Mind Hacks, The Real Story
December 7, 2004 10:07 PM Subscribe
The folks who hacked Amazon, Ebay, Google, Linux and TiVo have now Hacked Your Head. Yup, it's an O'Reilly book (no, not THAT O'Reilly Hack). 8 of the 100 Hacks are online, including the Elevator Button Analogy (pdf format). And they've got a blog, with some extra hackery. Free your mind. Forcibly, if needed.
via GleepGlop
via GleepGlop
allow me to refer you to, ahem, exhibit A - battle raging since this afternoon. currently planning cunning rally.
posted by GleepGlop at 10:18 PM on December 7, 2004
posted by GleepGlop at 10:18 PM on December 7, 2004
This, my friend GG, is how it's done. Nice work, wendell.
posted by mek at 10:21 PM on December 7, 2004
posted by mek at 10:21 PM on December 7, 2004
pepsi blue filter!
posted by angry modem at 10:21 PM on December 7, 2004
posted by angry modem at 10:21 PM on December 7, 2004
LOL
And so the the day of infamy continues ....
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 10:21 PM on December 7, 2004
And so the the day of infamy continues ....
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 10:21 PM on December 7, 2004
I haven't implemented these hacks yet, so I'm probably missing something, but this is like a collection of 100 different phenomena/circuits that the mind uses. I don't see how one is supposed to make use of these features. What am I supposed to do about/with neural noise or eye saccades?
posted by Gyan at 10:26 PM on December 7, 2004
posted by Gyan at 10:26 PM on December 7, 2004
perhaps tomorrow, when i am in better spirits for such things, i will, er, say some stuff about this topic
posted by GleepGlop at 10:27 PM on December 7, 2004
posted by GleepGlop at 10:27 PM on December 7, 2004
[this is slightly better]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:29 PM on December 7, 2004
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:29 PM on December 7, 2004
No way is this post serious. No way.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:35 PM on December 7, 2004
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:35 PM on December 7, 2004
I guess this could have been titled "Neat things about your Perception" I haven't read the book and it looks cool but far more interesting to me personally are the really scary and powerful "mind hacks" used by people in business and religion: "How to get someone to adore you even though you treat them like dirt by stepping into a parental role" etc. Some of the things covered, for example, in Greene's Laws of Power but with a more scientific basis.
posted by vacapinta at 10:38 PM on December 7, 2004
posted by vacapinta at 10:38 PM on December 7, 2004
The scariest thing about this new book is that it's the strongest sign yet that the O'Reilly Hacks series is going the way of the "for Dummies" books. Coming soon: "Wine Appreciation Hacks".
posted by wendell at 10:42 PM on December 7, 2004
posted by wendell at 10:42 PM on December 7, 2004
This is awesome stuff. The Seredip website they mention in the blind spot pdf has all sorts of amazing stuff to check out.
The pdf on coffee addiction is especially interesting to me. I have half a mind to buy this book, even though it looks like most of it is not too new or surprising.
posted by painquale at 11:22 PM on December 7, 2004
The pdf on coffee addiction is especially interesting to me. I have half a mind to buy this book, even though it looks like most of it is not too new or surprising.
posted by painquale at 11:22 PM on December 7, 2004
Why have we evolved the inability to tickle ourselves? The force generation experiment shows that sensations that are externally caused are enhanced.
Oh, I get it. Your experiment shows that it's funnier when someone else tickles me because my sensation of being tickled is enhanced when someone else tickles me.
The force generation experiment shows that? That's quite the hack.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:08 AM on December 8, 2004
Oh, I get it. Your experiment shows that it's funnier when someone else tickles me because my sensation of being tickled is enhanced when someone else tickles me.
The force generation experiment shows that? That's quite the hack.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:08 AM on December 8, 2004
my mind has been hacked several times. i wake up in the morning with no memory of who or what i am, with a phrase like "p\/\/n3d LOL Sh0utZ & gr33tz to our l33t -=[CReW]=-" floating in my head for no good reason. typically several hours elapse before i'm myself again.
posted by ori at 12:32 AM on December 8, 2004
posted by ori at 12:32 AM on December 8, 2004
If you get paid $10 a day, it’ll take 90 days to get the money for the holiday. If you get a raise of $5, you could afford the holiday in 60 days—30 days sooner. If you got two $5 raises, you’d be able to afford the holiday in 45 days—only 15 days sooner than how long it would take with just one $5 raise. The time until you can afford a holiday gets shorter as your wage goes up, but it gets shorter more slowly, and if you do the math it turns out to be an example of Pieron’s Law.
Stop the raises, or I’ll never get my vacation! This Pieron guy—he’s a lawyer?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:36 AM on December 8, 2004
Stop the raises, or I’ll never get my vacation! This Pieron guy—he’s a lawyer?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:36 AM on December 8, 2004
Actually, that part about Pieron's Law and pay raises had me concerned too.
