• Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman - an outline
  Cool site, they post outlines of books, quality looks decent too. Def should check this out more often.
• Studying the Brain Off the Grid, Professors Find Clarity
  5 neuroscience professors go river rafting for a week, no phones or email. Mr. Kramer says the group has become more reflective, quieter, more focused on the surroundings. “If I looked around like this at work, people would think I was goofing off,” he says. The others are more relaxed too. Mr. Braver decides against coffee, bypassing his usual ritual. The next day, he neglects to put on his watch, though he cautions against reading too much into it. “I sometimes forget to put my watch on at home, but in fairness, I usually have my phone with me and it has a clock on it.” Mr. Strayer, the believer, says the travelers are experiencing a stage of relaxation he calls “third-day syndrome.”
• Ezra Klein, on politicians and politics
  Campaigns are built to fool us into thinking that we're voting for individuals. We learn about the candidate's family, her job, her background -- even her dog. But we're primarily voting for parties. The parties have just learned we're more likely to vote for them if they disguise themselves as individuals. And American politics would work better if we understood that.
• The crisis in customer service : The New Yorker
  The real problem may be that companies have a roving eye: they’re always more interested in the customers they don’t have. So they pour money into sales and marketing to lure new customers while giving their existing ones short shrift, in an effort to minimize costs and maximize revenue. The consultant Lior Arussy calls this the “efficient relationship paradox”: it’s only once you’ve actually become a customer that companies put efficiency ahead of attention, with the result that a company’s current customers are often the ones who experience its worst service.
• Top Ten Typefaces of the Decade

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