Time traveler: Rebuilding civilization

Consider the following:

You are a time traveler on assignment to explore the future. You travel to the year 5847 but discover that the world as you know it has been destroyed by some catastrophic event and only a few men and women have survived. They live a very primitive existence and have no record or memory of the past.

You decide to help rebuild civilization but you are only able to make one trip back and forth through time. On the trip back, which can encompass any years between the dawn of time and this year, you may collect whatever items you believe will be useful in your quest, such as:

• living things,
• printed material,
• toilet paper,
• food, and so forth.

Here is your dilemma... the time machine has a severe weight restriction and no more than 200 pounds of material can be carried through time with you. You will need to choose wisely.

What will you take into the future?

See also:

• The future according to Kurzweil
• Just how safe is nanotechnology

My Picks: Best science articles of 2009

Top 10 science stories based on the number of times users bookmarked the same article as myself on Delicious (with a count of at least 50 at time of this post)

Our world may be a giant hologram
By Marcus Chown for New Scientist
Jan 15, 2009
Saved by 470 users

Culture May Be Encoded in DNA
By Lizzie Buchen for Wired Science
May 3, 2009
Saved by 116 users

Timeline: The evolution of life
By Michael Marshall for NewScientist
July 14, 2009
Saved by 97 users

We are all mutants say scientists
By Sudeep Chand for BBC News
Sept 2, 2009
Saved by 91 users

Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man
By John Markoff for The New York Times
July 25, 2009
Saved by 85 users

Zoo chimp 'planned' stone attacks
Author not cited for BBC News
March 9, 2009
Saved by 83 users

What Makes You Uniquely "You"?
By Susan Kruglinski for Discover
Jan 16, 2009
Saved by 77 users

How Neanderthals met a grisly fate: devoured by humans
By Robin McKie for The Observer
May 17, 2009
Saved by 76 users

"Bizarre" Octopuses Carry Coconuts as Instant Shelters
By Matt Kaplan for National Geographic
Updated December 15, 2009
Saved by 70 users

Out of LSD? Just 15 Minutes of Sensory Deprivation Triggers Hallucinations
By Hadley Leggett for Wired Science
October 21, 2009
Saved by 69 users

Happy New Year, everyone!

Need a little inspiration?

I've been familiarizing myself with the visual diagram tool from Inspiration Software, during the Christmas break and I think I'm actually going to find it quite useful.

The program allows you to visually plan, organize and present related ideas or concepts through a variety of different mapping tools and it actually has a lot more under the hood than I originally expected.

One of the things I found especially useful was the ability to easily convert the visual diagram into a text outline at the click of a button. It's a handy feature that outputs something similar to the screenshot below:

The outline and/or diagram (including any notes you've added) can then be transferred into a word document. I suspect it will work with any word processor that is Microsoft compatible as I use OpenOffice and it opened fine. Additionally, you can also export to web, graphic or presentation format, although I wasn't able to test those features with the trial version.

The program has a built-in spell check, dictionary and thesaurus and includes a variety of templates for different types of diagrams including concept maps, idea webs, comparison charts, venn diagrams, etc, etc. You can even set hyperlinks within the diagram to link to web pages, email or other documents.

It's a relatively easy program to work with (and it's affordable) but you really have to see it for yourself in order to know whether or not it's right for you. You can download a free trial of Inspiration for both Windows and Mac.

See also:

• Visual search tool from Google

Nothing much is private these days

I see California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently passed a new law that will fine paparazzi for taking or selling photos that invade a celebrities right to privacy. Kudos to him, but in my opinion the new law doesn't go nearly far enough to protect the rights of those under the scrutiny of the public eye. Yeah I know, freedom of the press and all that, but just look at the whole Woods fiasco!

Far be it for me to complain about all the rag reporting going on about him these past few weeks, but it's really disgusting how little privacy this man and his family have had lately. Even more disgusting that Joe Public feels that Woods should be held accountable to the masses for something that is, quite frankly, nobody's business but his own.

