #9: If you must use clip art, buy the high quality stuff, not the junky free crap. Why: Cheap clip art makes your presentation look cheap.
RULE #10: Use the minimum amount of visuals that you need to tell your story. Why: Do you want them to remember your story or your slides?
RULE #11: Exclude complex graphics and/or highlight the data point that's important. Why: complicated slides confuse people.
BEFORE YOU PRESENT RULE #12: Think through the emotional impact of EVERY slide; remove the overly controversial. Why: you don't want a discussion that goes down
a rat hole.
RULE #13: Review your presentation with a colleague to make sure that it's appropriate. Why: This will weed out the irrelevant material.
RULE #14: Check, then double-check, the equipment setup, before you present. Why: Do you really want to spend five minutes fiddling with the microphone?
RULE #15: Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Why: Mentally walking through the presentation will make it seem more natural when you really do present.
RULE #16: Avoid presenting at the end of the day, the end of the week, right before a holiday, or after bad news. Why: Your audience won't be able to focus on your story.
WHEN YOU PRESENT RULE #17: Never spend more than one minute introducing yourself or your firm. Why: The audience simply doesn't care, frankly.
RULE #18: Never read from your slides; instead use them to reinforce your message. Why: your audience aren't toddlers who need to be read to.
RULE #19: Never present the same material to the same audience twice, except in brief summary. Why: people tune out stuff they already know.
RULE #20: Avoid jargon, buzzwords and biz blab. Why: if you don't, you end up sounding like an unimaginative jackass.
RULE #21: Don't skip around. Why: On-the-fly improvising makes you look unprepared and scatterbrained.
RULE #22: Unless you've got real skills as a comedian, don't tell jokes. Why: Nothing kills a presentation faster than polite laughter.
RULE #23: Prepare some questions for the question/answer slide. Why: You may need them to get the ball rolling.
By Geoffrey James
Source: www.cbsnews.com
23 Sure-Fire Ways To Improve Your Presentations
I've had repeated requests for a checklist of techniques to make presentations more effective. Here's that list, along with links to Sales Machine posts that have more detailed suggestions and a step-by-step method.
BEFORE YOU START RULE #1: Research your audience's preconceptions, desires and fears. Why: Every audience has its unique driver.
RULE #2: Focus on the decision you want the audience to make. Why: That's why you're giving a presentation.
RULE #3: Compile information that has emotional punch. Why: Decision making is an emotional act, justified by facts.
RULE #4: Eliminate opinions that can't be backed with quantifiable facts. Why: Opinions simply tell the audience you're opinionated.
RULE #5: Build a story, ideally with the audience as the heroes. Why: Your audience are interested in themselves, not you or your firm.
RULE #6: Plan to build a presentation that is half as long as you first think it should be. Why: Most presentations are WAY too long.
WHEN YOU BUILD YOUR SLIDES RULE #7: Use a simple, single color background for your slides. Why: a busy background distracts the audience from your message.
RULE #8: Use large fonts in simple faces (like Ariel); avoid boldface, italics and UPPERCASE. Why: small fonts in funny faces are hard to read.
RULE #9: If you must use clip art, buy the high quality stuff, not the junky free crap. Why: Cheap clip art makes your presentation look cheap.
RULE #10: Use the minimum amount of visuals that you need to tell your story. Why: Do you want them to remember your story or your slides?
RULE #11: Exclude complex graphics and/or highlight the data point that's important. Why: complicated slides confuse people.
BEFORE YOU PRESENT RULE #12: Think through the emotional impact of EVERY slide; remove the overly controversial. Why: you don't want a discussion that goes down
a rat hole.
RULE #13: Review your presentation with a colleague to make sure that it's appropriate. Why: This will weed out the irrelevant material.
RULE #14: Check, then double-check, the equipment setup, before you present. Why: Do you really want to spend five minutes fiddling with the microphone?
RULE #15: Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Why: Mentally walking through the presentation will make it seem more natural when you really do present.
