Skill vs Challenge

Mental state in terms of challenge level and skill level.^[1] Clickable.

One of my calculus professors explained that we exhibit a range of emotional states from the highest, enthusiasm, to the lowest, apathy. Researching "apathy" on Wikipedia resulted in the graph above, which shows a two-dimensional plot of challenge vs skill. This isn't quite the same thing as the professor described, but very similar. It also reminds me of the Kübler-Ross model, commonly known as the five stages of grief.

The similarity certainly begins at "apathy", but the opposite in this model is "flow". (Each area in the graph contains a link to an article explaining it.) "Flow would be what is experienced when Tiger Woods golfs perfectly, or an artist creates a masterpiece, or a developer gets "deep into the code".

Another interesting aspect is that autotelic persons "may be better able to achieve flow than the average person". This article goes on to state that "Autotelic ^[2] is used to describe people who are internally driven, and as such may exhibit a sense of purpose and curiosity. This determination is an exclusive difference from being externally driven, where things such as comfort, money, power, or fame are the motivating force."

The Phenakistoscope

"Eadweard J. Muybridge (pronounced /ˌɛdwərd ˈmaɪbrɪdʒ/; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904) was an English photographer, known primarily for his important pioneering work, with use of multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip that is used today."

Coriolis effect

"In physics, the Coriolis effect is an apparent deflection of moving objects when they are viewed from a rotating reference frame."

Meta-Words

Onomatopoeia, autological, heterological: "What is a word called when it describes itself? You might be looking for onomatopoeia; these are words where the sound of the word describes the meaning of the word - some examples are 'buzz', 'clang', 'click'. What you're really looking for is autological. Autological words have the property they define. 'Humongous' for instance, could be considered autological. The antonym for autological is heterological. Heterological words do not posess the property they define. 'Big' is heterological."

Here's a great list of more words about words, including "bibliobibuli" ("people who read too much and so are generally oblivious to the world around them -- coined by H.L. Mencken"), along with classics such as "palindrome" (which is not an Alaskan ant), and every possible "-nym" word (antonym, homonym, etc.).

Steampunk

While looking over some Wiki entries for the films of Jeunot and Caro (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children), a reference to the genre of Steampunk was linked. The image on the left is a 19th c. French depiction of an 'aerial house' of the 20th century.

"Although many works now considered seminal to the genre were published in the 1960s and 1970s, the term steampunk originated in the late 1980s as a tongue in cheek variant of cyberpunk. It seems to have been coined by the science fiction author K. W. Jeter, who was trying to find a general term for works by Tim Powers (author of The Anubis Gates, 1983), James Blaylock (Homunculus, 1986) and himself (Morlock Night, 1979 and Infernal Devices, 1987) which took place in a 19th-century (usually Victorian) setting and imitated conventions of actual Victorian speculative fiction such as H. G. Wells's The Time Machine."

Stroop Effect

In psychology, the Stroop effect is a demonstration of the reaction time of a task. When a word such as blue, green, red, etc. is printed in a color differing from the color expressed by the word's semantic value (e.g. the word "red" printed in blue ink), naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the meaning of the word is congruent with its ink color. The effect is named after John Ridley Stroop who first published the effect in English in 1935.[1] The effect had previously been published in 1929, but only in German. [2][3][4] The original paper has been one of the most cited papers in the history of experimental psychology, leading to over 700 replications.

Good, Fast, and Cheap

The Project Triangle is a concept in project management that saves teams from destruction by overly-demanding customers. "You are given the options of Fast, Good and Cheap, and told to pick any two. Here Fast refers to the time required to deliver the product, Good is the quality of the final product, and Cheap refers to the total cost of designing and building the product. This triangle reflects the fact that the three properties of a project are interrelated, and it is not possible to optimise all three – one will always suffer."

This idea spawned the title of the 1997 Erol Morris film, "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control".

Exponential Information Video

This is a very interesting video, set to Fatboy Slim's music, that illustrates in a Daniel Pink sort of way, some of the issues America faces in the coming years: http://www.flixxy.com/technology-and-education-2008.htm

Kübler-Ross model

"The Kübler-Ross model, commonly known as the five stages of grief, was first introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying.
It describes, in five discrete stages, a process by which people allegedly deal with grief and tragedy, especially when diagnosed with a terminal illness or catastrophic loss. In addition to this, her book brought mainstream awareness to the sensitivity required for better treatment of individuals who are dealing with a fatal disease."

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

"Maslow's hierarchy of needs is predetermined in order of importance. It is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the lowest level is associated with physiological needs, while the uppermost level is associated with self-actualization needs, particularly those related to identity and purpose. Deficiency needs must be met first. Once these are met, seeking to satisfy growth needs drives personal growth. The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are met. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. If a lower set of needs is no longer being met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level. For instance, a businessman at the esteem level who is diagnosed with cancer will spend a great deal of time concentrating on his health (physiological needs), but will continue to value his work performance (esteem needs) and will likely return to work during periods of remission."