Not every blog I read is pompous and intellectual. Today I want to point you to Kyle, who took a picture of a book mis-filed in the Windows subsection of the Poetry section of his Barnes and Noble. Kyle is a math teacher in LA, living the Stand and Deliver life.

Also take a look at the blog of frequent commenter Theo, who knows how to make the best of working in a cubicle. Or at least, to make the best of spending time in a cubicle.

It's not about talent, it's about hard work:

Attributing poor performance to a lack of ability depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is to blame. In 1972, when I taught a group of elementary and middle school children who displayed helpless behavior in school that a lack of effort (rather than lack of ability) led to their mistakes on math problems, the kids learned to keep trying when the problems got tough. They also solved many of the problems even in the face of difficulty. Another group of helpless children who were simply rewarded for their success on easy problems did not improve their ability to solve hard math problems. These experiments were an early indication that a focus on effort can help resolve helplessness and engender success.

This has certainly been true for whatever academic success I've had. I've never felt innately good at math, just willing to put in the time to learn about it. It's fascinating, and hopeful, that this attitude might help with relationships as well:

Mind-set can affect the quality and longevity of personal relationships as well, through people’s willingness—or unwillingness—to deal with difficulties. Those with a fixed mind-set are less likely than those with a growth mind-set to broach problems in their relationships and to try to solve them, according to a 2006 study I conducted with psychologist Lara Kammrath of Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario. After all, if you think that human personality traits are more or less fixed, relationship repair seems largely futile. Individuals who believe people can change and grow, however, are more confident that confronting concerns in their relationships will lead to resolutions.

More reflections on coffee:

From that moment on, everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink. Could that passage have been written on decaf?

The whole essay is like that, a little over the top. She spends several hundred words describing the process of brewing coffee with a French press in great detail as if it's some obscure medieval ritual no one has heard of. But if you have a few extra minutes, it's an entertaining read, especially the part where the advantages of caffeine over alcohol are discussed.

Good news about Rwanda and coffee.

Selling sleep:

Sleep may finally be claiming its place beside diet and exercise as both a critical health issue and a niche for profitable consumer products.

They persuade us that we're sleeping poorly and then sell us stuff to fix it. It's interesting that the new sleep drugs might work partly by causing amnesia - if you don't remember tossing and turning, then you must have slept peacefully.

This piece tells the same story about depression and anxiety drugs. All the profit incentives press toward describing new disorders; there's no incentive to say that some condition is normal.

Ronald Bailey gives an overview of ways to quench our thirst for fuel.

You would think that people who are more educated, wealthier, and more politically engaged - you know, cosmopolitan - have more contact with opposing points of view. But no, it turns out the elite life is an echo chamber.

You're scared of genetically modified food, so you eat organic. There's only one problem:

One of the most effective standard methods of breeding to obtain improved crops is to bombard seeds and plants with gamma rays to alter their DNA by causing mutations, some of which can then be selected for a desired trait. (Incidentally, organic farmers, in their desire to avoid artificial chemicals, are even more dependent than conventional farmers on crop varieties generated by irradiation.) Irradiation alters both chromosome structure and genome sequence in a way that is quite random. Moreover, there is no legal requirement to test such irradiated products either for effects on health or for what they might do to the environment. By contrast, genetic modification in the laboratory introduces a well-characterised gene or genes into an established genetic background without big disruption.

Students are not internally motivated, so we should bribe them to do well.

According to Blogger, this is my 500th post. To mark the occasion, I'm asking my huge audience for feedback. What have been your favorite and least favorite posts? Should I quit blogging completely? Should my posts be longer or stay the same length?

Sure, diversity is good. But if you have to choose between social cohesion and diversity, dump diversity:

People who celebrate diversity (and its parallel, multiculturalism) are endorsing only one part of what it means to be a complete human being, neglecting morality (and its parallel, group and national pride). Just as we cannot be whole persons if we deny the fundamental rights of others, so we cannot be whole persons if we live in ways that discourage decency, cooperation, and charity.

I mentioned this study before, but the article I'm linking here is better and more interesting.