So utterly relentless was the media attention, that Woods felt the need to publicly apologize for his indiscretions on his website. Poor move... all that really did was cement the public's misguided belief that he somehow owed them atonement for being the less than perfect role model they'd expected. The man clearly doesn't owe the public anything, least of all an apology for being human and having personal issues, so get over it already.

Speaking of privacy issues, I can't believe advocates are still up in arms over the recent changes to Facebook's new privacy controls. The new options allow users to choose a different privacy setting for each piece of information they post to their profile, while leaving a few odd components publicly searchable. Personally, I don't have a huge problem with the new settings nor do I think that Facebook should be held entirely accountable for the stupidity of it's users. Rather than pointing fingers at social media sites like Facebook, users need to realize that accountability starts with them.

If you don't want private information made publicly available, then the answer is simple... don't post it! There are other methods of sharing information that don't necessarily include making it visible to the entire world. Think before you post. Ask yourself:

Is this something that might embarrass me or someone close to me, if made publicly available?

Is this something that could potentially end my career or damage my professional reputation?

Is this something that I would want my parents, children or spouse to see?

You're the only one that has complete control over the personal information you choose to provide on Facebook, or any other social network, for that matter. Make that choice, carefully!

See also:

• Facebook link to lower GPA's debunked as mere media hype 

When concentration becomes a liability

A common misconception about individuals with Attention-Deficit Disorder (ADHD) is that they are unable to sustain concentration or focus for long periods. Some, however, actually have a unique ability to be able to concentrate with such intensity, that they can literally block out the world around them for hours at a time. This tendency to become explicitly absorbed in a single task, to the exclusion of all else, is called "hyperfocus"; concentration in it's most extreme form.

Image courtesy of xenia/morgueFile

While there doesn't appear to be much research available on the subject, the idea seems to be a generally accepted one and may be linked to a deficiency in the neurotransmitter, dopamine.

"Like distractibility, hyperfocus is thought to result from abnormally low levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is particularly active in the brain's frontal lobes. This dopamine deficiency makes it hard to "shift gears" to take up boring-but-necessary tasks."

For those individuals who have the ability to channel hyperfocus, it can be quite advantageous as it allows them to redirect all of their attention on activities that are productive like writing term papers, or meeting project deadlines, etc.

That said, being able to "tune out" to such an extreme degree can also have undesirable consequences. It's often very difficult to get someone's attention while they're in a state of intense concentration and they can become so absorbed in what they are doing that you have to physically intervene in some way, to "break the spell."

It's been said that being in an advanced state of concentration is not inherently dangerous but this writer would like to point out that, given the right circumstances, the opposite may very well hold true. A pan of grease left unattended on a hot burner, for instance, could end in disaster for someone whose attention is completely fixed on other endeavors. The person may not even realize that a fire has started or that smoke has filled the house until it's too late. We've probably all been in a similar situation where we've gotten so engaged in one thing that we "forgot" to attend to some other matter, but for the person who is prone to "tuning out" on a regular basis, it can be a serious problem which needs to be addressed.

Missed appointments, skipped meals, inattention to daily chores, inability to switch tasks easily and even isolation can be quite common in the intense focuser. When all of their concentration is being deliberately aimed on a specific task, nothing else exists for them.

Individuals who often display these tendencies are likely to expend great amounts of mental energy on maintaining such intense focus over prolonged periods and it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that they also experience higher incidents of exhaustion and other stress-related health conditions.

Intervention strategies are relatively simple to apply and may involve anything from having someone interrupt them verbally or physically at regular intervals, setting alarms or buzzers to ensure regular breaks, setting pop up messages on the computer screen or even using phone/text messaging to get their attention.

Be advised, however, that touching someone who is in this state can startle them with such an abrupt force that unintentional reflex reactions can occur, and more than likely... that person will become extremely annoyed with you. Speaking from personal experience, physical contact should probably be left as a last resort.

Generally speaking, "unrestrained intense focus" can be very counter productive but if managed properly it can be turned into an asset rather than a liability.