Here’s a paper that will provoke a wave of denial in type nerds everywhere. Short version: setting information in hard-to-read fonts, including Comic Sans Italic, led to better retention amongst research subjects because of “disfluency”. When you have to work harder to read it, you remember it better.
Abstract: Previous research has shown that disfluency – the subjective experience of difficulty associated with cognitive operations – leads to deeper processing. Two studies explore the extent to which this deeper processing engendered by disfluency interventions can lead to improved memory performance. Study 1 found that information in hard-to-read fonts was better remembered than easier to read information in a controlled laboratory setting. Study 2 extended this finding to high school classrooms. The results suggest that superficial changes to learning materials could yield significant improvements in educational outcomes.
In the meantime, you can pry this Scala Regular from my cold, dead hands.
While some so-called environments that are less free of distraction may display one, three, or even more lines of text—all at the same time—we understand that if you could only achieve the theoretical removal of all theoretical distractions, you would finally be able to write something. And we want ū— to help you almost do that.
I think what makes Merlin Mann compelling is that he knows he has something important to get across about work and creativity, but what he has to convey is a kind of non-demonstrative non-formula, and trying to say it more than once puts him in the same business niche as a legion of people he rightfully despises. He is quite aware of this, so you see him constantly tuning his anti-pitch and sharpening his anti-advice to make sure he doesn’t find himself, late one night, naked on a bed in a motel in Omaha watching himself deliver an infomercial. It’s the problem of trying to teach something that needs to be shown, or of trying to theorize a craft — the way that critics of postwar critical theory used to say that the trouble with those guys was that they had succeeded in unifying theory and practice, in theory. His advice is excellent, but the act of delivering and listening to it subverts the point of the message, or is an example of the problem that needs solving.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to tweak my citation format. I’ve nearly gotten it just right.
Last month, you may recall, the fascist octopus made a real-life appearance during the world cup. And this month, Ayatollah Ali Khameni says more or less directly that if you want to dance, you can’t be part of their revolution.
I thought that I’d never been asked to join JournoList because, unlike some people around here, I am not a member of the elite liberal-media vanguard. As it turns out, though, I was not asked to join because, truth be told, I am quite a handsome man. I take no pride in this fact, believe me, but was reminded of it when Twitter threw up this piece of genius, which argues that the liberal JouroListers were all pig-ugly losers who had been on “the business end of a fugly stick beat-down”. It brought a tear to my eye, reminiscent as it was of the good old days of blogging, when such arguments were very much to the fore. The real reason I bring this up, though, was to show you a screenshot of the piece:
Who among us has not marveled at DaVinci’s David while strolling through the streets of Venice? It’s one of the many gifts of Western Civilization that a solid conservative education teaches us about.
So, the World Cup’s most famous precognitive German cephalopod, Paul, has predicted from his tank in Oberhausen that Spain will beat Holland on Sunday, leading to various death threats, offers of state protection from the Spanish government, and a proliferation of calamari recipes circulating amongst my Dutch friends on FaceBook. All of which means, surely, that it really is true that some people are hoping that the fascist octopus has sung its swan song.
July 1962, the U.S. detonates a hydrogen bomb 250 miles over Hawaii. “N-Blast Tonight May Be Dazzling: Good View Likely,” said the Honolulu Advertiser. More details here.
No, not that lot, obviously. (I hope Rooney put a downpayment on that caravan.) But even I have started to feel just very slightly bad about the recriminations and self-hatred engulfing English football writers at present. So here, as evidence of the sort of thing England is really quite good at, is The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.
Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom. Design Longitudinal cohort study. Setting Research institute employing about 140 people. Subjects 70 discreetly numbered teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute and observed weekly over five months. Main outcome measures Incidence of teaspoon loss per 100 teaspoon years and teaspoon half life.
Results 56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared during the study. The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days. The half life of teaspoons in communal tearooms (42 days) was significantly shorter than for those in rooms associated with particular research groups (77 days). The rate of loss was not influenced by the teaspoons’ value. The incidence of teaspoon loss over the period of observation was 360.62 per 100 teaspoon years. At this rate, an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons.
Conclusions The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.
The New York Times had a Room for Debate roundtable on presumed consent and organ donation the other day. I wrote a short piece for it. There’s already been some follow-up from Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution. This morning I came across Nurse & Lawyer, who have a dialog on the topic. During their conversation, they say the following about my contribution:
Nurse: One of the panelists, Kieran Healy from Duke, makes what amounts to a ridiculous argument that this law will rekindle fears that surgeons are standing over sick people with hack saws, waiting to harvest their organs, and that they might just take them even if you’re not truly gone. Um. . . won’t those people just sign the opt-out if they are truly so concerned? As Arthur Caplan from Penn (woot woot) points out, most people do want to be donors. Healy also makes no suggestions. Maybe he’s against organ donation all together?
Lawyer: And what’s the source of the idea that doctors have more interest in one patient than in another? What interest does the doctor personally have in harvesting organs, unless the patient is his own kid? I agree. Opt out if that’s your nightmare.
I am not against organ donation. Feel free to read any of what I’ve written on this topic. And my argument is not ridiculous.
