Dont Eat the Marshmallow

Article in the New Yorker about the ability to delay gratification and how it is an effective predictor of future success in life.

The best thing is that the skills a person needs to succeed in these tests can be easily taught. My takeaway is "give the kid what they want, but make them wait for it..and teach them to be patient while they are waiting".

Inchersting read.

Long Time, No Post

Digging out still. Here's a tasty tidbit to tide you over though. New film from Peter Jackson (think he's the producer).

http://www.mnuspreadslies.com/post.php?id=331

TED: Sixth Sense

via SaylorNet.

Watch as the MIT media lab demonstrates $300 worth of hardware that can turn the world into an internet display screen. All you need is an internet enabled cellphone.

Uncle Ron, What Should We Do?

Ronald Reagan, May 20, 1988, transmitting the Convention Against Torture to the Senate for ratification:

The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

It's getting harder and harder to deny the inevitable conclusion that there is going to be a messy shitstorm in this country. The excerpt above is from Glenn Greenwald, in an atypically short piece shredding of Charles Krauthammer's column from The Washington Post today.

Obama isn't helping either. Every time he opens his mouth on this subject things get muddier and muddier. The only good I see coming out of his comments is that there is no real news to talk about, and yet there is a huge story hanging out there called 'Torture'. The media abhors a vacuum, and so the digging goes on and new information continues to come to light.

As long as Obama keeps feeding the beast and the e-ink is spilled in commentary, the real world will sit and wait.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat

David Brooks actually had an interesting column yesterday on the subject of genius and high achievement. The column is basically an exploration of the ideas in two books: “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle; and “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin.

In short it's the 10,000 hours of practice, a will to approach the practice methodically, and an adult to push a person at a young age theory of genius.

Interestingly though, his example is a young girl that is working to become a great writer. You get the feel that it's a Harveyesque "rest of the story" type of column but he never closes the circle on his story.

That's because he's not a genius I guess.

All snark aside...I've added these two books to my reading list.