Echolocation.

Amazing story about a young blind boy who learns to 'see' with sound. Such a good story. Courtesy of the Amazing Angus

Generation Z - The big eight trends for 2008

Hopefully we can bid farewell to the "Second life hype" and "Activist documentaries with no answers" trends of 2007.

Phew. Check it out here

Geographic Memory

Amazing article about memory at the National Geographic website. One woman remembers every single day since she was 11, while a man can barely remember what happened ten minutes ago. She may have the world's best memory, he the worst. In the archives of our mind our lives linger or disappear. Check it out here

Crayon Physics Deluxe

Check out this awesome lateral thinking game. So much for ideo games rotting your brain.

Steven Pinker on All in the mind

Steven Pinker talks with everybody's favourite meme queen, the awsome Natasha Mitchell about his new book, The stuff of thought. Check it out here

Malcolm Gladwell talking about genius

Malcolm Gladwell talks about the importance of stubbornness and collaboration in problem-solving, and how long it takes to master any challenge at the 2007 New Yorker Conference. Check it out here

or download it at itunes, here

Plus here's another one from the New Yorker conference about how mistakes often lead to break throughs. (and hey, I lead my life on this principle). Check it out here

Quirks and Quarks podcast.

The awesome "Quirks & Quarks" podcast from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation covers everything in science. Check it out here

Seth Godin - The smartest bald guy in advertising

Seth Godin predicts the end of advertising. Again. And outlines what agencies should do to evolve. Check out the podcast here

Bird suit base jumping

Wicked cool.

The Boy with the incredible brain

Jaime Diskin's Reel - Partial list

David Lynch: Creativity and conciousness

courtesy of Mr Jae Morrison. Thank you goodly sir.

Skateboarding has evolved

And I remember when a switch-stance 360 nollie heelflip was the big trick. I feel old.

TED - Dutch Artist creates amazing kinetic sculptures

So crazy.

Ron Paul - Presidential Hope.

Maybe there's hope for America yet. Ron Paul, '08 Presidential hopeful. This is inspiring stuff.

Michel Gondry - Razr Mobiles

And now I like Razr mobiles. Awwww.

TED lecture - Steven Pinker

And again in a lecture on the history of violence.

Steven Pinker - TED lecture

The Stuff of thought lecture from TED, by Steven Pinker. Sandra, I prostrate myself at your feet you awesome awesomness.

Typeorganism

I used to work with an art director who was a great typographer and since then, I've got nothing but love for type.


Check it out here

From the Sandraness.

And on a lighter note...

Man, I just cannot stop laughing at the site.

Humble good stuff - Ronald Jenkees

Wow, this is really...wow.
via boingboing

Alternative Rugby Commentary

If you love hearing Kiwis swearing, watch this. I cannot stop laughing.

The Mind Head Eye - on Psychology.

Sigmund Frued immodestly wrote that "humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science three great outrages upon it's naieve self-love": the discovery that our world is not the centre of the celestial spheres but rather a speck in a vast universe, the discovery that we were not specially created but instead descended from animals, and the discovery that often our consious minds do not control how we act but merely tell us a story about our actions.

As always, I reccommend the Flashget program for saving real audio files. If anyone knows how to turn real audio into MP3, please let me know.

Marc Hauser argues that morality, at some level, may be hard-wired into our brains, as an innate 'moral grammar' that has evolved with us over time.
Video
Audio
MP3

Philip Zimbardo helps us understand what causes people who began life with good intentions, to discard them.
Video
Audio

Jon Kabat-Zinn discusses the mind-body connection in the context of Gunther von Hagen's sculptural work using real human bodies.
Video
Audio
MP3

John and Margaret Myer offer an explanation of what attracts us to certain places and what makes us comfortable once we arrive.
Audio
MP3

Tal Ben-Shahar discusses current research on the science of happiness and introduces ideas and tools that can actually make a difference in one's life.
Video
Audio
MP3

David Karp discusses the stories of 50 teenagers and adults (himself included) who have ambivalent relationships and experiences with psychiatric drugs.
Video
Audio

Mark Singer reads fromCharacter Studies: Encounters with the Curiously Obsessed, a collection of nine profiles, from Donald Trump to Ricky Jay.
Video
Audio

