Ben Cuan

“Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just... See more

Our default waking mode (and also during dreaming phases of sleep) is not a brain at rest, but what is known as mind wandering.

Publish your results. If you are interested in an experiment’s results, there’s a good chance that other people are as well. When you publish the results, those people do not have to design and run a similar experiment themselves. It’s tempting and common to avoid reporting negative results because it’s easy to perceive that the experiment... See more

Seeing your ideas crumble can be a frustrating experience, but it is the point if you are writing to think. You want it to break. It is in the cracks the light shines in.

We already have hacker houses, and hacker houses can last for months or even years, but they usually only fit around ten or twenty people. We already have conferences, and conferences fit thousands of people, but each conference only lasts a week. That is enough time to have serendipitous meetings, but not enough to have connections with true... See more