“In the past few years, multiple fMRI studies, including a seminal one conducted at Stanford University, have peered into the brains of gamers. Their results show that when we play video games, two regions of the brain are continually hyperstimulated: the region most associated with motivation and goal-orientation (often referred to as “the reward pathways”) and the region most associated with learning and memory (the hippocampus).”
Tag: 11.10.15
Global Perspective: What Should A Public Library Be?
Libraries are powerful precisely because they’re spaces of potentiality. They are, as the Aspen report puts it, “platforms,” foundations on which many structures can be built. To speak of their future, then, should be to speak of a collective future, one from which none are excluded.
Toronto Author André Alexis Wins Canada’s $100,000 Giller Prize
For a second consensus-free year in a row, Giller prognosticators were all over the place when asked to pinpoint a front-runner. “It’s almost Game of Thrones — you don’t know who’s going to come out alive out of the bloodbath.”
How Could You Possibly Like That Book?
“How can people like these stories, with their over-easy packaging of what are no doubt extremely complex personal problems, their evident and decidedly unexamined complacency about the rightness of the analyst’s intervention?”
Minnesota’s Guthrie Theatre Wants To Figure Out What’s Minnesota
“The big question for us is how to serve the state in a way that someone from Duluth can find the same value in our work as someone who lives in one of those condos right next to us.”
Can We Finally Start Taking ‘Political Correctness’ Excesses Seriously Now?
Jonathan Chait: “The upsurge of political correctness is not just greasy-kid stuff, and it’s not just a bunch of weird, unfortunate events that somehow keep happening over and over. It’s the expression of a political culture with consistent norms, and philosophical premises that happen to be incompatible with liberalism.”
Knowing How You Decide Is As Important As The Decision
“Psychologists have argued there are two types of decision-making styles: There are maximizers, and then there are satisficers. Maximizers are concerned with making the very best decision, hemming and hawing and hemming some more until they’ve considered every possible option. Satisficers, on the other hand, know what they want, and once they find an option that meets their criteria, they pick that and move on with their lives. It’s a ‘nothing but the best’ versus an ‘eh, good enough’ mind-set.” (includes quiz)
‘I Have 10, Sometimes 11 Costume Changes Per Show’: Diary Of A Moulin Rouge Dancer
“That’s 22 changes each night. You wouldn’t be able to put the feathers on by yourself during a quick change so we have an army of 25 dressers. We don’t dance in the nude: we’re always completely covered with jewels, feathers, bra and pants. It’s very classy, very elegant.”
We’re Starting To Learn The Real Secret Of Stonehenge: How The People Who Built It Lived
“‘The stone monument is iconic,’ said [archaeologist] Wolfgang Neubauer … ‘But it’s only a little part of the whole thing.’ Discoveries in the last decade, some via modern technologies like ground-penetrating radar, have revealed more about the people for whom the giant monuments held great meaning.”
Allen Toussaint, 77, New Orleans R&B Legend Who Churned Out Pop Hits For Other Artists
“He was a versatile, virtuoso pianist and a distinctive, mellow-voiced vocalist who rarely toured because he was so busy producing, writing and arranging music at his New Orleans studio. Meanwhile, his songs were performed by a who’s who of New Orleans singers (Lee Dorsey, Irma Thomas, Ernie K-Doe) and international rock artists (Jerry Garcia, The Doors, Yardbirds, Bo Diddley, Robert Palmer, Little Feat, Elvis Costello). In 1998, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”