Dr. Aaron Lazare analyses of the power of apology, not just for individuals but for groups and nations.
Video
Audio
MP3

Kenji Yoshino explores the legal pressures in American society to hide our authentic selves.
Video
Audio
MP3

In response to hurricane Katrina, educators discuss how to best help children who have been exposed to trauma.
Video
Audio
MP3

Daniel Dennett explores the debate on the moral issues around evolution, free will, and mind-body connections.
Video
Audio
MP3

Marc Hauser discusses his work with apes which has unlocked some of the mysteries of language evolution, social cooperation, communication, and morality.
Video
Audio
MP3

Sonu Shamdasani describes attempts to form a new unitary science of psychology, modeled on how sciences like physics and chemistry functioned.
Mp3

David Lynch answers questions on his films, his 32-year practice of Transcendental Meditation, and the role of consciousness in the creative process.
Video
Audio
MP3

Robert Calfee, PhD presents HGSE's first annual Jeanne S. Chall lecture, Assessing Literacy: Exploring the Reader's Mind and Heart.
Video
Audio

Steven Rose discusses his latest book The Future of the Brain: The Promise and Perils of Tomorrow's Neuroscience.
Audio

Nancy Kehoe explains how spirituality can be an integral component in the treatment of chronic mental illness.
Video
Audio

Weitekamp discusses his work in restorative justice, a value-based approach that emphasizes transforming wrongdoing by healing the harm created by harmful behavior.
Video
Audio

Michael Feuer, PhD, of the National Research Council, illustrates the frayed link between cognitive science and the science of education policy.
Video
Audio

Barry Burden explores the science and technology behind measuring how Americans think, feel, and what they know.
Video
Audio

Maharidge and Williamson explore the emotions of a deeply divided people seeking security in a world turned upside down since 9/11.
Video
Audio

Susan Linn, instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, explains what a great toll the marketplace takes on children.
Video
Audio

Richard McNally contends that traumatic experiences are unforgettable and the evidence for repressed memories is surprisingly weak.
Video
Audio

A discussion by members of the Noonan Family, featured in the the PBS broadcast The Forgetting: A Portrait of Alzheimer's.
Video
Audio

Jessica Henderson Daniel discusses the milestones and issues affecting women's mental health and the medical assistance that is available to them.
Video
Audio

Dr. Joseph Coughlin reports on the most up to date information on Alzheimers disease in lay terms.
Video
Audio

Chris Hedges discusses how human beings are conditioned to embrace the "myth" that combat is noble, selfless, and glorious.
Video
Audio

Sherry Turkle argues how our relationships to computational objects suggest an occasion for a renewal of psychoanalytic thinking.
Video
Audio

Steven Pinker shows that equality, progress, responsibility, and purpose have nothing to fear from human nature with its moral, emotional, and political colorings.
Video
Audio

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot examines the culture of schools, socialization within families and communities, and the relationships between culture and learning styles.
Video
Audio

Betsy McAlister Groves dramatically disproves the myth that very young children are not affected by violence.
Video
Audio

John Rodolico addresses ways for teens, parents, and those that work with teens to negotiate their way through the current drug culture.
Audio

Jean Frazier, M.D. describes the differences between the normal development in adolescence and the warning signs of illness or future behavioral problems.
Audio

This lecture engages artists in a dialogue that explores their work through the prisms of belief and nonbelief.
Video
Audio

Maxine Greene weaves threads from philosophy, literature, psychology, and education to make of life and learning an aesthetic whole replete with meaning.
Video
Audio

All of these links came from the one and only WGBH forum for public lectures. Check them out.

Emotions That Praise Others and Change the Self

Jonathan Haidt discusses his research on three rarely studied emotions in the field of positive psychology: moral elevation, admiration, and awe. Positive psychology is the scientific study of positive emotions, strengths-based character, and healthy institutions.

Listen here.
Or watch here

Via channel N

Web 2.0 - Grape Lady

Web 1.0 (Meme)



Web 2.0 (Mash up)



Everything that's good about web 2.0. Creativity in all directions.

