Not only is the internet making you smarter - in fact, it is the only thing capable of saving our society. Thus argues David Eagleman in a speech given to the Long Now foundation in April (thanks to Sandboxer Eddie Harran for the link!). The internet can help the spread of diseases by enabling telepresence and telemedicine, prevent the loss of knowledge by digitizing everything, and allow more people to collectively work on a problem. I don't agree with all of Eagleman's ideas on how the internet is saving us - his case that the internet can prevent tyranny is especially weak - but the speech is very good food for thought, and I recommend reading through the whole PDF transcript, not just the short summary.

In a brilliant article that was published already 5 years ago, but that I have just discovered* and read, Malcolm Gladwell explores the logic of the admission processes at Ivy League universities. Contrary to other elite universities, Ivy League schools don't just select the best students from High Schools, but instead have a heavy emphasis on the "character" of applicants. Gladwell compares the Ivies - who had started to change their admissions policy in the 1920ies in order to prevent too many jews from entering - as smart managers of what essentially are luxury brands:

"The endless battle over admissions in the United States proceeds on the assumption that some great moral principle is at stake in the matter of whom schools like Harvard choose to let in—that those who are denied admission by the whims of the admissions office have somehow been harmed. [...] Élite schools, like any luxury brand, are an aesthetic experience—an exquisitely constructed fantasy of what it means to belong to an élite —and they have always been mindful of what must be done to maintain that experience."

Is the Internet making us stupid? This worry has been raised by several authors, most recently Nick Carr in his new book "The Shallows" (more on the book some other time). 

While humans fear to become more stupid, however, computers seem to get smarter: Clive Thompson presents "Watson" in a long NYT Magazine feature. Watson is a supercomputer developed by IBM; and he has been programmed to play, and often win, the TV game "Jeopardy". Interesting about Watson is the approach he takes, which apparently mimicks human brains: Instead of trying to compute one right answer to a question (which is what for example Wolfram Alpha is doing), Watson applies hundreds of different algorithms to come up with different possible answers within seconds - and then uses another set of algorithms to rank the answers for plausibility.

But it's not just computers; humans are also not getting dumber, as Carr argues, but indeed smarter, says Jamais Cascio in an article for The Atlantic. He proclaims the "Nöocene epoch", derived from the concept of the Nöosphere, the idea of a "collective consciousness created by the deepening interaction of human minds". The vastness of digital information combined with smart filters will allow us to overcome the "technology-induced ADD" that authors like Carr fear, and allow us to analyze complex problems in short time frames. Pharmacology is helping, too: Cascio claims that the sleep disorder drug Provigil has actually helped him think faster and more focused.

I just finished reading «Rework», the new book by the founders of web software company 37signals.

It's a good book. First of all, it is very short; reading it only takes around two hours. Also, it is written in this simple, clear, slightly repetitive language that just makes you nod in agreement while reading.

«Rework» consists of many short chapters, one to two pages long, that give you advice on how to run your business. Most are true. Many are obvious. Some are weird. Others redudant. The selection of my highlights: