"You have no idea how big that is. This is giant on a scale where it's not just that we can't see what's doing it; it's that the entire makeup of the universe as we understand it can't be right if this is happening."
posted by WCityMike on Sep 1, 2009 - 84 comments

Best Buy Bodhisattva. [more inside]
posted by chunking express on Dec 19, 2007 - 74 comments

Order from chaos! Fill a cylindrical bucket with water and make it so the bottom can spin. At certain speeds, stable regular polygonal shapes will spontaneously form at the turbulent surface of the water. See the video. [2.6MB avi] [via last week's PRL]
posted by sergeant sandwich on May 10, 2006 - 28 comments

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Author of the excellent book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" which investigates the phenomenon of the happiness of doing, how the balance between stress/anxiety and slack/boredom effect experience and happiness, and how we can all use it to our advantage.
posted by loquacious on Mar 22, 2006 - 32 comments

Flow in Games: a Jenova Chen MFA thesis
'This site is currently focused on Jenova's MFA thesis research. It is about inventing new methodologies usable by the frontline game designers to help realizing dynamic flow experiences for different individuals and more importantly for potential gamers who are still out of the current video game market.'
Try the experimental game fl0w (instructions, more info, discussion). Learn more about the thesis methodology, or take a look at some further reading. [warning: site appears to be under development somewhat] (see also)

posted by MetaMonkey on Mar 12, 2006 - 24 comments

A certain psychologist of Hungarian extraction, Mihaly Csikszentimihaly--sounds like stoned sex-crazed muppet: Me High-ee! Chicks sent me highee!--began by monitoring the activities and emotional states of talented adolescent artists with what became known as experience sampling forms, now available in a new, improved hi tech version. He found people reported the greatest satisfaction when actively involved in a challenging task that stretches abilities, to the extent that time, space, and self-awareness become secondary to the accomplishment of the task. He wrote a book about it, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, which flew off the shelves in the Self Help sections of bookstores everywhere--even though there were no easy steps nor Idiots Guide To... included beyond an academic enunciation of the parameters involved: the zone of experience in which Flow existed. [More Within]
posted by y2karl on Oct 10, 2003 - 22 comments

FLOW is a spiffy flash-animated music video thingamabob, if you're into that kinda thing. Very clickable.
posted by apollonia6 on Mar 10, 2002 - 14 comments