News at Seven - Automatically Generated News Program

Mindball - May the calmest brain win

Take an ECG. Add a pingpong ball and some magnets and you've got a cool new game from Sweden.



Courtesy of Courteney Kuehn and wired Nextfest. Thanks.

Artificial Intelligence & Creativity.

David Cope is Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and in 1981, he designed a computer program that deconstructed music, analysed it and then put it back together in different forms and structures it had identified.

The results are essentially new recordings from Bach, Beethoven and Chopin as well as a host of others. This isn't an interpretation on existing music, this is actually new music.

EMI's version of Bach

EMI's version of Beethoven

EMI's version of Chopin

And you can check out all the others at his webpage here.

And it's not just music. Ray Kurzweil and Harold Cohen have spent the past thirty years inventing software that can create art. It's called Aaron and like EMI is has deconstructed art, analysed it and can now create new pieces in seconds.

You can read about Aaron at Harold's webpage here. You can also download a screensaver that uses Aaron Software to create an infinite number of original artwoarks created by Aaron on your computer. Every new picture is different.

Watch a real audio video clip here

For the wordophiles out there, here's a collection of essays written by Ray Kurzweil on Machine Intelligence and Creativity, here.

And here is the art. It's rudimentary, but there's something nice about it.

The Mind Head Eye - on The Pursuit Happiness.

Hey, hey kids do you like to rock n roll? This week, at the generous behest of the Kiumetastic Sandra, we will be filling our cerebellum bellies with the science of happiness. What makes us smile? What makes us content? Is laughter a Class A pharmaceautical and if so, where canI score a hit?

In this podcast, CBC Radio show, Quirks & Quarks talks with a group of psychologists and neuroscientists at the forefront of happy science;
Dr. Daniel Nettle, a reader in Psychology at the University of Newcastle, the author of, Happiness, the Science Behind your Smile.
Dr. Daniel Gilbert is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and author of, Stumbling on Happiness.
Dr. Angela Clow is in the Psychology Department at the University of Westminster in London and studies the physiology of emotion, including happiness.
Dr. Richard Davidson is the Vilas and William James Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and studies the neurology of happiness.

Some nifty websites.

Dr. Nettle's book, Happiness, the Science Behind your Smile
Dr. Gilbert's book, Stumbling on Happiness
Dr. Gilbert's website
Dr. Clow's website
Dr. Davidson's website

Devilish Dr Dan Gilbert gives a memorable TED lecture on Happiness. (I particularly like this one because it makes my wife smile when she's sad)





The alumni of Harvard are not only smart, they're funny and good looking, (and I might add, frightfully skilled in the bedroom dept.) Here is a new class at the Veritas of the Ivy League, that teaches the six tips of happiness by someone who sounds pretty darn happy. Check it out here

A link to an article on the technology of happiness here.

More from Dr Dan Gilbert here

A real audio lecture on happiness. The science of happiness is attempting to pin down what really lifts the spirit -- to measure it, and to teach it. Happier people live longer. They get fewer colds. They have better relationships and do more for others. here

Another Harvard lecture on the goal of attaining happiness (mp3) here

A good reason to keep angry people out of your life is here. (Anger and tresentment are very contagious emotion, but, as Columbia discovered, so is peacefullness, you just have to feel it very deeply).

Another podcast on the psychology of happiness is here

Here is the lecture Bob Thurman gave at TED, ( I defy you not to feel happy when he breaks into a little laugh)

Here is the world databse of happiness here

And here's a discussion with Steven Pinker for no other reason than because he makes me happy (even when he talks with Robert Wright) and I hope it makes you happy too. Cheer up Headsters, it's good to be human and great to be here and now. Have a lovely weekend.

Single Hauz.

I would like one of these please, very much. It's a billboard house. For people who want two storeys but can only afford one. For more projects by front architects, check out their website (though I couldn't find any information in English).
viathis nifty site

Google earth - Looking at the stars

Everybody loves google. Google Universe?

Pic

The Mind Head Eye - on the future

It's the puntastic Friday afternoon infobinge, with a look at innovation from around the world. Leading thinkers, doers, makers and disrupters talk about earth meltingly big ideas and the future of futureness.

Enjoi.

