Analysis Paralysis @ wikipedia
Clay Shirky on information filtering
Random thoughts:
- Human beings like symmetry, but only in one dimension (left/right). That's why we don't think a car that looks the same from the front and back is beautiful.
- We have a tendency to remember 'impressive' (epic) events, whether they are bad or not. I think this might lead people to actually prefer an impressively disastrous event over a complete lack of events.
- The brain has a certain bias towards the beginning and end of things. For example, that's why we tend to forget the middle of sequences of words when we are studying. Perhaps the mid-life crisis relates to this as well?
- Whenever I'm depressed, bored or empty-minded, I turn on some music and my mood will improve instantly. I wonder if other people have this as well. Similarly, work sucks without music, but even boring tasks are fun for me if I can focus on music while I'm doing them.
- I tried to listen to Shirky's keynote while at the same time reading the wiki article on Analysis Paralysis in a window next to it. I think I did fairly well. With the proper amount of training I think I can multitask successfully between reading and listening on similar topics. I wonder if I can extend this skill to include reading and reading (switching from window to window) and to extend the range of simultaneous topic exposure. Note: this kind of multitasking is quite different from when I talk to my parents on the phone, because I only need 10% of my attention to listen to the phone. In this case, it's about evenly divided. The phone conversation does provide the added challenge that the speech is in Dutch and the article I'm reading is usually in English..