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Thursday, November 15, 2012
Top Stories from the last 24 hours
How to Develop Sherlock Holmes-Like Powers of Observation and Deduction
November 15th, 2012Top StoryHow to Develop Sherlock Holmes-Like Powers of Observation and DeductionBy Thorin Klosowski
Observing people and situations is an incredibly valuable tool. It gives you the ability to notice subtle cues during conversations, job interviews, presentations, and anywhere else so you can react to situations more tactfully. These are the trademark tools of Sherlock Holmes, as well as modern day detectives you see on TV shows like Psych, Monk, or The Mentalist. To figure out how to train your brain for Sherlock Holmes-esque intuition, I spoke with journalist and psychologist Maria Konnikova, author of the upcoming book Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. The two core values of Holmes' skills are simple: observation and deduction. Increase Your Powers of Observation
Our worst habit is that we simply don't pay attention. We're always trying to get things done quickly, and because of that, we lose the childlike wonder of focusing in on the smaller details and asking "why is that there?" So, like any habit, increasing your powers of observation means first identifying your bad habit (you prioritize getting things done fast and miss the smaller details), and cultivating new habits (slowing down and paying attention). The first step is to just stop and pay attention every once and awhile, but here are a few things you can do to train your brain along the way. Photo by Olivier Bacquet. Give Yourself Monthly or Daily Challenges That Force You to Slow Down
You can do anything you want here, provided it causes you to slow down and observe the world from another angle. Personally, I try to take one interesting picture a day (like the 365 Project). For me, that means stopping and actually paying attention to the countless amounts of weird things I usually don't notice when I'm moving around my city. Other ideas could include trying new foods weekly and writing about them, noticing the color of a co-worker's shirt every day, or even just looking at a new piece of art closely once a day. The idea is to gradually teach yourself to notice small details in your environment and daily life. As you do so, you'll become more likely to notice everything that's out of place. Photo by Stacie. Take Field Notes to Focus Your Attentions
When you get yourself in the mindset of taking field notes, you start paying attention to the tiny details. You can do this anywhere. If you're at work, dedicate 10 minutes to observing one person's behavior. Pay attention to how often they take a sip of water, when their eyes stray from their computer screen, or if they're constantly checking their email. The more you do this on paper, the better you'll get at doing it on the fly. Photo by Incase. Briefly Meditate Daily
As we've talked about before, meditation is all about teaching yourself focus. When you can focus on yourself, you'll likely become a better observer of the world as well. Photo by John. Power Up Your Deduction Skills with Critical ThinkingOnce you start paying close attention to the world, you can start turning those observations into theories or ideas. Deduction is about thinking through a situation logically, and then applying critical thinking to what you're seeing. Essentially, critical thinking is analyzing what you observe closely, and deduction is coming up with a conclusion based on those facts. Analyze What You See or Read, and Ask Questions
This is a bit of extra work, but boosting your reading comprehension isn't that hard, and when you get in the habit of doing it you'll walk away with a stronger memory of what you read. When you're asking a lot of questions, you're thinking critically, and that improves your skills at deduction in general. We've talked before about using Michel de Montaigne's idea of writing notes in books, and that's an excellent step to take here as well. Once you write down your opinion, and the questions you have after reading, it'll solidify those ideas in your head longer. Photo by francois. Form Connections Between What You See and What You Know
Essentially, Holmes remembers so much because he encodes knowledge by seeing its uses right away. It's similar to how the memory palace works, but instead of leveraging the memory on a space, it connects it to previous knowledge like a mind map. Traditionally, mind maps are used as brainstorming tools, but they're a great way to take notes as well. I used mind maps for notes throughout college to connect ideas between classes together, and it helped solidify those memories in my head far better than when I simply wrote down what the professor was saying. So, how does all this work together? The more connections you make, and the more often you think critically, the better you're going to get at making deductions:
With a little practice and critical thinking, you'll eventually be able to start making those trademark leaps in logic Holmes is known for. Increase Your Knowledge Base
Being a student of everything isn't an easy task, but whether you're looking to read people better, or just increase your general knowledge base, we've got you covered. Here are a few places to start from our own archives:
It takes a lot of practice and the formation of true habits to emulate the way Sherlock Holmes and other detectives view the world, but it's not that difficult to do yourself. Once you train your brain to stop and pay attention to the tiny details, the rest of the process falls into place. Before you know it you're able to analyze any situation—whether it's a friend's hangover or a stranger's affair—in no time. Photo by Nick Webb. Maria Konnikova is a journalist, psychologist, and author of the upcoming book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. You can find more of her writing on her web site.  This post is part of Spy Week, a series at Lifehacker where we look at ways to improvise solutions to every day problems Bond-style. Want more? Check out our spy week tag page. Photo by Penywise (pond5).  |
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New Super Mario Bros. U: The Kotaku Review