Timothy Ferriss recommends you check email only once per week, don't read the newspaper and don’t save for retirement. These are only a few of the taboo recommendations found in Tim’s book, “The 4-Hour Work Week.”

Tom Arnold's Terrapass. "It's the $50 bumper sticker," says Tom. In a period when climate change could not be more critical, Terrapass provides a way for individuals to offset their car, flight, or home carbon emissions -- and to show it on a decal and bumper sticker. In this interview, Tom provides some interesting insight into the company, the carbon credit business, and the climate change milieu.

Michael Arlington, the founder of TechCrunch, when he visited the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Today his blog is the place on the web where you’re you’ll likely get the early news on major company shakeups, product announcements, and emerging ideas. Arrington started TechCrunch in 2005 to profile the latest and greatest in internet technology and startup companies. Download his talk here.

Chip Heath examines why ideas become memorable. It examines draws on psychology research to create a virtual "how-to" guide for anyone looking to introduce new concepts and products. Sticky ideas are the result of 6 key attributes: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories (SUCCES). Download podcast here.

Sam Altman is the 22-year old co-founder of Loopt, a location-based social networking mobile application that allows users to see where their friends are. Sam gives a peek into the fascinating and incubative world of a Silicon Valley startup that's gaining a lot of momentum. Download here

Michael’s Raynor's first book (written with Clayton Christensen) The Innovator’s Solution was a Wall Street Journal and NY Times best-seller and won multiple awards.Michael’s current book The Strategy Paradox is covered in this interview. Additionally, Michael talks about Microsoft innovation, Google’s growth, and consulting firms. Download here

In an interview with Wired Magazine, Craig Newmark notes that Craigslist's corporate mantra, if any, is to "give people a break." In a recent discussion, ScribeMedia.org points out that, "Craigslist still has the power to confound old line-media moguls and possibly change the face of 'glo-calism'--local reach spread globally." Download podcast here.

Chris Larsen is the co-founder and CEO of Prosper.com, an online person-to-person lending marketplace that brings together traditionally inspired dynamics of lending between friends, family, and individuals, with the benefits and rigors of modern-day credit systems. Download here.

Ed Catmull is the co-founder and President of Pixar Animation Studio. He has made several patented advances in animation technology and is the driver behind many of Pixar’s 15 amazing Academy Awards. Among other technologies, Catmull is credited with being the father of “texture mapping” – the process by which a flat (two dimensional) image is mapped onto a moving 3D image. Download here.

Geoffrey Moore is a VC with Mohr Davidow Ventures, consultant and, most famously, the bestselling author of Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado and Dealing with Darwin. Podcast here.

Virgin Galactic is Richard Branson's effort to bring space travel to the masses (well, at least those masses that can fork over $200k for a ticket). Virgin Galactic CEO, Alex Tai, an experienced pilot and personal friend of Branson's, is responsible for figuring out how to put space tourists in zero gravity in a safe flight. Podcast here.

Philip Rosedale, Founder of Linden Labs and Second Life. Philip built his first computer in 4th grade, and started his first computer software company while still in high school. In '95 he developed FreeVue, a low-bitrate video conferencing system for Internet-connected PC's, which was eventually acquired by RealNetworks. He worked at RealNetworks for three years and eventually became the CTO. He decided to leave in 1999 and joined Accel Partners as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. There he founded Linden Labs, a company which had the audacious goal to build an immersive 3-D virtual world for people to live and play in. That world became Second Life. Podcast here.

Mike Ramsay, Co-founder of TiVO. You can thank Mike for the fact that you haven't seen a TV commercial in six months. Mike left a cushy job at SGI to form TiVO, which revolutionized the way people watched TV by creating the first ever Digital Video Recorder. Podcast here.

David has been described as "the most sought-after design engineer this side of Thomas Edison” by the I.D. 40’s list of America’s leading design innovators. His current project is to start up the d school at stanford. Podcast here.

All of these links were taken from the iinnovation podcast site. Please visit it. It is absolutely amazing. For anyone who wants to rss feed from it, I think there's a link there, plus most of these links are available in video form, just in case you travel on the tube and need to periodically lip read what's being said.

