Arts & Culture
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How to Become More Creative
about 13 hours ago
What's the Latest Development? First, stop searching for the creativity formula. When Steve Jobs was designing Pixar's office space, the computer graphics company he founded between gigs at Apple, he wanted to locate the building's only bathrooms in a center atrium, forcing people to interact ... Read More
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Sleepy or Drunk? You're Ready to Problem Solve!
about 15 hours ago
What's the Latest Development? In a scientific study, college students were asked to solve a brain teaser early in the morning and late at night to measure problem solving abilities relative to alertness levels. Prior to answering the riddle, most students self-identified as night owls, implying ... Read More
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FU Asks: Should the Government Fund the Arts?
3 days ago
Welcome to a new feature on the Floating University blog, FU Asks, where we open up the academic debate on our e-learning platform to the Big Think community. This week we're featuring a discussion prompt from Leon Botstein, President of Bard College and conductor of the American Symphony ... Read More
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So Long, Lone Inventor. Hello, Collective Capitalism.
3 days ago
What's the Latest Development? The way America thinks of its innovative heroes probably needs to change, says Harvard research fellow Neal Gabler. Today, technological progress is too complex for one individual to advance and communication networks make sharing ideas, a powerful part of the ... Read More
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Why Do People Become Digital Pirates?
6 days ago
What's the Latest Development? Enabling digital piracy must be one of the least profitable theft crimes ever. By the time 'James', as we'll call him, was just 19 years old, he had begun cooperating with many elite piracy sites, using his formidable technical knowledge specifically to not sell ... Read More
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The New Hustle: Artists in the Digital Age
6 days ago
Enjoy the article, then check out the Big Think, Short Fiction Contest (#1: Sci Fi) - an Iron Chef-style event in partnership with Storiad. The Unrealized Utopia of DIY Artistic Success There was a lot of unexamined fist-pumping among the youth of 1998 when Napster "took down" the music ... Read More
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What Makes the Human Mind Unique?
8 days ago
What's the Latest Development? New research has shed light onto the mystery of our own minds. Specifically, why the human mind is so superior to those of even monkeys and chimps, our closest animal relatives. A team of German scientists has extracted brain cells, post mortem, from people, chimps ... Read More
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Who's More Creative? Introverts or Extroverts?
8 days ago
What's the Latest Development? Extroverts and introverts are not different in the ways we usually consider them to be. Introverts want lower-stimulation environments—less noise, less action—while extroverts crave stimulation to feel their best. Introverts may be very outgoing people, just as an ... Read More
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Simon Doonan's Fashion Tips For Mad Scientists
9 days ago
What's the Big Idea? The hypercerebral – and particularly the math and science-minded – have an unfortunate reputation for being totally oblivious to personal appearance. While there are some obvious exceptions to this stereotype, society forgives self-neglect in the brainiac on the general ... Read More
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Simon Doonan's Fashion Tips For Mad Scientists
9 days ago
The hilarious swami of style and fashion egalitarian Simon Doonan, author of Gay Men Don't Get Fat, offers some efficient guidelines to personal style for the mad scientist whose mind is on loftier things. Read More
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Prime Innovation Years? Middle Age, Not Youth.
10 days ago
What's the Latest Development? Despite the popular notion that somewhere there is a 20 year-old whose next idea will change everything, successful innovation gets better with age, says new Harvard research. Today, average and median age of the founders of successful U.S. technology businesses ... Read More
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Life's Too Short: How to Read the Right Books
10 days ago
Let’s say you’re in the top fifth percentile of avid readers, tearing through a book a week on average. With such literary gusto raising your sails, you might feel like the entire world is an open book to browse at your leisure. But in actuality, you will hardly scratch the surface of available ... Read More
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Who's the Better Leader? Eli Manning or Tom Brady?
10 days ago
The Case for Eli Manning Leadership is about more than raw talent or personal style. Great leaders must mesh their own talents with the culture of the organization they lead. With Manning, the Giants tradition of toughness is amplified. "The Super Bowl will mark Manning's 130th consecutive start ... Read More
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Caravaggio, Mad Marketing Genius.
10 days ago
Andrew Graham-Dixon, who has been called “the most gifted art critic of his generation,” revisits the scandalous, sensational life of Italian painter Caravaggio and finds in it one model for success in troubled times. What’s the Big Idea? It is a keen irony that the sensitive ... Read More
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How the Science of Walking Will Shape Cities
11 days ago
What's the Latest Development? The need for social cohesion, as well as a greater understanding of how pedestrians behave, is changing how planners plan tomorrow's cities. What is called 'shared space' is becoming increasingly popular—areas of the city where pedestrians, cyclists and motorized ... Read More
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Smart Clothing: The Unexpected Tech Revolution
11 days ago
What's the Latest Development? A Canadian laboratory is experimenting with special fibers that could be woven into the fabric of your clothing to make soft, interactive screens, putting control of all your electronic devices literally at arms length. The lab turned to the manufacturing process ... Read More
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Is Facebook Really Worth $Infinity?
13 days ago
What's the Latest Development? Facebook could become a publicly traded company as soon as Wednesday, possibly raising $10 billion in cash and a valuation of $100 billion. That would give the company the same value as McDonald's and about half the value of Boeing. Unlike other Web-based companies ... Read More
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Movie-Making Algorithm Debuts at Sundance
13 days ago
What's the Latest Development? A machine that makes entire movies by compiling 3,000 video clips, 80 voiceovers and 150 pieces of music debuted at Sundance this year. Called whiteonwhite, the program works similarly to Pandora. "Each clip has a specific tag that triggers the selection of the ... Read More
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The (Online) Rules of Friendship
13 days ago
What's the Latest Development? It is safe to say that online social networking has expanded the definition of 'friend'. Today, many of our important social distinctions are made under the umbrella of that word—Facebook friend, work friend, old friend, etc.—but the proliferation of 'friend' hasn ... Read More
