Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Article about effects from multitasking and the internet


Will we lose the ability to have complex thoughts?
j
From NY times

Constant Contact Is Bad for Your Health

David Meyer

David E. Meyer, Ph.D, is a professor of psychology, Cognition and Perception Program, University of Michigan.

The emerging phenomenon of social-networking technologies like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube creates lots of inherent, unavoidable, potentially problematic tradeoffs. While these new media foster more personal communication, they also encourage excessive, addictive, counterproductive multitasking.

Constant access to email, cellphones, Twitter, and so forth entices people to intersperse their use of such tools with other important tasks that demand attention and concentration — like reading and
composing complex documents, holding meaningful conversations, or thinking and planning life’s activities. For lots of people, these tools have no boundaries.

Excessive multitasking can lead to chronic stress, with potential damage to the cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems.

They’re being used everywhere — at corporate meetings, during driving, and while cooking dinner. At the same time, recent research has shown that such multitasking is often extremely inefficient and can actually be dangerous to your health.

Frequent “flitting” back and forth between various complex tasks may increase the total amount of time taken to complete all of them by 100 percent or more, and many more errors are likely to occur along the way.

Excessive multitasking can lead to chronic stress, with potential damage to the cardiovascular, immune, and nervous systems. Fatal accidents are more likely too. Nobody, not even the inveterate multitasker, is completely invulnerable to these effects. There is also an increased chance that people, especially the young, may not develop the ability to concentrate on important tasks for long periods of time, or may lose that ability for lack of practice. Had Einstein multitasked incessantly, most likely he would never have invented the Theory of Relativity.

The bottom line is: We have to learn when and where multitasked social networking media actually help us carry out our daily tasks rather than interfering with them. Because these media are ubiquitous, tempting and potentially addictive, we must strive to manage them better than we do now.


http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/one-tweet-over-the-line/

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Chairs Done






Before












After

BEFORE


AFTER

That was fun!


Wednesday, May 6, 2009

One chair complete and another almost

This was my first attempt at chair weaving/caning. I used a binder cane and a modified porch or basket weave.



The rocker below needed a new front dowel as well as the seat woven. I used the basket weave with 3/8 inch cane. I'll finish it today, I hope. We are in the rainy season, I guess. My garden has plenty of water now. I hope it doesn't float away.



Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Chairs to repair

I've been busy recently, doing lots of projects. We got the garden in early and worked mightily to clear weeds and prepare the beds. With the recent rain, the plants are beginning to show themselves. Whew! Now I have to keep them growing.
I acquired a couple of chairs that were in need of repair.


The third chair is one we have had for 30 years. We call it the antique chair because it was obviously hand made- grooves from hand planing. It was grey and nasty having been outside for many years. I'm going to clean it up and see what it looks like. Then I'll weave a cane or splint seat for each of the chairs. Come back later and I'll have posted the results.


Sunday, May 3, 2009

Scarf


I wove this with rayon boucle and rayon seed. It turned out pretty good.

Fabric woven footstool


I thought it would be fun to use a jellyroll (quilt fabric cut in strips 2.5 inches wide) as the base for this footstool.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Where to begin?

I have been a sew-er since I was 8 years old when my mom started me sewing Barbie clothes. Do u know how small Barbie is? Those tiny arm holes and sleeves created many challenges in those days. I thought I was so cool when I made my first bathing suit when I was in jr high. At that age and with that body, I'm sure I could have worn a paper bag and looked good. Ah youth!

Today, I've recently regained my interest and motivation to create. I'm weaving fabric, weaving cane on chairs, weaving fabric on chairs, quilting, piecing, knitting socks and designing polar fleece socks. There are also the normal day to day things going on in my life, gardening, family and maintaining house and home. Right now at this point in time, life is a joy!!!!

I'll post some pictures of my various projects soon.
Thanks for joining me on this blogging adventure