What he's describing here of course, is the (economic) law of decreasing marginal utility. (If I have one computer, I'd love to have another, yet another would make me even happier, and so on, but by the time I get the seventh, I'll be less joyed about the increment than I was about the third.)
I think Pieron's law is an example of the law of decreasing marginal utility--the stronger a stimulus is, the more useful it is to your brain, until a point where it's beyond obvious--not the other way round.
Pay hikes aren't random neural stimuli for your brain to seize on; they are reasoned out rationally.
Of course, both may be generalized as a law of diminishing returns.
posted by Firas at 1:04 AM on December 8, 2004 [1 favorite]
What he's describing here of course, is the (economic) law of decreasing marginal utility. (If I have one computer, I'd love to have another, yet another would make me even happier, and so on, but by the time I get the seventh, I'll be less joyed about the increment than I was about the third.)
I think Pieron's law is an example of the law of decreasing marginal utility--the stronger a stimulus is, the more useful it is to your brain, until a point where it's beyond obvious--not the other way round.
Pay hikes aren't random neural stimuli for your brain to seize on; they are reasoned out rationally.
Of course, both may be generalized as a law of diminishing returns.
posted by Firas at 1:04 AM on December 8, 2004 [1 favorite]
Here's an incredibly neat hack I've experienced dealing with eye saccades actually:
Get eye tracking software that can detect eye saccades (any decent psych lab will have this)
Show something on the screen
Set it up so that you totally change the object on the screen during any eye saccade.
The person WILL NOT NOTICE the object changing.
When they did this to me in the psych lab, it took quite a bit of work to convince me that the object had actually changed. Note: this hack is not easy to set up :)
posted by JZig at 1:07 AM on December 8, 2004
Get eye tracking software that can detect eye saccades (any decent psych lab will have this)
Show something on the screen
Set it up so that you totally change the object on the screen during any eye saccade.
The person WILL NOT NOTICE the object changing.
When they did this to me in the psych lab, it took quite a bit of work to convince me that the object had actually changed. Note: this hack is not easy to set up :)
posted by JZig at 1:07 AM on December 8, 2004
Firas, psychology aside, if you add fixed amounts to an accumulating total, they will progressively become a smaller percentage of that total. If I get the two $5 raises at the same time, is one still worth less than the other? Which one? If the raises are expressed as a percentage, the mystery disappears.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:19 AM on December 8, 2004
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:19 AM on December 8, 2004
I'm disappointed. I wanted to liquid nitrogen cool and overclock my brain, maybe add some nifty neon lights and Jacob's ladder but this book doesn't seem to even broach that subject.
posted by substrate at 2:39 AM on December 8, 2004
posted by substrate at 2:39 AM on December 8, 2004
my daughter has asperger's. Everything she has done to overcome her disability has been a "mind hack". It would be cool if we could find some hacks to help her with the stuff that is still really hard for her.
[this is my first commet. yay]
posted by gminks at 3:36 AM on December 8, 2004
[this is my first commet. yay]
posted by gminks at 3:36 AM on December 8, 2004
This looks functionally like my introductory Cognitive Psychology text I used as an undergrad, but written for a lay population.
posted by trey at 4:26 AM on December 8, 2004
posted by trey at 4:26 AM on December 8, 2004
going the way of the "for Dummies" books
Yesindeedexackly. I wish they'd focus on the weighty reference tomes they used to be so good at. (Used to be whatever the language, I could just pick the book with the animal on it and know I had the best one available. Lately, though I've gotten a few duds, and actually have to shop around. (For XSLT I catch myself reaching for the Wrox book a lot more often; XSLT Cookbook was a joke; Learning Cocoa was just the docs that came with XCode with a dog on the cover.)
If they're going to aim for the kiddie end of the swimming pool, I wish they'd at least keep 'em separate from the real books.
posted by ook at 7:31 AM on December 8, 2004
Yesindeedexackly. I wish they'd focus on the weighty reference tomes they used to be so good at. (Used to be whatever the language, I could just pick the book with the animal on it and know I had the best one available. Lately, though I've gotten a few duds, and actually have to shop around. (For XSLT I catch myself reaching for the Wrox book a lot more often; XSLT Cookbook was a joke; Learning Cocoa was just the docs that came with XCode with a dog on the cover.)
If they're going to aim for the kiddie end of the swimming pool, I wish they'd at least keep 'em separate from the real books.
posted by ook at 7:31 AM on December 8, 2004
I personally believe that 'Mind Hacks' is nothing short of the most significant book to have been released in recent history, and that its authors and contributors are surely gods among us all. Especially the guy who wrote chapter 72.
Yeah, that's right - me!
And what's this about the 'kiddie end of the swimming pool'? Granted, Mind Hacks has nothing to do with computers or programming and perhaps they could have made a better choice in which series to publish it, but I've had a look through it and I was very impressed with the content. Furthermore, I Am A Neuroscientist (or was one until 3 months ago).
posted by adrianhon at 7:58 AM on December 8, 2004
Yeah, that's right - me!
