Sunday, June 10, 2018
Distraction
BBC article on concentration vs creativity doesn't offer anything new. The author concludes that tight focus is useful sometimes and distraction is useful sometimes. Duh.
The article leads with a picture of Graham Bell wearing headphones connected to a Westinghouse electronic thingamajig. (Why not a Bell or Western Electric thingamajig?) He's also holding a pipe, which is a more important aid to creativity, though the article can't say it.
My first thought was that the electronic thingamajig must be an audiometer, but it doesn't look familiar in that context. I don't remember any Westinghouse audiometers. Looks more like a radio, and sure enough it is.
It's an Aeriola, made by RCA and rebranded by Westinghouse.
While I was googling for "Westinghouse audiometer", Google showed how distraction can help with focus:
Okay, okay, I get the hint. Enough screwing around. Time to get back to programming! Later: The refocus paid off. I went back and solved the slippery SCORM LMS problem that had been itching me for a couple of days.
Sidenote: The item including the Hollerith pic does mention Westinghouse, but doesn't get close to audiometers. Presumably Google's associative memory classifies this entire blog as related to audiology, which is a pretty good judgment. I ramble ignorantly about politics and religion and farting Martians, but I generally fall back to home territory in acoustics and phonetics and neurology.
¶ 8:26 AM 
Okay, okay, I get the hint. Enough screwing around. Time to get back to programming! Later: The refocus paid off. I went back and solved the slippery SCORM LMS problem that had been itching me for a couple of days.
Sidenote: The item including the Hollerith pic does mention Westinghouse, but doesn't get close to audiometers. Presumably Google's associative memory classifies this entire blog as related to audiology, which is a pretty good judgment. I ramble ignorantly about politics and religion and farting Martians, but I generally fall back to home territory in acoustics and phonetics and neurology.
¶ 8:26 AM
