RefBan

Referral Banners

Friday, April 6, 2012

Top Stories from the last 24 hours


Hi David,

These are the top stories from The Next Web over the last 24 hours.

See you at The Next Web Conference (April 26-27) in Amsterdam? We're taking it to the next level!

The Next Web

P.S. Want to be the first of your friends and followers to spread our breaking news stories? Now you can, with Spread.us.






Producers Zwick, Herskovitz Win 'Last Samurai' Trial Over Allegedly Stolen Script


© 2011 The Hollywood Reporter, All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

NBC Fires Producer in Flap Over Manipulated 911 Call in Trayvon Martin Case


© 2011 The Hollywood Reporter, All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Exclusive: 'Paranormal Activity' Team Sets Latino-Themed Horror Offshoot at Paramount


© 2011 The Hollywood Reporter, All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Box Office Report: 'Hunger Games' Still No. 1, 'American Reunion' Steams Ahead of 'Titanic'


© 2011 The Hollywood Reporter, All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Navy jet crashes into apartments, Current TV files countersuit, and other stories from the Slatest.

Slate
 
Briefing News & Politics Arts Life Business & Tech Science Podcasts & Video Blogs
 
 

The Slatest: April 6, 2012

Job Growth Slows Sharply but Unemployment Drops

Job Growth Slows Sharply but Unemployment Drops

Jobless rate drops to 8.2 percent but that is in part due to fewer people looking for work.

READ FULL STORY

Navy Jet Crashes Into Virginia Beach Apartments

Navy Jet Crashes Into Virginia Beach Apartments

The pilots apparently dumped lots of fuel before the crash, helping to prevent an even bigger catastrophe.

READ FULL STORY

Poll: Trayvon Case Split Along Race Lines

Poll: Trayvon Case Split Along Race Lines

George Zimmerman's family will reportedly ask for donations through a website to help defray legal costs.

READ FULL STORY

Marine Faces Dismissal for Anti-Obama Comments

Marine Faces Dismissal for Anti-Obama Comments

Sergeant who mocked and criticized the president on Facebook could be given an other-than-honorable discharge.

READ FULL STORY

Will Google's Eyewear of the Future Deliver?

Will Google's Eyewear of the Future Deliver?

At the very least Google has shown it can get everyone talking about one of its products again.

READ FULL STORY

Coast Guard Sinks Tsunami Ghost Ship

Coast Guard Sinks Tsunami Ghost Ship

After drifting for more than a year, the ship quickly disappeared into the ocean after it was hit with cannon fire.

READ FULL STORY

Obama's New Hashtag: #WhatsRomneyHiding

Obama's New Hashtag: #WhatsRomneyHiding

A campaign tweet attempts to make Romney's undisclosed Bain holdings go viral.

READ FULL STORY

RNC Has $22 Million Cash On Hand for Nominee

RNC Has $22 Million Cash On Hand for Nominee

The DNC raised more money over the past 15 months, but outspent the formerly struggling RNC.

READ FULL STORY

Democrats Look to Special Interests for Convention

Democrats Look to Special Interests for Convention

Organizers have found a way around the rules and are seeking donations from lobbyists, corporations.

READ FULL STORY

Current TV Files Countersuit Against Olbermann

Current TV Files Countersuit Against Olbermann

In an aggressive filing, the network accuses its former anchor of wanting to get paid for doing nothing.

READ FULL STORY

Ban Ki Moon: Fighting Worsening in Syria

Ban Ki Moon: Fighting Worsening in Syria

Intesified shelling on urban areas reported four days before the Syrian government is due to withdraw troops.

READ FULL STORY

Advertisement

From Slate:

Keith Olbermann's Lawsuit Against Current Slams Al Gore, Countless Others

Keith Olbermann's Lawsuit Against Current Slams Al Gore, Countless Others

Have Your Speediest Seder Ever With Our Two-Minute Haggadah

Have Your Speediest Seder Ever With Our Two-Minute Haggadah

If You Want To Understand Whit Stillman's Movies, Read His 1978 Short Story

If You Want To Understand Whit Stillman's Movies, Read His 1978 Short Story

The Bad Guys From Karate Kid Get a Pep Talk From New Orleans Saints Coach Gregg Williams

The Bad Guys From Karate Kid Get a Pep Talk From New Orleans Saints Coach Gregg Williams

What Cuba Can Teach Us About Preparing for Climate Change

What Cuba Can Teach Us About Preparing for Climate Change

How To Improve Your Charoset: Make It More Like Mortar

How To Improve Your Charoset: Make It More Like Mortar

Exclusive: Jay-Z's New Ad for the Masters Golf Tournament

Exclusive: Jay-Z's New Ad for the Masters Golf Tournament

Help! My Step-Daughter Hit On Me After My Wife—Her Mother—Died.

Help! My Step-Daughter Hit On Me After My Wife—Her Mother—Died.

