Internal Monologue

I missed this when it came out two years ago:

I actually got this right. Maybe that's a clue!

If you're a US soldier in Afghanistan, and you limit yourself to 3-4 hours a day : The soldiers’ coping behaviors included a range of activities, like reading, listening to music, using Facebook and working out. But what proved to be the single most protective activity — the habit that best bolstered the soldiers’ mental resilience — was spending three to four hours a day playing videogames. A regular daily gaming habit corresponded with the overall lowest levels of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide attempts or domestic violence. And yet — and here’s where we see too much of a good thing — for soldiers playing more than 28 hours a week, there was a steep decrease in the protective benefits of gaming. Indeed, 40 hours a week or more was predictive of significant psychological distress. This is some good news, after hearing about this depressing finding : Recreational sitting, as reflected by television/screen viewing time, is related to raised m

The red-on-black look of the old interface was generating a lot of negative feedback, so I switched it to something more conventional.

photo by Christopher Irion Announcing a performance of Dust Storm : Art and Survival in a Time of Paranoia by Rick Foster with images by Chiura Obata. Performed by Zachary Drake by special arrangement with AEA. Tuesday evening April 12th 8pm Sonoma State University Warren Auditorium. Free and open to the public. There will only be about 50 additional seats available (the others will be taken by students). I'll post more information as I find out more.

Ezra Klein on Republican efforts to undermine the credibility of the CBO: But beneath it is something more insidious: an effort to discredit the last truly neutral, truly respected scorekeeper in Washington. The facts don't support the particular case the Republicans want to make, so they're trying to take down the people who supply the facts. But once that's done, it can't easily be undone. And the true loser will be the very thing Republicans claim to care most about: the deficit. If getting the CBO's seal of approval ceases to matter, then political parties will cease to try. That's when the "smoke and mirrors" will really begin: when bills just have to sound good rather than pencil out. When there are no skeptical budget experts sending legislation back to the authors with a note that says, "Sorry, not there yet." When policy debates are decided by who can yell the loudest rather than who can write the best bill. I am deeply

"[...]in the modern world productivity’s about organization as well as machines. Federal Express didn’t invent the airplane or the truck or the cardboard box, but they came up with a different way of putting it all together." - Matthew Yglesias