Yesterday, I wrote about the impact of social network technology on the Iranian protests. It’s interesting to compare this past week’s events with other protests: Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (2004-05) China’s Tianamen Square Protests (1989) Czechosolovakia’s Velvet Revolution (1989) Poland’s Solidarity Movement (1980) Would Poland’s change have occured quicker if the union members and organizers had [...]

On Friday, Iran held presidential elections between four state-approved candidates. According to official results, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated his three opponents with an overwhelming 62.63% of the vote. However, over the weekend, there have been street protests by reformists raising wide-spread questions whether the vote tally was engineered to re-elect Ahmadinejad. Yet, the 24-hour US cable [...]

How do a community’s opinions change over time? Well, if we believe Malcolm Gladwell’s thesis of the Tipping Point, ideas slowly propagate through a network until they reach a moment where change seems to happen quite suddenly. Today, Andrew Gellman at fivethirtyeight.com takes a deep longitudinal look how perspectives on gay marriage have changed over [...]

Recent research shows that sleep really does help you solve complex, creative problems. If true, then it gives a strong argument for multitasking. Define project #1 and give yourself a framework. Shift to other projects for the rest of the day. Sleep on problem #1 with good REM sleep Return to problem #1. The amount [...]