Belief in pseudoscience is a significant problem today, particularly in the U.S., where a 2022 study reports that 10% of people believe the Earth is flat (there is even a Flat Earthers movement). Wired magazine is combating pseudoscience with a series of videos by the authoritative and smart (not to mention camera-ready) biomedical scientist, Dr. Andrea Love.
Did you know that 40-45% of your behaviors every day aren’t the result of decisions you’ve made? They’re habits. Habits are automatic behaviors you’ve engaged in so often you can do them automatically. Habits are when you’re acting on autopilot without conscious thought or direction. Habits are a kind of memory for behaviors the brain uses to conserve energy, because thinking burns lots of energy. This intro to habit formation summarizes the groundbreaking neuroscience research that has taken place with respect to habit formation from the 1990s to the present.
From Trump’s presidency to the Coronavirus pandemic, these are some of The Simpsons’ most prescient predictions to date, and some are really creepy.
Top 10 List of The Simpsons’ Most Prescient Predictions More »
With the phase-out of third-party cookies, Google says it’s time to audit cookie usage on your site. Here’s the most painless way for non-coders to do so.
It’s no coincidence that the opening credits of season one of the Netflix series The Rain are reminiscent of AMC’s The Walking Dead. The two shows are strikingly similar. Both are post-apocalyptic character-driven dramas in which humankind has been decimated by a virus. Both center on a group of disparate strangers struggling to coalesce into a functional group. Both have themes about the difficulty of retaining one’s humanity in an amoral world. I could go on.
I’m not the creator of the below video, but I found it randomly, recently, and it was created during my tenure as a consultant for Mobility Lab, a think tank funded by Arlington County government. We had been tasked with persuading DC metro commuters to take public transit rather than drive alone to work. The time period in which this video was produced felt like a special time in Arlington County, a small but influential and wealthy county in Northern Virginia just across the river from Washington, DC.. (in fact, the county makes up the bottom left portion of the diamond shape originally conceived as the boundaries for the nation’s capital).
Jeff Bezos’ $250 million purchase of The Washington Post in 2014 changed the direction of the newspaper in some fairly significant ways. Among them: The Posts’s focus became less local and more global, it began expanding digital access dramatically (promoted by the Kindle, of course), and started spending some serious cash on events. One of these events is the America Answers series.
“One of the biggest benefits of being part of this program is learning what other companies are doing,” says Christine Ng of Environ, a science and technology consultancy that is one of hundreds of businesses served by Arlington Transportation Partners. Her compliment of ATP is captured in one of a series of videos shot at the ATP 2014 Champions Breakfast Ceremony in January and released this week.
Business Leaders Network to Make Transportation Easier in Arlington More »
Transit, bicycling, and pedestrian programs will be increasingly important in order to meet the country’s future transportation needs. That’s one conclusion that can be drawn from a new report by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) called Beyond Traffic.
U.S. DOT Study “Beyond Traffic” Calls for More Transit, Biking, Walking More »
In the video that follows, produced by me and Mobility Lab’s Editor Paul Mackie, Ballston Business Improvement District CEO Tina Leone says, “We see the Silver Line as making Ballston the center of the universe. It makes everything even better here. We already have a very active Metro stop, with 26,000 trips per day. We see that growing to 38,000 trips per day along with the Silver Line by 2020. So that’s coming very, very fast.”
There seems to be quite a lot of flirting, or at least furtive glancing, taking place on public transportation. A new series of Metro ads celebrating the opening of the Silver Line suggests the new rail line to Reston might not only connect Washington D.C. residents with jobs and housing, but with dating opportunities as well. There is data suggesting some truth to the idea that one can find love on transit.
“Does a city speak?” This provocative question – posed by Saskia Sassen (pictured above) – opened the recent Mobilities in Cities: From Visible to Invisible conference at Columbia University. It’s hard to deny that a city has life, but does it live and communicate?
The Brookings Institution held a forum this week for urban planners, techies, and politicians on a topic that’s gained traction in recent years: “smart cities.” Cohosted by Barcelona’s ESADE Business School, Getting Smarter About Smart Cities included panelists from Barcelona, Amsterdam, Edmonton, and Arlington.
Smart Cities Put People First, and People Want Technology More »
TED Talks is a clearinghouse of informative and inspirational short lectures from the leading thinkers of our age. In case you didn’t know, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design (its creator was himself an architect and graphic designer).
In the next 25 years, America’s highway system will be replaced in large part by a crisscrossing network of passenger rail lines. The automobile will be replaced by the Google (driverless) car. Alternative modes of transportation such as biking and walking will be more prevalent. And there will be a national chain of Mobility Labs serving key markets.
LaHood: America’s Transportation Future is in Rail, Google Car, Mobility Labs More »
