Inside the brain of a mathophile

This video does the best job I’ve ever seen of capturing the feeling most “math people” have when they discover the math all around them and are in awe of it.

MSN vs. Darwinian Evolution

It occurred to me today that MSN in the workplace is not about enhancing efficiency.  MSNing takes much longer than just going over and talking to someone, and it is way less excercise.  That whole multitasking thing is bunk too because I can’t type in two windows at the same time, nor can I read two windows at the same time.

No, truly the reason MSN is so useful in a workplace is because it allows us to talk about our co-workers behind their backs.  Ok, you may be thinking that that sounds really strange and mean, but hear me out.  Sometimes it is necessary to talk about someone you work with with another person you also work with.  Sometimes these people work side-by-side.  And I don’t mean the kind of snide remarks you’d expect in high school, I mean the more useful “Can you help me talk to so-and-so about getting some of her time next week?”  Which would seem really rude if you just went up and talked to a person (or called from across the office).  But is also a necessary way of getting the resources you need when you need them.

I was listening to Quirks and Quarks the other day and they had this guy on who was talking about how bad humans are at telling that someone is lying.  He and other scientists theorize that this is actually a necessary feature of our species because we tend to live in small tight-knit communities.  If we could always tell that people were lying to us, then there would be a lot more conflict, but because we don’t necessarily pick up on every lie, the little white ones can smooth the rough edges and help us all get along better together.

I think this is what MSN does for the office.  You can ask about other people, talk about other people, all without having to make it a big public spectacle.