Dr. Wicked is putting the "Prod" in Productivity! "Write or Die is a web application that encourages writing by punishing the tendency to avoid writing. Start typing in the box. As long as you keep typing, you're fine, but once you stop typing, you have a grace period of a certain number of seconds and then there are consequences."

Interesting essay at Locusmag.

Pinktentacle.com has this for you:

"If houseplants could blog, what would they say? To find out, Kamakura-based IT company KAYAC Co., Ltd. has developed a sophisticated botanical interface system that lets plants post their thoughts online. A succulent Sweetheart Hoya (Hoya kerii) named “Midori-san” is now using the system to blog daily from its home at bowls Donburi Cafe in Kamakura.

The plant interface system, which is built around technology developed by Satoshi Kuribayashi at the Keio University Hiroya Tanaka Laboratory, uses surface potential sensors to read the weak bioelectric current flowing across the surface of the leaves. This natural current fluctuates in response to changes in the immediate environment, such as temperature, humidity, vibration, electromagnetic waves and nearby human activity. A specially developed algorithm translates this data into Japanese sentences, which are used as fodder for the plant’s daily blog posts.

Midori-san started blogging about a week ago. So far, the plant’s highly structured posts summarize the day’s weather, temperature and lighting conditions, describe its overall physical condition, tell how much light it received via the user-activated lamp (see below), and explain how much fun the day was. Each post also includes a self-portrait photo and a plant-themed pun (in Japanese), which Midori-san likely did not write. A graph at the top of the sidebar shows the plant’s surface potential in real-time."

Excellent article in the Scientific American for a lazy sunday:" Storytelling is a human universal, and common themes appear in tales throughout history and all over the the world.

These characteristics of stories, and our natural affinity toward them, reveal clues about our evolutionary history and the roots of emotion and empathy in the mind.

By studying narrative’s power to influence beliefs, researchers are discovering how we analyze information and accept new ideas."

TV Show Pitch Generator: "A coal miner who was a hero for a day befriends a chiropractor who refuses to bathe. Stars Jeff Goldblum and Carrot Top. Genre: Drama"

The Lost Theory Generator is pretty funny too.

Everything you never wanted to know about Sawyer and Sahid...

Steve Rubel about The Attention Crash

That's exactly why this blog took a break for a few weeks!

Writing 2.5! Give the monkeys more typewriters!

Write one word the first day, write two words the second day, write three words the third day etc. After a year you will have 66.795 words. That's more than most novels.

Sounds like a cool idea. I might give it a try.