And what's this about the 'kiddie end of the swimming pool'? Granted, Mind Hacks has nothing to do with computers or programming and perhaps they could have made a better choice in which series to publish it, but I've had a look through it and I was very impressed with the content. Furthermore, I Am A Neuroscientist (or was one until 3 months ago).
posted by adrianhon at 7:58 AM on December 8, 2004
... the O'Reilly Hacks series is going the way of the "for Dummies" books.
Book-writing Hacks.
posted by me3dia at 8:49 AM on December 8, 2004
Book-writing Hacks.
posted by me3dia at 8:49 AM on December 8, 2004
XSLT Cookbook was a joke; Learning Cocoa was just the docs that came with XCode with a dog on the cover.)
There's your problem... using the Learning and Cookbooks series, one meant to teach beginners, one meant to provide code snippets for beginners. Neither are reference books. Stick with the Definitive books for that; they're still good.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 9:13 AM on December 8, 2004
There's your problem... using the Learning and Cookbooks series, one meant to teach beginners, one meant to provide code snippets for beginners. Neither are reference books. Stick with the Definitive books for that; they're still good.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 9:13 AM on December 8, 2004
What's this about the 'kiddie end of the swimming pool'?
Okay, maybe this book is just groovy for what it is -- especially chapter 72 of course -- and I'm just expecting different stuff from O'Reilly... but the whole "Hacks" series just seems to be aiming at a market well covered by the "For Dummies" and "...in 24 hours!" series, and it feels like it's watering down the rest of the catalog.
There's your problem... using the Learning and Cookbooks series, one meant to teach beginners, one meant to provide code snippets for beginners.
I've got nothing against books for beginners; I'm often a beginner myself. My complaint is that they're not as good as they used to be.
The Perl Cookbook is still one of my most well-thumbed reference books -- it's an excellent reference for "What's the Perl way to do this particular task" (as opposed to the also-useful Definitive-style reference for "what are the details about this particular function?) I hoped for the same from the XSLT Cookbook, but instead got a book full of useful functions like converting dates to the Julian or Hebrew calendars, or converting roman numerals. It didn't read like a collection of useful XSLT idioms, it read in large part like a collection of whatever the author happened to be interested in, implemented in XSLT.
I bought Learning Cocoa precisely because I was a beginner. At the end of Learning Perl oh so many years ago, I felt like I understood perl. At the end of Learning Cocoa, I understood how to work the three example programs described in the book, and I understood that I'd been ripped off because the same exact examples had come with the developer documentation on the OSX CD. Maybe the fact that the author credit is "Apple Computer, Inc." should've tipped me off, but the book was just not up to the standard I've come to expect from O'Reilly (which, admittedly, is very very high.)
posted by ook at 10:22 AM on December 8, 2004
Okay, maybe this book is just groovy for what it is -- especially chapter 72 of course -- and I'm just expecting different stuff from O'Reilly... but the whole "Hacks" series just seems to be aiming at a market well covered by the "For Dummies" and "...in 24 hours!" series, and it feels like it's watering down the rest of the catalog.
There's your problem... using the Learning and Cookbooks series, one meant to teach beginners, one meant to provide code snippets for beginners.
I've got nothing against books for beginners; I'm often a beginner myself. My complaint is that they're not as good as they used to be.
The Perl Cookbook is still one of my most well-thumbed reference books -- it's an excellent reference for "What's the Perl way to do this particular task" (as opposed to the also-useful Definitive-style reference for "what are the details about this particular function?) I hoped for the same from the XSLT Cookbook, but instead got a book full of useful functions like converting dates to the Julian or Hebrew calendars, or converting roman numerals. It didn't read like a collection of useful XSLT idioms, it read in large part like a collection of whatever the author happened to be interested in, implemented in XSLT.
I bought Learning Cocoa precisely because I was a beginner. At the end of Learning Perl oh so many years ago, I felt like I understood perl. At the end of Learning Cocoa, I understood how to work the three example programs described in the book, and I understood that I'd been ripped off because the same exact examples had come with the developer documentation on the OSX CD. Maybe the fact that the author credit is "Apple Computer, Inc." should've tipped me off, but the book was just not up to the standard I've come to expect from O'Reilly (which, admittedly, is very very high.)
posted by ook at 10:22 AM on December 8, 2004
At the end of Learning Perl oh so many years ago, I felt like I understood perl.
Yes, but this was an illusion. Nobody really understands Perl. At least with the Cocoa book, you weren't fooled.
posted by kindall at 11:51 AM on December 8, 2004
Yes, but this was an illusion. Nobody really understands Perl. At least with the Cocoa book, you weren't fooled.
posted by kindall at 11:51 AM on December 8, 2004
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posted by LarryC at 10:15 PM on December 7, 2004