Book Freak 168: The Idiot Brain

A Neuroscientist Explains What Your Head is Really Up To

Get The Idiot Brain

You probably feel normal most of the time, but below the surface, your brain is doing some extremely weird things. In his fascinating and funny book, The Idiot Brain, neuroscientist Dean Burnett guides us through the bizarre workings of our “idiot brains,” which often seems to work against us — from motion sickness to memory quirks to irrational fears. He reveals the latest research on how our gray matter functions (and malfunctions) and provides guidance on how the brain can help itself be a little smarter.

Four key pieces of advice from the book:

Memory is Egotistical

“Your memory often tweaks and adjusts the information it stores to make you look better, like a doting mother pointing out how wonderful her little Timmy was in the school play, even though little Timmy just stood there, picking his nose and dribbling.”

Our memories can be unreliable and biased towards making us look or feel better about ourselves. Be aware that your recollections may not always be as accurate as you think.

Embrace Randomness

“The brain really doesn’t handle randomness well. The brain seems to struggle with the idea that something can happen for no discernible reason other than chance. It might be yet another consequence of our brains seeking danger everywhere – if there’s no real cause for an occurrence then there’s nothing that can be done about it if it ends up being dangerous, and that’s not tolerable.

Recognize that our brains often try to find patterns or meaning where there may be none. Be aware that this tendency can lead to misinterpretations or false beliefs.

Depression Defies Logic

“Depression is not logical. Those describing suicide and depression as selfish apparently struggle with this concept, as if those with depression make a table or chart with the pros and cons of suicide and, despite there being more cons, selfishly opt for suicide anyway.”

Have compassion for those struggling with depression. Their experiences and decisions may not seem logical to others, but their suffering is real and shouldn’t be dismissed as selfishness.

Love is a Neurochemical High

“Being in love seems to elevate dopamine activity in the reward pathway, meaning we experience pleasure in our partner’s presence, almost like a drug. And oxytocin is often referred to as ‘the love hormone’ or similar, which is a ridiculous oversimplification of a complex substance, but it does seem to be elevated in people in relationships, and it has been linked to feelings of trust and connection in humans.”

Appreciate the powerful neurochemical effects of love and relationships. They can bring great joy, but also potentially cloud our judgment at times.

Danny Kim, Inventor

Show and Tell #406: Danny Kim

ABOUT DANNY KIM:
20+ years of vehicle architecture & prototype development. Inventor w/ 65 issued int’l patents, 22 USPTOs. Focus of HBS case study: Industrial design & sustainable transportation. Former Land Rover mechanic, machinist, woodworker, welder, and vehicle integrator. Reed College, UCB, RISD, & Media Lab.

LINKS:
LIT Motors
Wefunder
Flickr
Instagram
YouTube

TOOLS:
0:00 – Intro
1:19 – 48″ Margining steel lead screw shaft Rockwell 52 (AKA Handy File)
7:48 – Spectrum 375 Plasma Cutter (1/2″ lightsaber “Scissors’)
14:35 – Edwards 65 Ton Ironworker
16:07 – Miller MIG Welder
23:58 – Maybe cardboard would be a prototyping tool
23:49 – LIT Motors prototype

To sign up to be a guest on the show, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/qc496XB6bGbrAEKK7

5-year Thai Visa/Budget Airline Luggage Bundles/States With the Most Travelers

Nomadico issue #119

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

The Thailand Remote Work Visa Actually Works

I’ve been hesitant to post anything about the 5-year Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) because I couldn’t find a way to apply on any official site and hadn’t seen anyone talk about actually getting one. I’m happy to say both have changed, with simple application info in English here and a report from an employee of SafetyWing who actually got through the process and is all set. This is a big deal if it holds because it’s a 5-year multi-entry visa that only requires showing income proof of around $15K per year. No fat local bank deposit like the retiree visa requires.

Flying to the USA With a Dog

New rules from the CDC went into effect August 1 for anyone flying to the USA with a dog. It’s all about rabies, meaning you need to fill out a form if coming from a low-risk country, but more than that for the others: “All pets must be at least 6 months old, appear healthy upon arrival to the United States and have a microchip inserted before they are given a rabies vaccine.” See the details here.

Buying the Bundle With Budget Airlines

I got some notes back from readers last week about luggage charges when I wrote about the pros and cons of the Volaris Annual Pass. One trick that I thought was more known and is apparently not is that to get the lowest fees on luggage, you need to commit when you book your ticket. The best deal is going to be when the airline presents a bundle upgrade option, which Volaris, Viva Aerobus, Ryanair, and the budget Thai airlines do routinely. In the case of Volaris, an international ticket only will be one price, adding a carry-on will be $20 more, and a bundle with priority boarding, a checked bag and a carry-on will be $60 more (great if there are two of you and just one can pay for luggage). Last year I took the bundle offer on RyanAir and got a checked bag and a set assignment for around 30 euros each on two different flights.