Eric Schmidt - The Internet's Most Important Person

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt was recently voted the most important person on the internet. In this interview he talks about everyone's favourite mega-corp. Disruptive technologies and new technologies in targetted advertisements in very large systems. He believes there are enormous opportunities in the model of targetted advertising and with a trillion $USD every year being spent in untargetted advertisements, be believes it will be a very rich area for entrpenuers for many, many years. He also discusses the self censoring decision Google made in China, which allows the Chinese government to censor content.

Everything is miscelleneous. And beautiful.

A site that puts random photos together based on their colour. Simple idea and really quite lovely. Check it out here. via this funky little young creatives site

Polaroid movie

WNYC Radio Lab podcasts

Oh boy, these are good. Kevin Kelly cited these guys as one of this top three best podcasts on the internet. Broadly, the theme for the show is exploring interesting ideas such as how we perceive time, how the brain creates a sense of self and a neuroscientific look at morality but it's so much better. The sound design is fantastic, the topics outstanding, the guests are often luminaries such as Oliver Sacks and VS Ramachandran and the hokey, warm schitck of the presenters is so friendly I just want to hug my ears.
Season one
Season two
Season three

Irv Rosenfeld's HB 5470 Michigan Medical Marijuana Testimony

Thank you Ario for this inspiring video. Whatever your thoughts on this issue, this is still a remarkable speech.

In our time BBC podcasts

The archive of BBC Radio 4 "In our time" podcasts are only available in streaming real audio, but they're well produced and full of great information. This archive is for science and this one is for culture. However, you can subscribe to the podcast here and enjoy all the new ones as they're uploaded. And a big thank you to the person who sent me this generous link. You saved us all from a fate worse than real audio.

New Coke Spot.

Comments? I am literally without speech.
In-cre-di-ble.

Qlipboard - Record your own slide shows

Cool little free application that lets you record your own voice onto a slide show. You can use it to release your frustrated inner creative, make essays, do homework or just the next mega-meme on you tube.

Check it out here.

Public Library of Science

Chocolate Rain - Tay Zonday

Some Friday fun for everyone. Have a lovely weekend.

Ambient Addition - The world is your symphony

Ambient Addition allows you to turn industrial noise into music. It's an iPod with binaural microphones that records the outside world and replays it instantly with a superimposed layer of harmony and rhythm. In the new context, some surprising behaviors take place. Listeners tend to play with objects around them, sing to themselves, and wander toward tempting sound sources. Check out the video at Noah Vawter's page at MIT.

Heavy Head - National Geographic Channel

Check out the writing credits on this amaaaaazing television commercial...aw yeah, that's right.

CIA-KGB podcasts - The other intelligence academy

The Creating Infectious Action / Kindling Gregarious Behaviour course at Standford university looks like a really useful and fun innovation class. If any of you loyal Mind Heads readers find a podcast or an opencourse ware lecture series from these guys, I'd be grateful for some love.

Freestyle Everything

Football (Soccer)



Ping Pong



Skating (this is my mum's favoutite skater)



Yoyo



Running



Golf



Basketball



BMX (aww yeah...)



Gymnastics



Gymnastics II

Welcome to Mind Head's Harvard Garden

The Harvard Business Review has an awesome archive of free podcasts that discuss the future of the world, the internet, business, alpha males, viral marketing, Harry Potter, iPhones and all kinds of neat stuff. I've planted a little garden of idea shrubs here at Mind Head, with a little nurturing, it could be the start of something quite mossy.

Howard Gardner discusses his new book, "Five minds for the futre", and about how we live in a time of vast change and these changes will call for entirely new ways of learning and thinking, (amen to that), and defines the cognitive qualites of the future and how to cultivate them, here

Paul Hemp dicusses the breakthrough ideas of 2007 and what Harry Potter can teach us about branding, here

Professor Rosabeth Moss Kantor talks about Innovation Traps, now that innovation is back in after a lengthy hiatus, Prof Moss Kantor highlights the traps to avoid, here

Paul Saffo discusses his article, "The six rules for effective forecasting", here

David Weinberger discuses his new book, "Everything is miscellaneous", here

Jonathon Zittrain discusses his new book, "The future of the internet and how to stop it", under a podcast titled, "How to save the internet" here

Allen Murray discusses his ideas about the future of CEOs in a talk titled, "the new rules of power" here

Columbia University Professor Duncan Watts discusses viral marketing for the real world, and how while it may not behave like a virus, when used correctly viral marketing is still a cost effective tool for getting the word out, here.

