Maria walking

No tricks, no stunts, no wires, no fingers!

Sue has more commentary and photos

Making decisions

From researchers in the Netherlands comes this paper on decision making.

It's a rather interesting read (and the anecdote about a Dutch researcher's encounter with the cereal aisle in an American supermarket is hilarious. Well, at least by research-paper standards.)

The point is that our conscious attention is very limited and we cannot simultaneously focus on all the variables in a complex decision. However, it appears our unconscious is not quite so limited, and can perform more complex weightings of many factors. (The paper describes several experiments designed to tease out the parameters of how this works.)

It's really interesting to see concrete confirmation of advice from various people ( and personal experience) that letting a decision rest (or sleeping on it, or however you want to describe it) does help, and aids in drawing out the relevant factors. (Found via this blog entry focusing on the house-buying example in the paper.)

The Sprinklers of Summer

A lawn sprinkler is a great way to handle hot summer afternoons.