Monday (Tuesday) Links: November 10th, 2008

Unlike this weekend’s leftovers in the fridge, Monday Links are still good on Tuesday:

• You didn’t need a scientific study to tell you that being outside is good for the mind.  But, well, the study exists anyway: [Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan]

[B]eing in natural settings restores our ability to exercise directed attention and working memory, which are crucial mental talents. The basic idea is that nature, unlike a city, is filled with inherently interesting stimuli (like a sunset, or an unusual bird) that trigger our involuntary attention, but in a modest fashion. Because you can’t help but stop and notice the reddish orange twilight sky – paying attention to the sunset doesn’t take any extra work or cognitive control – our attentional circuits are able to refresh themselves. A walk in the woods is like a vacation for the prefrontal cortex.

• Good magazine looks back at previous presidents’ accomplishments in their first 100 days in office with a cool graphic.  All the “first 100 days” talk seems a bit ridiculous to me, but here’s hoping… [Hat Tip: Matt Yglesias]

• The Republic of Maldives, sensing an uncertain future with rising sea levels threatening their islands, is allocating a portion of the national budget to purchasing land from neighbors.  As you might imagine, there are a number of complex laws at play here, and there’s no real precedent for a nation relocating because its homeland…drowned.

• This piece has been making the rounds in my Twitter network.  The title is provocative: “Recycling is Bullshit,” and it’s an interesting brief (albeit one dimensional) history of how we wound up emphasizing “recycle” over reduce and reuse (hint: think about which of those three requires the least amount of personal sacrifice…); a few teaser quotes:

Recycling is simply the transfer of producer responsibility for what they produce to the taxpayer who has to pick it up and take it away.

[...] All because Coke and Bud and Coors and the glass companies convinced us that they don’t fit in the circle of producer responsibility, where products are designed to be taken back.

• I’ve been using dual monitors at work for a while now (laptop screen and external monitor), but I just stumbled across this old Lifehacker post with great tips for making the most of multiple screens.

• Top Chef: The Computer Game is out just in time for this week’s premier.  Somebody buy it and let me know what it’s like to “cook” on your screen.  Good times.

• I love this blast-from-a-past-we’d-like-to-pretend-didn’t-exist look at Hanson 15 years after mmmmmmmmmmmmbop.  You have to hand it to them: in 1993, nobody in their right mind would have expected Hanson to be playing for sold out crowds in 2008. [Hat Tip: 37 Signals]