November 15th, 2012Top StoryNew Super Mario Bros. U: The Kotaku ReviewBy Jason Schreier New Super Mario Bros. U is an extraordinarily important game. It's the flagship title for a new piece of gaming hardware. It's the first-ever high-definition Mario. And it's the Wii U's first system-seller, one of the big games that Nintendo hopes will convince people to buy their innovative, unusual new console. It's also just another Mario game. Not that "just another Mario game" is a critical description; Mario games are consistently delightful, charming, and fun to play. But New Super Mario Bros. U is the fourth game in the New Super Mario Bros. series, a set of 2-D platformers that have all blended together in my mind, mostly because they all follow the same exact rules. Levels are always short and full of secrets—star coins, power-ups, hidden exits. Every level has a mid-point flag that's sort of a de-facto save point, and it always turns Mario big if he's small. There's always a desert world, an ice world, a final, lava-filled world where magma falls from the sky. Every world has a mini-boss and a regular boss. Those bosses all take three hits before they go down. Bowser always kidnaps the princess. Just a few months ago, I played and reviewed New Super Mario Bros. 2 on 3DS. I called it a bedtime story, noting that while you always know exactly what you're gonna get in a New Super Mario Bros. game, what's exciting is the adventure. What you find along the way. But you can only listen to the same story so many times. When I loaded up New Super Mario Bros. U on our office's fancy new Wii U this past weekend, I found it tough to stay interested. I had played New Super Mario Bros. 2 in August. Did I really want to jump and hop on the same enemies, in the same worlds, using the same power-ups I used just three months ago?  WHY: Because, like most Mario games, it never stops feeling fun. New Super Mario Bros. UDeveloper: Nintendo Type of game: Mario What I played: Spent 8-9 hours completing the game, testing out multiplayer, and scouring the world for hidden secrets. My Two Favorite Things
My Two Least-Favorite Things
Made-to-Order Back-of-Box Quotes
Sure, this one's pretty, maybe the prettiest Mario game you can play without plugging Mario Galaxy 2 into an emulator. Gorgeous backgrounds—like a stunning, watercolor-painted swampland in one of the game's latter stages—ensure that there's always something pretty to watch as you play. The plumber does well in high def. But New Super Mario Bros. U feels old, even as it looks new. In many ways it feels like a remix of Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3—two of the best Mario games, yes, but they were great because they were original. They were smart, and clever, and like nothing we had ever seen in gaming before. New Super Mario Bros. U is smart, and clever, and completely traditional. Baby Yoshis? Ground-stomping sumo wrestlers? Airships filled with dangerous traps and wrench-throwing moles? Worlds named after food? Sometimes it seems like a Family Guy episode: "Oh hey, look, another reference to something from the 90s! Nostalgia!" What's really new here, of course, is the fact that you can play this game on the Wii U's tablet-esque GamePad, an exceptionally comfortable device that feels fantastic to hold and use. You can play on your TV while controlling Mario on your GamePad, or turn off the big-screen to play on the small screen in your lap (my personal preference). This choice won't affect your single-player experience much (with one rare exception—for some sections you have to tilt the controller in order to move certain platforms, which can be totally nauseating if you're looking at the controller's screen while tilting it). It's actually rather surprising just how traditional a Mario game this is, considering the trappings. (I remember playing a Wii U Mario demo at E3 2011, during which I would go through a pipe on the big screen and then appear in an underground area on my controller's screen, not unlike what some games have done on the DS and 3DS. This idea was ditched for New Super Mario Bros. U, which keeps both screens mirrored the entire time.) What's really unusual is the way that the GamePad can be used for multiplayer. When you're playing with other people, one person can tap on the GamePad to conjure up helpful little blocks to save—or annoy—their platforming comrades. Good timing and communication here can make your life much easier. This multiplayer requires an interesting sort of coordination that Kotaku editor Stephen Totilo has compared to a synchronized jazz performance. It's a fun way to spice up the standard campaign, but it's even more fun (and challenging) when you open up some of the optional modes that task you with navigating through tricky courses and obstacles. One stage, for example, forced Stephen and I to work together to circumvent a maze of nasty piranha plants—as I jumped, he'd have to draw platforms to get me out of harm's way. It's difficult, exasperating, and a great deal of fun. So, okay. There are two questions you are probably wondering, two questions that I would be remiss not to answer. The first: is New Super Mario Bros. U worth playing? To which I say absolutely. It's gorgeous and fun to play, and although you might want to give it a while if, like me, you just played New Super Mario Bros. 2, it's still a lovely game. But is New Super Mario Bros. U worth buying a Wii U for? I really don't think so. This is not a killer app, like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was for the Wii so long ago. It's not the type of game you must play. It's a standard Super Mario Bros. game, easily consumable and always fun, even when it doesn't feel super fresh. It's just another Mario. Not that that's a bad thing.  |
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New York Times Takes Its Clients Out to Dinner at NYT-Designated Worst Restaurant in the Entire World
November 15th, 2012Top StoryNew York Times Takes Its Clients Out to Dinner at NYT-Designated Worst Restaurant in the Entire WorldBy Caity Weaver
If you watched the Today Show's complete coverage of The Biggest News Story of 2012 (The New York Times published a medium-funny scathing review of a restaurant everyone expected to hate), you might have noticed that, after Guy Fieri said his piece and forced poor Savannah to choke down a Vaseline-covered cardboard box he had sprinkled with Styrofoam pieces—"Meatloaf, Savannah!"— Today invited a team of Random Professionals You Recognize (Star Jones, Donny Deutsch, and Dr. Phil) to further analyze the greatest human rights violation of the modern era. When it was Dr. Phil's turn to speak, he mentioned that the Times so high and mighty on her throne of pearl, had, in fact, "hosted a 160 person party at that restaurant" the day Pete Wells' review was printed. The Braiser dug a little deeper into that comment. Guy's American Shitshow & Clusterfuck confirmed that a Times party had occurred there. The New York Times' denied having held a company-sponsored event at the restaurant. Guy's American Hellhole That Only Serves Poison insisted that a Times event had in fact just taken place there. Finally, the Times realized that, oh yes, some of its representatives had held an event at Guy's the day the review was published. It was a party, organized by the paper's ad sales department for clients. Why is the New York Times feeding dog food, nothing but food for dirty old dogs, to its clients? If any New York Times clients turned off by the paper's wining and dining them with blue drinks and toasted marshmallows that "taste like fish" are on the hunt for a new company to support, might we recommend Gawker Media, where the only drink is Purple Drank and the marshmallows taste like...whatever you want them to taste like. Diamonds of flavor. Guy Fieri. Marshmallows, whatever. We appreciate your business. [The Braiser // Image via Getty]  |
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