Semmelweis Reflex
Beginner
Free
7 min read
In September 2004, Anne Rice logged onto Amazon and read the reviews of her latest novel, Blood Canticle. Readers complained…
Mere Exposure Effect
Intermediate
Members
6 min read
On February 14, 1887, forty-seven of France's most celebrated artists published a letter of protest on the front…
Cathedral Model
Intermediate
Members
7 min read
Chartres, 1194. A master mason stands in ash and charred stone. The cathedral has burned. His name is lost to…
Peak-End Rule
Beginner
Free
6 min read
On May 7, 1824, Caroline Unger turned a deaf man around.
The twenty-year-old contralto had just sung the finale of…
Inversion
Beginner
Free
6 min read
Christopher Nolan wrote Memento as a linear story first. Beginning to end. Standard structure. Then he reordered the entire screenplay…
Gestalt Principles
Advanced
Members
6 min read
Henri Matisse spent his final decade confined to a wheelchair, scissors in hand, cutting colored paper. Blue Nude II took…
Survivorship Bias
Intermediate
Members
7 min read
In 1943, American bombers were getting shredded over Germany. The military brought data to the Statistical Research Group at Columbia…
Luck Surface Area
Beginner
Free
6 min read
1980. A nineteen-year-old spray paints a eulogy across SoHo buildings. SAMO© IS DEAD.
Jean-Michel Basquiat had just killed his graffiti…
Four Stages of Creativity
Intermediate
Free
7 min read
Henri Poincaré stepped onto an omnibus at Coutances in 1880. His foot touched the step. In that fraction of a…
Eisenhower Matrix
Beginner
Members
7 min read
Charles Dickens sat at his desk in Devonshire Terrace on an October evening in 1843, reading sales figures for a…
Second-Order Thinking
Intermediate
Free
5 min read
"A runt will not play Michael."
Robert Evans, head of Paramount Pictures, had seen Al Pacino's…
First Principles Thinking
Beginner
Free
5 min read
Wilbur Wright stood in a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, twisting a cardboard box. The year was 1899. Every aviation…