RULE #16: Avoid presenting at the end of the day, the end of the week, right before a holiday, or after bad news. Why: Your audience won't be able to focus on your story.
WHEN YOU PRESENT RULE #17: Never spend more than one minute introducing yourself or your firm. Why: The audience simply doesn't care, frankly.
RULE #18: Never read from your slides; instead use them to reinforce your message. Why: your audience aren't toddlers who need to be read to.
RULE #19: Never present the same material to the same audience twice, except in brief summary. Why: people tune out stuff they already know.
RULE #20: Avoid jargon, buzzwords and biz blab. Why: if you don't, you end up sounding like an unimaginative jackass.
RULE #21: Don't skip around. Why: On-the-fly improvising makes you look unprepared and scatterbrained.
RULE #22: Unless you've got real skills as a comedian, don't tell jokes. Why: Nothing kills a presentation faster than polite laughter.
RULE #23: Prepare some questions for the question/answer slide. Why: You may need them to get the ball rolling.
By Geoffrey James
Source: www.cbsnews.com
Sunday, June 23, 2013
GRalINt-The Dying Art of Handwriting
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
The Dying Art of Handwriting
Handwriting isn't just for style -- it's important to learning, memory and success.
By Margaret Rock | May 28, 2013
Twenty years ago, a $300 Montblanc pen was one of the most coveted and costly graduation gifts. But today, few clamor over them, much less an expensive one. It turns out they want MacBooks and iPads -- new writing tools of the digital age.
But handwriting isn't just a matter of style -- it's a complex skill that affects your cognitive development and exercises your visual, motor and memory circuits. When you write, you build hand-eye coordination and practice fine motor skills.
In fact, a field of research, called "haptics," focuses on the connection of touch, hand movement and brain function. Studies show that handwriting engages different circuits of the brain than typing simply doesn't. And those strokes and pressures of the pen actually send messages to the brain, training it in vision and sensation.
In fact, the study of handwriting, called graphology, claims to infer character traits -- like laziness, creativity or organization -- just by looking at your written words.
That repetitive process of writing builds motor pathways into the brain, said Katya Feder, a professor at the University of Ottawa School of Rehabilitation. And the more children write, the more connections they build. But if poor handwriting also builds faulty pathways, she added.
According to brain imaging studies, cursive, in particular, activates parts of the nervous system that stay quiet during typing. "It helps you connect things," said Virginia Berninger, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington. "There really can be some advantages to cursive. We found individual differences whether children had skills for each kind of writing."
Good handwriting can lead to better grades, too. Studies show that pre-kindergarten kids with fine motor skills scored much higher years later in reading and math than those with poor handwriting. In short, there's a direct link between writing skill and academic success.
"People should take a second look at how important handwriting might actually be," said Laura Dinehart, assistant professor at Florida International University. "And public schools should rethink how much they focus on handwriting in the classroom and how those skills can really improve reading and math."
But what is it about writing that predicts achievement? Dinehart says nobody knows, at least not yet. "That's kind of the next phase of our research," she said. "We're trying to understand what it is about writing that predicts later achievement."
Regardless, if you're a parent, there are exercises you can do to help your kids develop their grasping technique. At home, they can play with Play-Doh, draw with chalk or use scissors, all of it to hopefully improve handwriting and more. And if you want to add to their creativity, give them an imaginary friend.
When it comes to ideas and memory, the hand has a special relationship with the brain. Remember that adage, write it down so you won't forget it? It turns out it's true. If you jot down a note -- and then lose it -- you'll be more likely to remember what you wrote than if you'd just tried to memorize it. Feder said that's because handwriting requires you to execute a series of strokes to form a letter. With typing, however, you just touch a button.
Handwriting also has tangible effects on communication. According to a University of Washington study, grade-school kids expressed more ideas when writing instead of typing. Writing affects not just the development of how you think, but how deeply and how expressively.