Kevin Sullivan discusses why PR matters and how it is easier to accomplish than you think, here

What makes Generation xers tick? What do they want from work and how do you get the most out of them? These questions and more discussed by Paul Michelman and Tammy Ericson, here

Tim Butler talks about getting unstuck, how all of us feel that impasse in our lives and careers, and how dead ends can be used to find new beginnings, here

Chip Heath talks about why some ideas survive and other die out in a talk titled, "Made to stick". According to Heath, the ideas that make it - sticky ideas - share common traits such as simplicity and unexpectedness and he shows how to achieve this, here

Jim Andrew talks about his new book, "Payback: The rewards of innovation" and talks about how to foccus on how to generate cash from new ideas with a specific focus on the telecommunications industry in light of the iPhone, here

Don Tapscott, author of "Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything", talks about how in it's latest incarnation, the web has become a communial experience, andeveryone, everywhere can now solve problems, here

We all learn from mistakes, so why not make more of them? Gardiner Morse discusses the art of deliberate mistake. He introduces a systematic approach to making carefully planned, deliberate mistakes in order to learn from them. Embrace failure, here

Enjoi.

All of these talks come from the inestimably helpful Harvard Business Review IdeaCast site here. Veritas fellow Headsters.

Moral Minds - Marc Hauser

Harvard neuroscientist Marc Hauser delivers this talk at the New York Acedemy of Sciences on the evolutionary biology of morality. His central idea is that morality is not something learned from society, nor is it a concious process, but rather an inherent biological trait based on evolution. He sees it as the glue that holds society together and he presents some remarkble studies into the cross cultural corealation of what makes something moral or immoral and why the concious mind has no real idea of why it knows the difference. He also talks briefly about a study from Berkely that shows how framing a moral choice inside a positive emotion (i.e by showing clips of SNL before asking the questions) can radically alter the outcome. via the NYAS website and posted on a request from Nick Hernandez from the Mind Head secret vault of awesome podcasts. How's that for service...

Mind Head Facebook Group

Howdy all, just wanted anyone who visits to know this site has a facebook group.

You can click this direct link here or just search for "Mind Head" and click the lil red chicken and meet all the lovely people who post comments on this site.

Hopefully over time, everyone will start linking up to everything and we can start turning our TVs into aquariums because everything that's interesting will already be on the Mind Head facebook group.

Me knoweldge su knowledge.

Jaime.

Aegis Hyposurface - Wow!

I linked to the MIT think lab that designs this stuff a few weeks ago and here is just one of their awesome new media inventions. Hyposurface, a medium that physically moves. The surface behaves like a perfectly controlled liquid. Logos, waves, patters, even text emerge and fade within it's continually changing surface.

Here's a link to the site.

And check out the youtube vid here that shows the first hyposurface billboard in times square. It is nothing short of awesomely awesome.

New trends in global jihadi terrorism - Dr Boaz Gaynor

Dr. Ganor founded the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, an Israel-based think tank that aims to raise awareness of trends in terrorism, advise decision makers and conduct research. The ICT is building the world's only publicly accessible database of terrorist organizations and attacks.Dr Gaynor delivers an excellent talk about the root causes of terrorism, explains what their demands are and offers his strategy for dealing with terrorism. You can download the video or audio here

Megaphone - Phone gaming

MegaPhone is a Real-time Multi-player Collaborative Gaming Platform for big screens in public spaces. Anyone can use any phone from any service provider as a game controller and players join the game by making a regular phone call, and they can see their input (either voice or keypad) immediately. 9.8 on the cool richter scale.

Nano Projector

Explay is a technology company that develops the world's smallest projector. The company's product is a projector engine which is small enough to fit inside a mobile device or housed in a separate pocket size accessory unit that is connected to a mobile device (e.g. cellular phone, digital camera, Personal Media Player, etc.). via adverlab.blogspot.com

Rethinking ad formats

Fun things to do with print.

