Ben Casnocha

This idea is known as attention restoration theory, or ART, and it was first developed by Stephen Kaplan, a psychologist at the University of Michigan. While it's long been known that human attention is a scarce resource -- focusing in the morning makes it harder to focus in the afternoon -- Kaplan hypothesized that immersion in nature might have a restorative effect. - Ben Casnocha

I do not go around peering at the world through opera glasses, exactly; I am not the lady in the image above, gazing altogether too blandly through a pair of tiny lenses perched on a stick. Yet as one committed to regarding, I wonder, with no small discomfort, whether I manage to strike a good balance between witnessing and acting, between distance and involvement. As for those who tip the balance toward the side of doing, I hold them in highest regard. - Ben Casnocha

Probably because in their desire to explain so much, big thinkers tend to skip over complicating factors and counterevidence. Painting in broad and often brilliant strokes, they often miss the shadows and crevices. The very seductiveness of power thinking — its promise that everything fits together or can be made to seem so — is also the source of its danger. It offers something irresistible, the possibility that we can change, or at least control, our lives by means of ideas, even though those ideas are themselves abstract inventions. - Ben Casnocha

But we all harbor an inner 2-year-old: naturally stubborn and easily frightened, with no recourse in the face of unfathomable hurt but to stamp our feet and wail. - Ben Casnocha

My cuddle instructional program will teach you the skills you need to find and keep quality men through your superior cuddling aptitude. Your new cuddle confidence will leave you beaming in 2009! - Ben Casnocha

When the Lakers hired Phil Jackson in 1999, Bryant was tipped off that his new coach sometimes asked video coordinators to edit random on-screen words into video packages viewed by the entire team before practice. Jackson would then ask a particular player which word just flashed on the screen, the equivalent of a pop quiz for multi-millionaire athletes. - Ben Casnocha

The rule seems to be: Mutual understanding and the human touch are in inverse relationship to frequency of encounter and kinship. The closer my blood tie is with someone, the more impersonal is the relationship. At first, this seems counter-intuitive. What has happened to the strength of blood tie, the cri du sang that even Voltaire made so much of? Well, the answer is quite simple. To my kin, I am less an individual than a biosocial type—brother, uncle, or grand uncle. To their spouses and children, I fall under the even broader category of "old man." - Ben Casnocha

list of things Paul's switched on - interesting - Ben Casnocha

'09 question - print - Ben Casnocha

As the fire continues to rage in financial markets, it is hard to imagine when Opportunity will reappear. But the truth is when everyone sees Opportunity; they are only seeing the reflection. True Opportunity appears at the market bottom, not at the top - Ben Casnocha

Far better than evite - same premise - Ben Casnocha