But beyond the practical, critics say the decline of handwriting is the death of a more romantic era. Consider my friend, whose husband sent her hundreds of e-mails while deployed in Iraq.
He also wrote a few letters, which she kept and re-reads from time-to-time. "It feels more personal to think of him collecting, composing and writing his thoughts from a dusty bunker," she said. "He's sending the letter from halfway around the world." For the children, too, those letters and their crinkly postmarked envelopes are an enduring treasure that e-mails simply can't replace.
Time to Move On
Handwriting has only been around for about 6,000 of humanity's some 200,000 years, but it's one of our most important inventions. Without it, we wouldn't be able to record knowledge or pass ideas from one generation to the next.
"Most of us know, but often forget, that handwriting is not natural," said Anne Trubek, a writing professor at Oberlin College. "It's not like seeing or talking, which are innate."
In early America, only wealthy men and merchants learned to write -- a "good hand" was a symbol of class, intelligence and moral righteousness. Most, meanwhile, signed legal documents with a mere "X" and the presence of a witness. Writing only spread to the masses in the 19th century, after schools taught print and cursive.
"Penmanship exercises were done to a metronome and compared to drill training," said Tamara Plakins Thornton, author of "Handwriting in America: A Cultural History."
Writing has always been serious business -- left-handed students often had their arm strapped tightly to their bodies, so they'd learn to write with the "correct" hand. In more modern times, you may remember spending hours learning the correct stroke, formation and spacing of upper- and lower-case letters.
But today, schools are shifting the focus to coursework in STEM -- short for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. With limited hours and an increased pressure to meet higher standards, teachers are emphasizing technology and tablets and less of the written word.
Most states began adopting a "Common Core" standards, which no longer mentions "readable printing or cursive handwriting" as a requirement. As a result, educators protested the change, and last year, 150 of them gathered in Washington, D.C. for a summit. What did they want? To keep teaching handwriting -- because it helps the development of children.
Technology has threatened writing in its various arts -- calligraphy, penmanship and cursive -- long before every man, woman and child carried a phone. It came with the invention of the typewriter, which standardized written communication, and that same argument will reappear as technology advances.
I don't know if handwriting will ever die. But today, the growing emphasis on typing is having far-reaching effects. To get a glimpse of the future, just look at the youth. Instead of curly Qs or loopy Ls, kids are sprinkling emoticons to give a personal touch.
Typing is more democratic, too -- it isn't a complicated skill to master. Keyboards are changing the physical connection between writers and text, and people who can't write by hand, like the blind or paralyzed, can now use tools to communicate solely by touch.
"Keyboards also allow us to go faster," Trubek said. "Not because we want everything faster in our hyped-up age, but for the opposite reason: we want more time to think."
I suppose it's easy to mourn the passing of one era into another. "When a new writing technology develops, we tend to romanticize the older one," Trubek said. "The supplanted technology is vaunted as more authentic because it is no longer ubiquitous or official."
Sure, I'll miss the intimacy of letters, the nostalgia of cursive lessons in schools and the beautiful scrawl of a well-practiced signature written with a pen. And while some pathways in our brains will atrophy with the decline of handwriting, Trubek added, we'll develop new ones as we swipe, double-click and abbreviate our way into the future. ♦
Source: www.mobiledia.com
The Dying Art of Handwriting
Handwriting isn't just for style -- it's important to learning, memory and success.
By Margaret Rock | May 28, 2013
Twenty years ago, a $300 Montblanc pen was one of the most coveted and costly graduation gifts. But today, few clamor over them, much less an expensive one. It turns out they want MacBooks and iPads -- new writing tools of the digital age.
But handwriting isn't just a matter of style -- it's a complex skill that affects your cognitive development and exercises your visual, motor and memory circuits. When you write, you build hand-eye coordination and practice fine motor skills.
In fact, a field of research, called "haptics," focuses on the connection of touch, hand movement and brain function. Studies show that handwriting engages different circuits of the brain than typing simply doesn't. And those strokes and pressures of the pen actually send messages to the brain, training it in vision and sensation.
