MetaFilter posts tagged with malcolmgladwell

"The purpose is not to substantiate but to enchant."

facehugger — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 13:50:20 -0800

We only wanted one thing from Jonah Lehrer: a story. He told it so well that we forgave him almost everything.

Don't even Blink...

Artw — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:04:22 -0800

Your brain on pseudoscience: the rise of popular neurobollocks

When contrarianism attacks

Sonny Jim — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:18:24 -0800

Malcolm Gladwell says that he got into journalism by accident, that his real dream was to work for an ad agency. “I decided I wanted to be in advertising. I applied to eighteen advertising agencies in the city of Toronto and received eighteen rejection letters, which I taped in a row on my wall,” he wrote in his What the Dog Saw. If true, then Gladwell didn’t fail at all. Rather, he has achieved his dream of becoming an ad man beyond all expectation.

The hidden histories of Malcolm Gladwell. [Previously.]

The Tripping Point

angrycat — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:26:28 -0800

Generate the next Malcolm Gladwell book. Perhaps soothing if one is annoyed at Gladwell's piece in the New Yorker last week regarding the nonimportance of twitter in Egypt's turmoil.

"A networked, weak-tie world is good at things like helping Wall Streeters get phones back from teen-age girls."

availablelight — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:46:07 -0800

Small Change: Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted. Earlier this summer, Golnaz Esfandiari examined the "Twitter Devolution" in Iran*. Anne Applebaum commented on the Twitter revolution that wasn't in Moldova last spring. Gladwell argues that social media is "terrific at the diffusion of innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, seamlessly matching up buyers and sellers, and the logistical functions of the dating world. But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism." *Previously

Gladwell for Dummies

defenestration — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:46:58 -0800

Such are the contradictions that seem to riddle not just Gladwell's thinking but the thinking on Gladwell's thinking, and perhaps even the thinking on thinking on that, and it is precisely these slippery but substantive contradictions that have allowed Gladwell to tout his revolutionary "big ideas" without couching them in anything so mundane as a logical, well-supported or otherwise sound argument. Gladwell for Dummies.

Folsomism vs. Activism

billysumday — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:15:42 -0800

Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism. An essay in the latest The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell. "Atticus Finch is faced with jurors who have one set of standards for white people like the Ewells and another set for black folk like Tom Robinson. His response is to adopt one set of standards for respectable whites like Boo Radley and another for white trash like Bob Ewell. A book that we thought instructed us about the world tells us, instead, about the limitations of Jim Crow liberalism in Maycomb, Alabama."

I'm good at that, I must be good at this too....

anotherpanacea — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:10:23 -0800

The Psychology of Overconfidence

Malcolm Gladwell on genius

louigi — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:42:11 -0800

Malcolm Gladwell asks: is there such a thing as pure genius? An essay (in fact, a book extract) on the how genius seems to very often be a combination of (a) some base level of ability, (b) lots and lots of practice, and (c) luck and circumstance. Rings true from the perspective of this mathematician, at least. Via.

Race and Intelligence, Redux

ubiquity — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:51:05 -0800

About a month ago, a MeFi FPP on this article sparked a controversy here on the usefulness of the concepts of IQ and race in determining whether some ethnic groups can be shown to be intrinsically less intelligent than others. Now James Flynn, discoverer of the Flynn effect, has written a book, What is Intelligence?, that settles many of the issues of this controversy. In this week's New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell summarizes Flynn's arguments succinctly in a review entitled "None of the Above: What IQ doesn't tell you about race."

2012: Stories From the Near Future

parudox — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:26:16 -0800

The inaugural New Yorker Conference, “2012: Stories From the Near Future,” took place on May 6 and 7, 2007. Here is an archive of videos from the event.

So Predictable

forallmankind — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:49:34 -0800

So Predictable - Malcolm Gladwell talks at the recent New Yorker Festival about success-predicting software for the music and film industries.

The man who thinks about thinking without thinking.

allan — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:55:44 -0800

Blinked is Malcom Gladwell's latest short, concept driven book about how instant judgements are often correct, but equally often dangerous. Two reviews on S****.com and S****.com [ad thingie to watch] make for great reading themselves. Gladwell's long been a favorite of mine, and I don't think I'm alone here. Previously cited works include one of the best essays I've ever read, about the ultimate pitchman.

luser — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 13:48:26 -0800

Malcom Gladwell's got a new one in the New Yorker about a guy whose investment strategy positions him to profit from unlikely and scary random catastrophes like 9/11. Its' not on newyorker.com, but the story's subject was kind enough to scan it and post it.

Malcolm Gladwell on JFK Jr's Crash

lockecito — Tue, 26 Sep 2000 13:18:46 -0800

Malcolm Gladwell on JFK Jr's Crash New from the New Yorker. Actually the article talks mostly about the difference between choking and panicking, mostly in Sports. Still, the discussion about the plane crash is the most fascinating. Perhaps thats because of my morbid fascination with plane crashes:

Chapter 1 of "Inmates Are Running the Asylum" by Alan Cooper (American Crash in Cali, Colombia).... Bruce Tognazzini on Interfaces that Kill (John Denver).... The Lessons of ValuJet 592 by the masterful William Langweische.... The same Mr. Langweische has a book called "Inside the Sky: Meditations on Flight" which looks interesting.

The New-Boy Network

joeclark — Wed, 28 Jun 2000 18:42:17 -0800

The New-Boy Network Finally, the Malcolm Gladwell article describing - all at once! - hiring in the software industry and the scientific basis of first impressions ia onliné. I discussed this very story with a recruitrix from MSN just today. It cast a bit of a pall over an otherwise surprisingly pleasant and reassuring interview (held after hours in a café with me wearing shorts). But I digress.