Fun things to do with outdoor

Fun things to do with plastic bags.

Oliver Sacks - Musicphilia podcast

In January, 2006, everyone's favourite Brain doctor, Oliver Sacks spoke with the New Yorker staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar in a series hosted by the Columbia University Arts Initiative. One of the subjects he talked about was the brain's reaction to music and in particular, the strange phenomenon of musicphilia.

Listen to the mp3 (10:16), or right-click to download.

Robert Sapolsky - 'Stress, neurodegeneration and individual differences.

Robert Sapolsky travels to Kenya every year to study primates, as they are similar to humans in that they have almost no natural predators and so the majority of their stress derives from social functioning. More specifically, Sapolsky studies the cortisol levels between the Alpha male and female and the subordinates to determine stress level. thank you to the awesome Sandra Kiume from channel n and omni brain

Ikea - Free hostel.

Ikea Oslo now have a free hostel for shoppers who want to continue shopping in the morning. Check it out here. via boing boing and the guardian website

Kevin Kelly - The impact of future technology

Wired editor-at-large Kevin Kelly explores the nature of technology through technology’s eyes. He predicts that the collective intelligence of the internet will soon dwarf the collective intelligence mankind, and he presents his ideas that the internet is structured remarkbly similarly to a single human brain.

Facebook now has an advertising agency.

You know all that information you put onto Facebook. The little things like your age, sex, race, political persuasion, interests, hobbies, your address, your email, the names of all your friends and everything you do, see, say, think or feel? Well, this is the guy who's going to use it to sell you something. Here's the article. Here's the company blog.

The lending club is a lending community where you borrow and lend money to fellow Facebook members. While bank customers can get only 5.5% interest on savings accounts, and while banks charge their lending customers 12.32%* on average for personal loans, Lending Club lenders earn from 6.95% to 11.68%, and borrowers on Lending Club pay as little as 7.45% APR. Not a bad idea.

Steven Pinker online archive of lectures and talks

Steven Pinker at Freethought Radio

The Cognitive Niche

What is your dangerous idea?

Jews, Genes and Intelligence (lecture) pt 1

Jews, Genes and Intelligence (lecture) pt 2

IDEAS presentation

Human Nature

It's All In the Genes

The Blank Slate

Evolutionary Psychology

The Blank Slate

New Space Object

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature pt1

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature pt 2

A biological understanding of human nature

Nature, Nurture? Not!

Language of War

Evolving English

How the Mind Works

Der Digitale Planet (lecture) - Douglas Adams, Richard Dawkins, , Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond and Steven Pinker

Speech Gene

The Mind

Evolutionary Psychology and Human Nature

And if you'd like to visit Steven Pinker's Site at Harvard, go here.

This was all via the very, very complete freethought media site

Wicked cool flash animation body beat music video

Well, there's a tsunami of buzzwords for ya. Very cool video here though.

Humble Good Stuff - Ira Glass on creativity.

This is just lovely. Ira Glass, winner of the Peabody award for journalism talks about how to get from a passionate beginner to an artist.

The Media Revolution

Utopian. Dystopian. Either way, it's a well rendered view of the future.

Dr Patrick Dixon - Global trends

How the world witll change, which technologies will capture the imagination of people and why.

Dr Patrick Dixon - Future tech trends

Dr Patrick Dixon - Future customer trends

Dr Patrick Dixon talks about how to connect with costomers and why the future will be about emotion. DIxon was ranked one of the top 50 most important thinkers. Here's why.

Dr Patrick Dixon - The future of marketing

Speech by Dr Patrick Dixon for Finland Marketing Federation in Helsinki, audience of 500, in a relatively intimate setting. The future of marketing and consumer trends: direct mail, network, email, strategies, ideas, relationship marketing, market research, consumer reports, campaign slogans.

Dr Patrick Dixon - Why market research gives wrong results

Market research cannot predict the future accurately. Example is the rapid growth of blogging or web diaries which was not indicated by market research surveys a year or two before. Lecture by Dr Patrick Dixon for MTN global leadership team

100 year old predictions from 1900

"There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary" - just one of the predictions The Ladies Journal made in 1900 on what life would be like in the year 2000. Check out the rest here.