In fact, the study of handwriting, called graphology, claims to infer character traits -- like laziness, creativity or organization -- just by looking at your written words.
That repetitive process of writing builds motor pathways into the brain, said Katya Feder, a professor at the University of Ottawa School of Rehabilitation. And the more children write, the more connections they build. But if poor handwriting also builds faulty pathways, she added.
According to brain imaging studies, cursive, in particular, activates parts of the nervous system that stay quiet during typing. "It helps you connect things," said Virginia Berninger, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington. "There really can be some advantages to cursive. We found individual differences whether children had skills for each kind of writing."
Good handwriting can lead to better grades, too. Studies show that pre-kindergarten kids with fine motor skills scored much higher years later in reading and math than those with poor handwriting. In short, there's a direct link between writing skill and academic success.
"People should take a second look at how important handwriting might actually be," said Laura Dinehart, assistant professor at Florida International University. "And public schools should rethink how much they focus on handwriting in the classroom and how those skills can really improve reading and math."
But what is it about writing that predicts achievement? Dinehart says nobody knows, at least not yet. "That's kind of the next phase of our research," she said. "We're trying to understand what it is about writing that predicts later achievement."
Regardless, if you're a parent, there are exercises you can do to help your kids develop their grasping technique. At home, they can play with Play-Doh, draw with chalk or use scissors, all of it to hopefully improve handwriting and more. And if you want to add to their creativity, give them an imaginary friend.
When it comes to ideas and memory, the hand has a special relationship with the brain. Remember that adage, write it down so you won't forget it? It turns out it's true. If you jot down a note -- and then lose it -- you'll be more likely to remember what you wrote than if you'd just tried to memorize it. Feder said that's because handwriting requires you to execute a series of strokes to form a letter. With typing, however, you just touch a button.
Handwriting also has tangible effects on communication. According to a University of Washington study, grade-school kids expressed more ideas when writing instead of typing. Writing affects not just the development of how you think, but how deeply and how expressively.
But beyond the practical, critics say the decline of handwriting is the death of a more romantic era. Consider my friend, whose husband sent her hundreds of e-mails while deployed in Iraq.
He also wrote a few letters, which she kept and re-reads from time-to-time. "It feels more personal to think of him collecting, composing and writing his thoughts from a dusty bunker," she said. "He's sending the letter from halfway around the world." For the children, too, those letters and their crinkly postmarked envelopes are an enduring treasure that e-mails simply can't replace.
Time to Move On
Handwriting has only been around for about 6,000 of humanity's some 200,000 years, but it's one of our most important inventions. Without it, we wouldn't be able to record knowledge or pass ideas from one generation to the next.
"Most of us know, but often forget, that handwriting is not natural," said Anne Trubek, a writing professor at Oberlin College. "It's not like seeing or talking, which are innate."
In early America, only wealthy men and merchants learned to write -- a "good hand" was a symbol of class, intelligence and moral righteousness. Most, meanwhile, signed legal documents with a mere "X" and the presence of a witness. Writing only spread to the masses in the 19th century, after schools taught print and cursive.
"Penmanship exercises were done to a metronome and compared to drill training," said Tamara Plakins Thornton, author of "Handwriting in America: A Cultural History."
Writing has always been serious business -- left-handed students often had their arm strapped tightly to their bodies, so they'd learn to write with the "correct" hand. In more modern times, you may remember spending hours learning the correct stroke, formation and spacing of upper- and lower-case letters.
But today, schools are shifting the focus to coursework in STEM -- short for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. With limited hours and an increased pressure to meet higher standards, teachers are emphasizing technology and tablets and less of the written word.
Most states began adopting a "Common Core" standards, which no longer mentions "readable printing or cursive handwriting" as a requirement. As a result, educators protested the change, and last year, 150 of them gathered in Washington, D.C. for a summit. What did they want? To keep teaching handwriting -- because it helps the development of children.