More from The Slatest:

Manage your newsletters on Slate Unsubscribe | Forward to a Friend | Advertising Information

Please do not reply to this message since this is an unmonitored e-mail address.

Ideas on how to make something better? Send an e-mail to slatenewsletter@nl.slate.com.

Copyright 2012 The Slate Group | Privacy Policy
The Slate Group | c/o E-mail Customer Care | 1350 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 410 | Washington, D.C. 20036

Overthinking and Your Child-Like Mind

April 6th, 2012Top Story

Overthinking and Your Child-Like Mind

By Aen Tan

Overthinking and Your Child-Like Mind Con­sider the ques­tion in the image above. I found this spread­ing on Face­book the other day and it took me a few min­utes to solve. Go on. Try. (If you want to know the answer. It's at the end of the arti­cle.)

Have you seen the Bollywood film 3 Idiots? It's the highest-grossing Bol­ly­wood film of all time in India about the adven­tures of three col­lege engi­neer­ing stu­dents. One of the scenes left an impression on me.

Overthinking and Your Child-Like Mind Overthinking and Your Child-Like Mind Overthinking and Your Child-Like Mind

* Let me clar­ify that I am aware this space pen story is an urban myth. I am only using it as a sto­ry­telling device and for some humor (at least for me and the audi­ence in the the­atre who laughed at the scene). It made me think about how we over­think which led to this post. Whether it is true or not is besides the point.

As the chil­dren we once were, grow­ing up was a process of becom­ing adults. Not only bio­log­i­cally but also men­tally. We learned to be respon­si­ble, to pay the bills, to get things done and we learned the com­plex world of adult­hood. To become adults we had to lose our tantrums, silli­ness, our child­hood. And we lost our minds. Our child-like minds.

The mind of a child is the great­est gift we will ever receive. As embryos in our moth­ers' womb, our heart, the first organ to develop only to power the next organ—the devel­op­ing brain which is soon mak­ing a quar­ter of a mil­lion new neu­rons every minute. In the first 10 years of life, our infant brain will have made bil­lions and bil­lions of con­nec­tions. It is a super­charged engine for learn­ing and cre­ativ­ity. Yet by adult­hood we have lost most of this creativity. We now think like adults. That is we think too much and our thoughts are too influ­enced by our knowl­edge. We need to get back our abil­ity to think like kids again. How?

Where online would you find a lot of smart and knowl­edge­able peo­ple? Quora of course. I really like to visit Quora and learn from sub­ject mat­ter experts show­ing off their wits and exper­tise. Though some­times they over­think and com­pli­cate prob­lems with com­pli­cated answers. Many times peo­ple are just try­ing to show off how clever they are with rocket sci­ence. Like this question on Quora.

Overthinking and Your Child-Like Mind

The most pop­u­lar answer for the ques­tion before I answered involved cal­cu­la­tions with com­passes, con­cen­tric cir­cles, Pythagorean the­o­rem and square roots. I have no idea what a con­cen­tric cir­cle is, let alone cooks in a pizza kitchen. And who keeps com­passes in a kitchen? But since it's the most pop­u­lar answer I sup­pose over­think­ing is pop­u­lar in Quora.

I imag­ined myself with no math­e­mat­i­cal knowl­edge, a cook good with my hands, in a hot and humid kitchen faced with this prob­lem. What would I do? Turns out that the bet­ter solu­tion is much sim­pler and would only required a piece of string and a pen at the very least. Shouldn't be too hard to find in a kitchen. And so I offered my answer.

All you have to do is cir­cle a string around the pizza to cut a length equal to the pizza cir­cum­fer­ence. Then fash­ion a divider of some sort or even use your thumb and index fin­ger. Adjust your thumb and fin­ger and wrap the string eleven times equally around them. This effec­tively divides the string into eleven equal parts. Use a pen and mark the string. Cir­cle the string around the pizza again and cut using the mark­ings as guides. My answer received more than a hun­dred votes, went on to become the most voted and the ques­tion was made a Best Source.

Overthinking and Your Child-Like Mind

Con­jur­ing com­plex math­e­mat­i­cal equa­tions may make you look smart but to become truly cre­ative you need to be able to lib­er­ate your mind from the the shell of knowl­edge, edu­ca­tion and adul­ti­fi­ca­tion you have accu­mu­lated. Only then can you think like a child again.

Answer to the numbers question

The ques­tion has noth­ing to do with math­e­mat­ics. Look for the closed loops or shapes in each num­ber and count them. In 0, 6, 8 and 9. 8 has two of them. 2581 has two. The answer is 2.

Overthinking | Principia Arbiter


Aen writes about his design philosophy at Principia Arbiter and designs software products for his startup Instrumentry and clients. He can use chopsticks with both hands.

Want to see your work here? Send an email to submissions@lifehacker.com!

Number of comments