Surgeons, air traffic controllers, waitresses, and bus drivers—or anyone in a high-stress job—take in a steady flow of information that needs to be processed on the spot. But how much is too much? Cognitive scientists in Australia have concluded that humans can juggle four “chunks” of information at any given instant. After that, they become confused. Their next move is no more reasoned than flipping a coin.

Brains Study Brains - Discover Magazine - science news articles online technology magazine articles Brains Study Brains

From the Dept. of Most Encouraging Statistics: According to an Annenberg poll conducted this spring, about 40 percent of Americans consider Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly a "journalist" -- while only 30 percent of the people surveyed said they considered famed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward to be one. (The poll was conducted from March 7 to May 2, before Mark Felt was revealed to be Deep Throat, but even if that news had boosted Woodward's number another 10 percent, would a tie between the two take us from astonishing to uplifting?)

Salon.com Politics

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 5.0 is being touted as a potential “BlackBerry killer,” but major security shortcomings could derail widespread enterprise adoption, analysts warned Friday.

One of the things I've come to appreciate about my blackberry is that almost all of the odd limitations come down to their security model. Not only is the user interface surprisingly well optimized for its input means, but as long as you remember that their main customer is government and enterprise, so too is their security model.

This means I have to put up with crippled bluetooth, underfeatured USB, and no camera phone. But the security side of my head says "yes!"

Blackberry Cool � Gartner: Windows Mobile 5.0 Security Falls Short

Meador, who is head of operations at ClearContext, and Deva Hazarika, the chief executive officer, have been playing poker in lieu of collecting paychecks for the past year while working to get their three-person company off the ground. After logging 50 or more hours a week at the office, each one spends another 10 to 15 hours, usually on weekends and evenings, at their favorite poker sites

High-stakes start-ups | CNET News.com

Blockbuster could learn something from this late-return policy

They did. Haven't you seen the End of Late Fees promotional material?

Membership rules apply for rentals. Rentals are due back at the date and time stated on the transaction receipt. There is no additional rental charge if a member keeps a rental item up to 7 days beyond the pre-paid rental period. After 7 days beyond the due date, Blockbuster will automatically convert the rental to a purchase on the 8th day and will charge the member the selling price for the item in effect at the time of the rental, minus the rental fee paid. Member then has 30 days to return the product and receive a credit for the selling price charged, less a $1.25 restocking fee.

however I am curious about what possible financial gain could result from putting $1 on your credit card to pay for them...don't the credit card companies charge ~5% of sales just to tap into their system? Shouldn't cash be encouraged?

It is worse than that. For most vendors, there is generally a per-transaction fee as well as some percent of sales. I have seen numbers like 0.35$ and 3%. Different merchants work out different fee structures, but I have seen numbers suggesting that credit card fees take up a good chunk of individual iTunes purchases. McDonalds probably has a very good deal -- recall that it was only very recently that the fast food vendors began accepting credit cards.

They want to use the credit card for the reasons of the late-fee charge; obviously, they have done a forecast by which the expected value of rental duration is greater than 1 day. Some reasonable number will result in purchases at $25, a significant premium over the cost of media. Membership terms tend to be the motivator by which rentals are returned. Using a credit card and this fee structure, they may lend without membership. The last thing McDonalds wants to do is extend credit to their customers; and the rental business wouldn't work if you had to give them a $25 cash deposit for every video.

Wired News: Order Your Big Mac and DVD to Go

You spend many years of your life going to school and you become a doctor. Since medicine is an ever-evolving field, the stuff you spent the prime of your life studying about soon becomes a bit outdated. So you have to go to these meetings every so often to get caught up on all the new-fangled advancements.

This is where I come in. See, I spent the prime of my life finding new ways to induce the phenomenon commonly known as the “head rush.” Meaning that I’m also attending these medical meetings, but I’m all the way in the back of the room, working as the AV Guy.

The Vail Trail | Thromboembolectomy

Finding quality images and photos for complementing an important article, essay or news report is already quite a challenge for many. Imagine when the goal is not just too find good images, but find some that you could openly and freely use without needing to pay royalties or one-time publishing rights to someone.

I've recently gotten into the concept of stock photography, especially for story telling purposes. This is a good article that hits a number of the sites I've started using for free or cheap stock work.

Where To Find Great Free Photographs And Visuals For Your Own Online Articles - Robin Good's Latest News

California public K-12 schools rank bottom of the nation, the CA Assembly's solution is shorter books. That's right, AB756 passed today and if - big if - signed into law would prohibit California schools from purchasing textbooks greater than 200 pages in length.

Venture Chronicles by Jeff Nolan: Assembly says shorter books would help kids - sacbee.com

What is Mindset? A new twist on search that uses machine learning technology to give you a choice: View Yahoo! Search results sorted according to whether they are more commercial or more informational (i.e., from academic, non-commercial, or research-oriented sources).

Sometimes you want to buy stuff and sometimes you just want to do research. In a typical search page, results point to commercial pages that are mixed together with non-commercial pages, so it's harder to find the type of information you're looking for. Mindset is our attempt to help solve that problem.

Yahoo! Search blog: Yahoo! Research Labs Releases Yahoo! Mindset

Picture of Pete Cabrinha surfing a 70ft wave. Youch.

Pete Cabrinha Billabong Award picture