Technology has threatened writing in its various arts -- calligraphy, penmanship and cursive -- long before every man, woman and child carried a phone. It came with the invention of the typewriter, which standardized written communication, and that same argument will reappear as technology advances.
I don't know if handwriting will ever die. But today, the growing emphasis on typing is having far-reaching effects. To get a glimpse of the future, just look at the youth. Instead of curly Qs or loopy Ls, kids are sprinkling emoticons to give a personal touch.
Typing is more democratic, too -- it isn't a complicated skill to master. Keyboards are changing the physical connection between writers and text, and people who can't write by hand, like the blind or paralyzed, can now use tools to communicate solely by touch.
"Keyboards also allow us to go faster," Trubek said. "Not because we want everything faster in our hyped-up age, but for the opposite reason: we want more time to think."
I suppose it's easy to mourn the passing of one era into another. "When a new writing technology develops, we tend to romanticize the older one," Trubek said. "The supplanted technology is vaunted as more authentic because it is no longer ubiquitous or official."
Sure, I'll miss the intimacy of letters, the nostalgia of cursive lessons in schools and the beautiful scrawl of a well-practiced signature written with a pen. And while some pathways in our brains will atrophy with the decline of handwriting, Trubek added, we'll develop new ones as we swipe, double-click and abbreviate our way into the future. ♦
Source: www.mobiledia.com
GRalINt/BR-Bodybuilding for Your Brain
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Bodybuilding for Your Brain
In the age of distraction, focus is an endangered mental ability. Here's how you can boost your powers of concentration.
By Kat Ascharya | June 07, 2013
You've heard it before: we're too distracted by gadgets. We're glued to our phones. We constantly text, ping and chat, instead of paying attention to the road, each other or the "analog world." Multitasking is a myth. Our brains are being rewired. Our kids are growing up permanently attached to iPads. Armageddon is coming in the shape of a smartphone. It's time to show our gadgets who's boss. Instead of letting technology drive us to distraction, we can use it to cultivate focus.
Plenty of stories highlight the dangers of distraction, whether it's in driving, parenting or just a lingering sense that our relationships to gadgets have become dysfunctional. Beyond the much-researched and obvious, arguments also shed light on the importance of the quality of focus.
Focus, defined as "directed attention" -- the ability to concentrate on one point steadily -- sounds simple. But as anyone who's tried to meditate for more than 15 minutes can tell you that maintaining a state of sustained concentration is harder than you think. Try it now: sit down, close your eyes and think of one thing -- a word, an image -- for just 10 minutes. Now, try to focus while your computer and various devices ping, text and otherwise clamor for your attention.
It's no wonder we can't focus. And with our close reliance on gadgets, and more workers employed in a mobile environment -- either BYOD or working at home -- we have an even greater tendency towards distraction. No co-workers, no boss looking over your shoulder. It's up to you to concentrate, and often when left to our own devices, we lose it.
Focus is distraction's flip side, and it's in short order these days. As a type of intellectual resilience, the ability to concentrate on just one thing and contemplate deeply is as rare as a diamond -- and just as prized by some employers.
"Short attention spans resulting from quick interactions will be detrimental to focusing on the harder problems and we will probably see stagnation in many areas: technology, even social venues such as literature," Alvaro Retana, an HP technologist told the Pew Internet Project. "The people who will strive and lead the charge will be the ones able to disconnect themselves to focus."
In other words, if you want to stand out in a crowd of job applicants, the ability to practice unwavering concentration will give you a competitive edge, especially at a time when people are more likely to check Facebook and Google and delve into the rabbit hole of distraction.
Mental Muscle
Focus, as it turns out, is not our minds' default mode -- it is a mental muscle you have to build and maintain. Sustained engagement on one point of focus is a distinct brain state, markedly different from a resting one. In meditation, for example, certain areas of the brain "light up" when engaged in deep focus, according to cognitive scientists.