States With the Most Travelers

The feeling that your friends and neighbors are all traveling overseas this year will be impacted a lot by where you live, according to this study of travel frequency for Americans. “Residents of New York and New Jersey travel overseas at roughly twice the national frequency. In 2023, New Yorkers made a total of 5.9 million trips to overseas destinations (301 per 1,000 residents), while New Jerseyans completed 2.7 million trips (291 per 1,000 residents). Other top states include Florida, Connecticut, and Virginia. The three states with the lowest rates of overseas travel are Mississippi, Arkansas, and Idaho, at about one-third the national average or lower. Which city is tops for traveling residents? Multi-cultural Miami takes the prize.

What’s in my NOW? — Sheryl O’Bryan

issue #184

Sign up here to get What’s in my NOW? a week early in your inbox.

Sheryl grew up in NY, moved to Cote d’Ivoire soon after college, and has worked with Third Culture Kids (TCKs) since 1988. She currently lives in Sebastian, FL where she loves driving with Mr. Bingley, her lizard loving pup.

PHYSICAL

• Fi Collar – my dog loves to explore the neighborhood and hunt for lizards with or without me. The Fi collar lets me locate him when he’s on an extended hunt. It also allows me to notify other Fi users that he’s lost. The app let’s me see where we walked or where he walked with the dog walker. I thought it was silly and indulgent at first, but now I love it.
• The Fudenosuke brush pen – especially the hard tip – helps me get my hand lettering game back on track when I’ve been lax in practicing. The harder tip ensures more consistency in the amount of pressure I need to apply for various line thickness. It also gives me more accuracy when trying new styles.
• Dashing Diva Manicure Stickers – They’re not for everyone, but if you love manicured nails and either hate paying for a manicure, hate what a gel manicure does to your nails, or can’t use nail polish with your non-dominant hand, these are the perfect solution to great looking nails.

DIGITAL

• Night Cafe Studio AI Art Generator – It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot of fun. It can be useful, too. I’ve used it to create images for character boards for the novel I’m plotting. When I can’t find the right picture for a social media post for work? Night Cafe Studio to the rescue!
• Libby app – I love books of all sorts, but making time to read is more arduous than I ever thought possible. Libby to the rescue! It links to your library card and gives you access to thousands if not millions of books. Currently, I’m listening to my 30th book of the year.

INVISIBLE

“Who are you from?”

I work with a lot of Global Nomads, and the “Where?” question is sometimes difficult. The “Who?” question is difficult at first, but eventually it opens up a literal world of influence when we think about all the places that impacted the people who impact us.

Triangle / The Natives Are Restless

Books That Belong On Paper Issue No. 29

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

TRIANGLE — A NEW BOOK ABOUT SOME VERY SNEAKY SHAPES

Triangle
by Mac Barnett, Jon Klassen (Illustrator)
Candlewick
2017, 48 pages, 9.0 x 0.5 x 9.0 inches, Hardcover

Buy on Amazon

Triangle is a rascally shape with a trick up his sleeve. Well, it would be, if he had any arms. Mac Barnett’s wily story and Jon Klassen’s eyes-tell-all illustrations make Triangle a really fun read-aloud for preschoolers, early elementary kids, and their adults.

Both the grown-ups and the kid in my house were eagerly awaiting this book — the latest collaboration between Barnett and Klassen. Both are crazy talented picture book makers who have consistently put out silly, thoughtful, beautiful books over the past few years, together and apart. This is the third book they’ve done as a duo (the previous two are Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, 2014, and Extra Yarn, 2012) and it feels a little different.

Aesthetically, in the tone of the text and the images, Triangle is much more reminiscent of Klassen’s Hat books than of Extra Yarn and Sam and Dave Dig a Hole. The main characters are shapes (keeping with Klassen’s typical non-human subjects) and the setting ranges from sparse snapshots to a simple yet stunning landscape of “shapes with no names.” (The brief traipse and chase through this land that lies between the neat, pointed places made of triangles and squares adds something magical to the book. That feeling is made even nicer when realizing that the magical place is the one most like our own.)

Amidst Klassen’s illustrations, Barnett’s voice is still quite present, especially in the dialogue. The reader can’t help but deliver Triangle’s lines with a mischievous sneer and Square’s with a tight-throated hand wringing, and that despite the characters’ lack of mouths or hands. This book clearly could have only been made by this particular author/illustrator team, and it makes me wonder if the story itself reflects some of the playfulness of their own relationship.

