Learning Tricks

"The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.


For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.


“We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.”"NY Times

Places to visit

"Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
This salt plain is the world’s largest and traps rainwater during wet winter months, creating a tripped-out sky mirror. " Matadortrips

Arts vs Gentrification

"Twenty years after it was squatted by a group of artists, Berlin's legendary Tacheles arts center faces the threat of closure. The building, which became famous as part of the city's heady 1990s counter-culture, has become the symbol of a new struggle against gentrification in Berlin."
Spiegel

Keep it shabby, please. You don't need gleaming new buildings - you need a place with soul and artistry in big cities like Berlin.

Youth Olympics 2010 Singapore

Youth Olympic pictures

Nightmare

"It will take at least four months to rescue 33 miners trapped underground in Chile, the head of the rescue operation has said.


Rescuers made contact with the miners by lowering a probe into the mine, 17 days after the men became trapped.


The miners, stuck in a mine shaft shelter some 700m (2,300ft) down, sent up a note saying they were all alive.


Rescuers are now preparing to drill a wider hole through which they can bring the miners to the surface." BBC

These miners have been trapped underground for 20 days now in complete darkness. I can't imagine the hell they are going through right now - and the fact that the recovery effort will take many more weeks are just heartbreaking.