Despite the physical appearance of sitting there with your eyes closed and doing nothing, meditation is a complex mental process. You have to direct your attention on the object of focus, notice distractions, corral your attention from what's distracting it, and then focus again. While doing so, you activate areas of the brain controlling those functions -- the prefrontal and visual cortex and areas of the sulcus. In fact, focus is a frenetic, mentally strenuous activity.
But as you practice concentration, focus gets easier. Over time, meditators were better able to control a specific type of brain waves, called "alpha rhythms," according to an MIT study, which flow through the brain's cortex, helping it to filter out distracting sensory information.
And most intriguingly, scientists discovered that long-term meditators are able to effectively "rewire" their brains, changing them physically over time. According to a UCLA study, long-term meditators have more folds in their cortex than non-meditators, allowing the brain to process information faster.
"Meditators are known to be masters in introspection and awareness as well as emotional control and self-regulation, so the findings make sense that the longer someone has meditated, the higher the degree of folding in the insula," said Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at UCLA's Laboratory of Neuroimaging. In an era that correlates multitasking with more information and intelligence, it's ironic that the best way to boost your brain's processing power is to think deeply on one thing and filter out the rest.
Workouts for the Mind
Meditation is a highly-effective method to train your mental powers, but you don't have to sit on a cushion and chant to develop your ability to focus. Just directing your attention with a bit more concentration on the task at hand can change your brain. Scientists studied the neurological differences between light pleasure and focused reading, and found that the brain reacted differently to even just a slight shift in attention. Closer, more concentrated reading activated parts of the brain involved in movement and touch, for example -- as if readers were living the story instead of just taking in information.
While it's easy to demonize technology in its role at chipping away at our ability to concentrate, several apps and software solutions are stepping up to the plate to help us regain focus. You can "train" your focus, sharpen your memory and otherwise boost your mental skills with exercises, puzzles and other mind teasers.
Brain Exercise, for iOS by Gamco, offers a mental regiment to improve your memory, logic and focus, while Brain Blast uses numbers-based puzzles to build your acumen. If you're interested in beefing up memory, Eidetic tests you on memorizing information. If you're on Android, you can download apps like Memory Trainer to challenge your powers of memory and concentration.
But if you need help focusing right away, Kelly McGonigal, author of "The Willpower Instinct," says a simple technique can get your prefrontal cortex pumping:
1. Sit still, either on a chair with your feet flat on the floor or on the ground with your legs crossed. Try not to move or fidget around, especially when that itch starts to creep up or you feel the urge to change positions. Stay still. It's important to train you not to follow your impulses.
2. To help you concentrate, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. When you breath in, in your mind, say "inhale." And think "exhale" when you breathe out. It activates the prefrontal cortex and quells the stress and craving parts of the brain.
3. Hone in on the way you breath and how wandering feels. After a few minutes of inhale and exhale, focus just on the sensation of breathing. If you notice your mind start to wander, focus back on breathing and say inhale and exhale a few times. That helps to train both self-awareness and self-control.
You can also take an outside-in approach and work on changing your environment. Some apps strip away distractions on the Internet, keeping you from checking e-mail, catching up on Facebook or otherwise browsing the Web when you should be working. Popular Mac programs like Freedom or SelfControl, for example, lock the Internet for up to eight hours, while StayFocusd does the same for Chrome.
If you're looking for total isolation, some programs completely, yet temporarily, strip your computer of any and all distractions, creating an ideal work environment. FocusWriter gives you a simple, distraction-free environment to write, while Mac programs like Isolator and Concentrate, let you work in only one program at a time, preventing you from toggling back and forth.
As distractions pile up, you'll need to stay vigilant and cultivate focus and concentration. These tasks, which work out our brains as much as our bodies, will become even more paramount as younger generations, immersed in social and mobile from an early age, enters schools and workplaces.
