A number of weeks ago, I wrote the first post on hacking my own happiness. I participated in a study conducted at Harvard, and the result was a bunch of data collected from real-life about what made me happy. In the last article, I took a super-high-level look at the...

This is part one of my series of experiments on happiness using Track your Happiness, a “scientific research project that aims to use modern technology” to help you understand what makes you happy. It is the project of doctoral candidate Matt Killingsworth at Harvard University. During the course of many...

I enjoy explaining to others just what it is that makes me enjoy learning and speaking Mandarin Chinese so much, as it is a language which is poorly understood. Shrouded in mystery in the west, we’re likely to see it employed as a “mystical” tattoo instead of as a communicative...

There is a lot of junk on the internet. Thankfully, there’s also quite a few interesting things.   From new scientific discoveries to cool products, this post is a round-up of things I’ve found lately around the internet that I liked a lot.         Finding Good Sci-Fi...

Nobody wants digital learning techniques (software, games etc.) to succeed more than me. I was formally trained in computer science and video game design, and readers of the blog know that neuroscience, human learning and foreign languages are all amongst my primary interests. I’ve even created a few iPhone apps...

  I have tried reading books in foreign languages before, such as when I was learning Spanish. Like most, I found it challenging. The number of unknown words and the sheer amount of confusion made it easy to give up, even with simple books. It seemed more like a chore...

We all know what the right decisions are, as well as what the wrong decisions or “cookies” in our life are.  The list of things we each intend to do is a long one: eat healthy, exercise, study and work hard, etc.  What fascinates me is why we so often...

Every once in a while it behooves even the kindest of people to be a bit of a jerk.  The world tries to pull us each in different directions, and often it becomes necessary to put a foot down – and sometimes this cannot be done whilst maintaining the finest...

Sometimes experiments do not work out quite the way we expect.  The study drugs experiment is one of those cases.  It was fraught with problems, from shipping errors to technical problems to all-out hardware failures.   I do not consider the experiment to be a failure by any means.  I...

Creating a language bubble is a great way to make use of otherwise “wasted” time when learning a new language. One blogger has even used it to learn Japanese before ever arriving in Japan. The idea is to surround yourself as much as possible with the target language so the time...