The Guardian recently published an excellent article by Frans de Waal, What animals can teach us about politics. In the spirit of cognitive productivity, I’d like to relate this to a couple of theories of human nature that lend credence to de Waal’s analysis.
Continue reading On The Relationship-building Proclivities of Human Nature
I tweeted the poem below today, minus “‘s”. I’d draw a cartoon to go with this, one to do with a teapot. However, although I quite enjoyed Crystal Pite’s recent Revisor, I don’t want to risk needing to issue a retraction, as even professional cartoonists have had to on this subject. So, I will leave it up to your imagination. As for the poem, there are a couple of clues in the tags.
We have published another deeply original, easy to use, and we think potent, CogSci Apps Invention. Hook: productivity for macOS. It is currently in public beta and free to try.
Continue reading Hook Productivity: A New CogSci Apps Invention for Mac
Birth Announcement! We @CogSciApps are pleased to announce the public beta of our new macOS app, Hook: One app, infinite applications! https://t.co/aJfBM9DXeY pic.twitter.com/PNqsz0NKDg
— Hookmark—supplies the missing links. (@hookmarkapp) January 31, 2019
Hook supplies the missing links in the world’s best OS for productivity, R&D, creativity, blogging, markdown, and learning.
Hook solves the “meta-access problem” that I described in Cognitive Productivity: Using Knowledge to Become Profoundly Effective. Now that’s process. First write the book that describes (a) the problems, (b) the cognitive science that is pertinent to the problems; and (c) ways of using existing software (hacks) and information to solve the problems. Then develop an app that directly addresses the problem.
Hook is currently in public beta.
Paul Minda, a Canadian cognitive psychologist at University of Western Ontario, asked an interesting question on Twitter
Why do people pace around or engage in unguided, unfocused movement when talking on the phone. Does anyone know the answer?
I will focus mainly on a subset of this question, which is: why do we do this type of thing while highly cognitively engaged (e.g., participating in a cognitively demanding conversation, or lecturing).
I like to first try to answer a question myself (drawing as much as I can on my understanding of prior readings) before delving into others’ answers. So here are some “off the cuff” rambling reflections which expand on a series of my Twitter replies to Paul’s tweet. Keep in mind that I don’t specialize in cognitive embodiment. And the following is not rigorous reasoning. Just some (hopefully relevant) thoughts. But I am interested in all things relevant to cognitive productivity, which this is.
Later I might come back to the issue.
Continue reading Peripatetic Reflections on Why We Walk While We Talk and Think Deeply
It’s that time of the year again, where people review, make resolutions, set goals and plan for the next year. One of the questions that comes up is planning one’s readings.
This blog post is a slightly adapted (but still unpolished) response to a question on the productivity guild, “How do you handle readling lists?”
The concept of an absolute, global “reading list”, which is what most people have in mind when discussing “reading lists” is counter-productive. Continue reading Instead of Designing a Reading List for 2019, Why Not Resolve to Do This?
A friend of mine asked me to expand on my tweets about mnemonics regarding Not “Just Friends”, a book by Shirley P. Glass:
Sometimes #mnemonics are so easy to create it’s funny, which makes them even more memorable. Ex: /Author of Not Just Friends/Shirley P. Glass./ A Big idea of her book is “windows and walls”
— Luc P. Beaudoin (@LucCogZest) December 12, 2018
Hence this post.
A Delphic pronouncement from CogSci Apps: In January 2019, You Will Find Out Why 2019 Will Not Be Like Years Before.
On the CogSci Apps blog, I announced the new CogSci Apps logo! Check it out. It’s a good example of social cognitive productivity: doing knowledge work with a great graphic designer, to create a concrete logo that meets multiple very abstract requirements.
Continue reading New CogSci Apps Logo: Social Cognitive Productivity