"Teens find distraction while working, distraction while driving, distraction while talking to the neighbors," Marcel Bullinga, futurist and author of "Welcome to the Future Cloud," told the Pew Internet Project. "Parents and teachers will have to invest major time and efforts into solving this issue -- silence zones, time-out zones, meditation classes without mobile, lessons in ignoring people on phones, texts and social networking."
The brain is a muscle that needs exercise to stay pliant, vital and alert. The mind's proven plasticity shows you can extend your mental powers well into your lifespan, but you have to carve out islands of quiet and calm to concentrate on important issues. After all, letting those mental powers atrophy because you can't ignore the constant pings and notifications seems too high a price to pay for convenience and connectivity -- a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
This post is sponsored by the Enterprise Mobile Hub and BlackBerry. ♦
Source: www.mobiledia.com
Bodybuilding for Your Brain
In the age of distraction, focus is an endangered mental ability. Here's how you can boost your powers of concentration.
By Kat Ascharya | June 07, 2013
You've heard it before: we're too distracted by gadgets. We're glued to our phones. We constantly text, ping and chat, instead of paying attention to the road, each other or the "analog world." Multitasking is a myth. Our brains are being rewired. Our kids are growing up permanently attached to iPads. Armageddon is coming in the shape of a smartphone. It's time to show our gadgets who's boss. Instead of letting technology drive us to distraction, we can use it to cultivate focus.
Plenty of stories highlight the dangers of distraction, whether it's in driving, parenting or just a lingering sense that our relationships to gadgets have become dysfunctional. Beyond the much-researched and obvious, arguments also shed light on the importance of the quality of focus.
Focus, defined as "directed attention" -- the ability to concentrate on one point steadily -- sounds simple. But as anyone who's tried to meditate for more than 15 minutes can tell you that maintaining a state of sustained concentration is harder than you think. Try it now: sit down, close your eyes and think of one thing -- a word, an image -- for just 10 minutes. Now, try to focus while your computer and various devices ping, text and otherwise clamor for your attention.
It's no wonder we can't focus. And with our close reliance on gadgets, and more workers employed in a mobile environment -- either BYOD or working at home -- we have an even greater tendency towards distraction. No co-workers, no boss looking over your shoulder. It's up to you to concentrate, and often when left to our own devices, we lose it.
Focus is distraction's flip side, and it's in short order these days. As a type of intellectual resilience, the ability to concentrate on just one thing and contemplate deeply is as rare as a diamond -- and just as prized by some employers.
"Short attention spans resulting from quick interactions will be detrimental to focusing on the harder problems and we will probably see stagnation in many areas: technology, even social venues such as literature," Alvaro Retana, an HP technologist told the Pew Internet Project. "The people who will strive and lead the charge will be the ones able to disconnect themselves to focus."
In other words, if you want to stand out in a crowd of job applicants, the ability to practice unwavering concentration will give you a competitive edge, especially at a time when people are more likely to check Facebook and Google and delve into the rabbit hole of distraction.
Mental Muscle
Focus, as it turns out, is not our minds' default mode -- it is a mental muscle you have to build and maintain. Sustained engagement on one point of focus is a distinct brain state, markedly different from a resting one. In meditation, for example, certain areas of the brain "light up" when engaged in deep focus, according to cognitive scientists.
Despite the physical appearance of sitting there with your eyes closed and doing nothing, meditation is a complex mental process. You have to direct your attention on the object of focus, notice distractions, corral your attention from what's distracting it, and then focus again. While doing so, you activate areas of the brain controlling those functions -- the prefrontal and visual cortex and areas of the sulcus. In fact, focus is a frenetic, mentally strenuous activity.
But as you practice concentration, focus gets easier. Over time, meditators were better able to control a specific type of brain waves, called "alpha rhythms," according to an MIT study, which flow through the brain's cortex, helping it to filter out distracting sensory information.
And most intriguingly, scientists discovered that long-term meditators are able to effectively "rewire" their brains, changing them physically over time. According to a UCLA study, long-term meditators have more folds in their cortex than non-meditators, allowing the brain to process information faster.