– Marykate Smith Despres

THE NATIVES ARE RESTLESS: A SAN FRANCISCO DANCE MASTER TAKES HULA INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

The Natives Are Restless: A San Francisco dance master takes hula into the twenty-first century
by Constance Hale
SparkPress
2016, 244 pages, 9.3 x 0.8 x 11.5 inches, Hardcover

Buy on Amazon

If the word “hula” makes you think of dark-haired maidens wearing little more than matching pairs of coconuts, strings of fragrant flowers, and loose grass skirts rustling beneath their rhythmically undulating hips, then you need to read The Natives Are Restless by Constance Hale. Lavishly illustrated, the book is not so much a rebuke to the stereotypes of the form as it is a window on new traditions that have sprung up around the old.

Born in Hawai’i and a student of hula since she was seven, Hale took classes as an adult with San Francisco hula teacher and choreographer Patrick Makuakāne, who founded the Nā Lei Hulu i ka Wēkiu dance company in 1985.The Natives Are Restless spends most of its 244 pages on Kumu Patrick, as Hale calls her teacher throughout the book, as well as his troupe, so Hale’s book is not a strictly objective work, as the author readily admits. But Hale’s personal passion for her subject works, as we learn how and why Kumu Patrick modernized the traditional form of hula to help his audiences better understand Hawaiian history and culture.

Take the chapter on the series of dances for which the book is named. In “The Natives Are Restless,” which premiered at San Francisco’s Cowell Theatre in 1996, Kumu Patrick took a pejorative and flipped it to expose the turmoil introduced into Hawaiian society by 19th-century missionary Hiram Bingham, who dismissed the native Hawaiians he encountered as “savages” and believed hula promoted promiscuity.

“We let another culture from thousands of miles away teach us to be ashamed,” Kumu Patrick tells Hale in an interview conducted for the book. In The Natives Are Restless, the resulting clash of cultures played out against a contemporary soundtrack that included electronic dance music and a song called “Salva Mea” by the British band Faithless. In one sequence, Kumu Patrick himself strode across the stage in the role of a black-robed priest, his wooden crucifix whipping the “natives” into a “restless” frenzy, as the tenets of the new faith foisted upon them tore at their identity as a people. Such ostensibly unlikely hula stories fill Hale’s book. For teacher and student alike, when hula goes beyond the coconuts, it has the power to heal.

– Ben Marks

World Travel

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 101

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

How it feels to vagabond

A Map for Saturday

Don’t watch this documentary unless you are ready to quit your job. It’s about the joys and woes of long-term traveling. It’s impossible to watch this fun film and not confront the fact that you are here instead of there, out on the road, soaking up the mysteries of the world, with all-you-can-eat $3 dinners and $5 rooms, backpacking around the world for a year, as the filmmaker himself did. This kind of vagabonding is more a state of mind than a state of motion. Something weird happens when you travel longer than 10 days, and that wonderful transformation (which no one can explain to their family when they return) is what this superbly written, fabulously edited, deeply personal and wonderfully likeable documentary is all about.

This film explores the mellow subculture of (mostly) young people who trek along an invisible international traveler’s circuit. There’s a kind of endless distributed global party going on every day of the year (plainly visible here), and to join it all you need is a ticket to any country and the address of the local hostel. I was part of this mind-set for many years and boy, does this film nail the peculiar delights of perpetual cheap travel. Not just the highs (everyday is Saturday, each new person an instant best friend), but also the lows (always saying goodbye, and loss of connection).

This DVD won’t give you the how-to specifics of vagabonding. For that I recommend First-Time Around the World. A Map for Saturday works best as an orientation course, offering inspiration on why to tackle this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. It’s the next best thing to having a good friend come back and tell you what really happens when you find yourself at the other end of the road. — KK

4-wheel adventurers

Overland Journal

Last month I helped out a guy stuck on Tioga pass get his vegetable oil powered Gelaendewagen back on the road. He showed me a copy Overland Journal and I was so impressed I subscribed and ordered all the back issues once I got home. To give you an idea of the flavor of the magazine, one of the contributing editors is the author of my previously reviewed Vehicle Dependent Expeditions book.

For anyone who does car camping, 4×4 exploring, vehicle trips abroad, or just enjoys armchair exploration, I cannot recommend this publication enough. It has amazing comprehensive comparison reviews of the type of gear no other publication would cover, ranging from vehicle rooftop tents to converting a LandCruiser to bio-diesel. On top of the fantastic information and writing in the magazine, it is gorgeously designed and features beautiful expedition shots from around the world. It is the first publication I have come across in years that has me reading every word, review and even advertisement. They publish four issues per year, plus a gear guide and back-issues are available to ’97. — Alexander Rose

Best guide to the ultimate trip

First-Time Around the World

The ultimate trip is a slow transverse of the globe on very little money with lots of time. I’ve recommended two guides for this way of traveling in the past: The Practical Nomad (for budget travelers) and World Stompers (for those with almost no money). While both of these books still have some good tips in them, they are both a bit out of date and have been superceded by this great new information-packed volume from Rough Guides.

