Random links
- When the Muses Strike: Creative Ideas of Physicists and Writers Routinely Occur During Mind Wandering
- " Participants reported that one fifth of their most significant ideas of the day were formed during spontaneous task-independent mind wandering ... There were no differences between ratings of the creativity or importance of ideas that occurred during mind wandering and those that occurred on task. However, ideas that occurred during mind wandering were more likely to be associated with overcoming an impasse on a problem and to be experienced as “aha” moments, compared with ideas generated while on task."
- Amazon’s new Kindle is a boring device that can’t do very much
- A positive review of an e-reader. The selling features: battery life and the lack of distraction from, e.g., email or social media.
- Which Is a Good Diet—Veg or Non-veg? Faith-Based Vegetarianism for Protection From Obesity—a Myth or Actuality?
- "In an Asian Indian cohort, we found that vegetarian dietary patterns were associated with a higher incidence of morbid obesity culminating in bariatric surgery. Our study is a myth breaker that all vegetarian diets are healthy diets."
- How an Islamic State Rejected Islamic Law
- On postcolonial Sudan: "English common law emerged from colonialism as a default option that helped local elites bridge deep social, ethnic, and political divides. Because democratic-minded intellectuals were unable to agree on a common implementation of Shari’a (roughly translated as Islamic law), English common law provided a less satisfying but (to them) more practical basis to form a new state. Choosing common law over Islamic law allowed intra-elite conflicts, particularly among political parties and ethnic groups, to lay dormant during the transition to independence. But it also marginalized progressive Islamic jurists who had sought to create a democratic state built on Islamic principles of justice and equality."