"Meditators are known to be masters in introspection and awareness as well as emotional control and self-regulation, so the findings make sense that the longer someone has meditated, the higher the degree of folding in the insula," said Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at UCLA's Laboratory of Neuroimaging. In an era that correlates multitasking with more information and intelligence, it's ironic that the best way to boost your brain's processing power is to think deeply on one thing and filter out the rest.
Workouts for the Mind
Meditation is a highly-effective method to train your mental powers, but you don't have to sit on a cushion and chant to develop your ability to focus. Just directing your attention with a bit more concentration on the task at hand can change your brain. Scientists studied the neurological differences between light pleasure and focused reading, and found that the brain reacted differently to even just a slight shift in attention. Closer, more concentrated reading activated parts of the brain involved in movement and touch, for example -- as if readers were living the story instead of just taking in information.
While it's easy to demonize technology in its role at chipping away at our ability to concentrate, several apps and software solutions are stepping up to the plate to help us regain focus. You can "train" your focus, sharpen your memory and otherwise boost your mental skills with exercises, puzzles and other mind teasers.
Brain Exercise, for iOS by Gamco, offers a mental regiment to improve your memory, logic and focus, while Brain Blast uses numbers-based puzzles to build your acumen. If you're interested in beefing up memory, Eidetic tests you on memorizing information. If you're on Android, you can download apps like Memory Trainer to challenge your powers of memory and concentration.
But if you need help focusing right away, Kelly McGonigal, author of "The Willpower Instinct," says a simple technique can get your prefrontal cortex pumping:
1. Sit still, either on a chair with your feet flat on the floor or on the ground with your legs crossed. Try not to move or fidget around, especially when that itch starts to creep up or you feel the urge to change positions. Stay still. It's important to train you not to follow your impulses.
2. To help you concentrate, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. When you breath in, in your mind, say "inhale." And think "exhale" when you breathe out. It activates the prefrontal cortex and quells the stress and craving parts of the brain.
3. Hone in on the way you breath and how wandering feels. After a few minutes of inhale and exhale, focus just on the sensation of breathing. If you notice your mind start to wander, focus back on breathing and say inhale and exhale a few times. That helps to train both self-awareness and self-control.
You can also take an outside-in approach and work on changing your environment. Some apps strip away distractions on the Internet, keeping you from checking e-mail, catching up on Facebook or otherwise browsing the Web when you should be working. Popular Mac programs like Freedom or SelfControl, for example, lock the Internet for up to eight hours, while StayFocusd does the same for Chrome.
If you're looking for total isolation, some programs completely, yet temporarily, strip your computer of any and all distractions, creating an ideal work environment. FocusWriter gives you a simple, distraction-free environment to write, while Mac programs like Isolator and Concentrate, let you work in only one program at a time, preventing you from toggling back and forth.
As distractions pile up, you'll need to stay vigilant and cultivate focus and concentration. These tasks, which work out our brains as much as our bodies, will become even more paramount as younger generations, immersed in social and mobile from an early age, enters schools and workplaces.
"Teens find distraction while working, distraction while driving, distraction while talking to the neighbors," Marcel Bullinga, futurist and author of "Welcome to the Future Cloud," told the Pew Internet Project. "Parents and teachers will have to invest major time and efforts into solving this issue -- silence zones, time-out zones, meditation classes without mobile, lessons in ignoring people on phones, texts and social networking."
The brain is a muscle that needs exercise to stay pliant, vital and alert. The mind's proven plasticity shows you can extend your mental powers well into your lifespan, but you have to carve out islands of quiet and calm to concentrate on important issues. After all, letting those mental powers atrophy because you can't ignore the constant pings and notifications seems too high a price to pay for convenience and connectivity -- a mind is a terrible thing to waste.
This post is sponsored by the Enterprise Mobile Hub and BlackBerry. ♦
Source: www.mobiledia.com
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