First-Time Around the World is the book I would write if I had to give my advice on how to travel cheaply and globally. It’s smart, current, wise, and true. And worth reading even if you are only traveling for a few weeks. — KK

• Q: I’ve got $4000 saved up. Will that get me around the world?
  A: No problem. You can find round-the-world tickets for half that price, or hitchhike on yachts for even less. The more important question is what kind of trip do you want to take and how long do you want it to last? To figure out a daily budget that fits your comfort level, and to learn which countries offer the best value, turn to the “Cost and savings” chapter, where you’ll find some budgeting tips as well.
• Fake police scam
  A kid comes up and asks for change for a small banknote. Not long after (most likely in a city park or on a quiet road), a man approaches, flashes a badge quickly and tells you he’s a police officer. He explains that the note you just received from the boy was counterfeit and that he needs to take it back to headquarters and you will be fined for your involvement. At this point, just as you are starting to wonder if it’s real, a large muscular “colleague” arrives and pressures you to pay up.
  How you beat it: take a good long look at the badge and tell him that, although he is certainly a genuine officer, there are many impersonators and that, according to their own tourist ministry, you’re supposed to make all such spot payments at police headquarters, and you’ll be happy to follow him there on foot. Under no circumstances should you get into their “unmarked police car”.
• Free transport scam
  You’re met at the train or bus station by a tout who is offering free transport back to his hostel. You follow him onto a city tram and notice that it’s not free – he just didn’t pay the fare.
  How you beat it: ask how you’ll be getting to the hotel. If it’s by public transport, make sure the tout is willing to cover your fare.
• Time and space
  One thing travellers often forget to mentally prepare for is the different conception of time and space on the road. With buses that don’t leave until they’re full, boats that wait at the harbour for the captain to return from his family holiday, and mechanical problems that require spare parts sent by cargo ship from Australia, the hardcore traveller’s mantra of “no watches, no calendars, no worries” begins to seem like a healthy response. Your personal space, on the other hand, is likely to shrink, whether you’re speaking with someone who insists on standing almost nose-to-nose during the conversation or you’re packed into a six-person minivan with seventeen other passengers. Plan for twice as much transport time as you think you need, try to grab a seat near a window so you can control the fresh-air supply – and make sure you’ve got something to read.
• Round-the-world tickets
  Because of their complexity, round-the-world (RTW) tickets are best booked with a knowledgeable travel agent. London is probably the cheapest place to start such a trip, but that can vary slightly based on route and currency exchange, and it’s unlikely that getting a round-trip ticket there to start your trip will provide any (or significant) savings.
• By yacht
  Private yachts of all types often need an extra pair of hands during a sea passage. Some are crewed by professional captains delivering a boat to a new owner and some by “old salt” couples who live aboard their vessels full time. They usually follow common routes across seas where anchorages are safe, the scenery is agreeable and (since many are retired) the prices are low – and simply want a little help or a little company on board. In other words, it doesn’t necessarily mean seeing the world with a bunch of nouveau riche assholes. It’s possible to get a working passage or catch a free lift (though people may request $5-25 / £3-14 per day to cover your food and drinks)
  
  Useful yachting websites
  Matching skippers and crew
  http://www.sailingnow.com     
  https://www.crewseekers.net     
  http://www.globalcrewnetwork.com    
  http://www.crewfile.com     
  http://www.partnersandcrews.com
• Meeting locals
  It’s hard to pick up a travel magazine, brochure or guidebook without seeing an exotic cast of faces. The unspoken message seems to be that this is who you’ll meet in these countries. The people you’re far more likely to encounter, however, are other travellers. And the local people you’ll mostly come in contact with are vendors, taxi drivers, guides and hotel clerks – people serving you. To make more genuine contacts takes some effort. Volunteering or working in a place is one of the best ways. But even if you’re just looking to take a picture of someone, a thoughtful approach might lead to a more meaningful connection.
• Free accommodation
  Travel exchanges are growing in popularity as a Web-based method of finding a bed for free. Once you’ve registered on one of the websites below, you gain access to a list of accommodation offered by other travellers. You email those that sound appealing and, if they say yes, you get to use their sofa, bed, hammock or whatever’s available. It takes a little advance planning and a good deal of Internet surfing and mailing, but the results can be hugely rewarding. The minimal (and fair) hidden cost is that you have to offer your home to travellers heading your way, although you are under no obligation to let them stay. Check out:http://www.globalfreeloaders.com     http://www.hospitalityclub.org

What’s in my NOW? — Sheryl O’Bryan