The room is unremarkable. A clean desk, a laptop, a printed sheet of arithmetic and short reading passages, and a pair of EEG electrodes resting against the scalp like patient fingers. The participant has just finished ten minutes of working through problems with the help of an AI assistant. The screen is closed. The chatbot is gone. A research assistant slides a fresh page across the desk and asks, politely, for the subject to answer the next set of questions alone.

The subject reads. The subject thinks. The subject, by every behavioural and neural measure the researchers can capture, performs measurably worse than a control participant who never touched the assistant. The effect is not subtle. It is there in the response latencies, in the error rates, in the EEG traces that show a dampened pattern of frontoparietal engagement which, ten minutes earlier, was healthy and robust.

That, in essence, is the claim of a multi-institution study widely reported across science media in April 2026, attributed to researchers from UCLA, MIT, Oxford and Carnegie Mellon, which proposes the first causal evidence that brief AI use is sufficient to produce immediate, measurable cognitive impairment in the unaided performance of equivalent tasks. The reporting has been breathless and the framing predictably apocalyptic, but the scientific stakes, if the finding survives replication, are genuinely large. Earlier work in this area had described a slow drift, a kind of boiling-frog dependency in which years of cognitive offloading might thin out a person's capacity to think for themselves. The newer claim is something different and arguably more disturbing: that the cost shows up in minutes, not years.

The distinction is not academic. If the harm is gradual, you can argue, with some plausibility, that informed adults using AI in the privacy of their own choices are merely making a long-term trade-off they are entitled to make. If the harm is acute, then the deployment of AI assistants in classrooms, clinical consulting rooms, courtrooms, contact centres and welfare offices, often without disclosure and almost always without anything resembling informed consent, looks rather different. It looks like a very large and largely unmonitored field experiment.

What does the evidence actually show? What can be defended, and what cannot? And once we are honest about both, who has the responsibility to act?

The Boiling Frog and Its Discontents

For the past three years, the dominant frame for thinking about AI and cognition has been the boiling frog, the apocryphal creature that fails to leap from a gradually heating pot. The framing made sense because the foundational evidence in cognitive science was itself longitudinal and slow.

Eleanor Maguire's work at University College London on the hippocampi of London taxi drivers, beginning in 2000, established that the brain regions used to navigate a complex city physically thicken with use. Subsequent imaging work, including a 2017 study in Nature Communications by Hugo Spiers and colleagues, suggested that turn-by-turn satnav use suppressed activity in the same hippocampal circuits. Capacity follows demand: ask the brain to navigate, and it grows the apparatus for navigation; ask it to follow instructions from a phone, and the apparatus quietens.

In 2011, Betsy Sparrow, then at Columbia, with Jenny Liu and the late Daniel Wegner of Harvard, published a paper in Science showing that participants who expected to look information up later remembered the information itself less well, but remembered where to find it. A 2024 meta-analysis in the journal Memory found the Google effect real but more modest than early coverage suggested.

Together, this literature painted a picture of slow, accumulative externalisation. Bit by bit, certain cognitive functions migrated from the wet hardware in the skull to the dry hardware in the pocket. The implicit settlement was that the costs were chronic and perhaps reversible if you put the phone down.

Generative AI complicated this picture, but for the first eighteen months of the consumer chatbot era the public discussion still defaulted to the chronic frame. Even Michael Gerlich's much-cited 2025 paper in Societies, which surveyed 666 participants and reported a strong negative correlation between AI tool use and critical thinking scores, was best read as a snapshot of ongoing erosion rather than a claim about acute injury.

Acute injury is what the newer reporting is now claiming. And acute injury, scientifically and ethically, is a different beast.

What An Acute Effect Would Have to Mean

To understand why the reported April 2026 finding has provoked the reaction it has, it is worth being precise about what an acute cognitive effect would, and would not, be. An acute effect appears rapidly after exposure and is measurable on a short timescale. A chronic exposure might gradually wear down an organ over decades; an acute exposure produces a measurable change within minutes or hours.

In the cognitive context, the equivalent claim is that ten minutes of AI-assisted maths or reading leaves a measurable footprint on the brain's ability to perform similar tasks unaided immediately after. The footprint, if it exists, is not memory loss in any everyday sense. It is more like a transient state shift, a cognitive tone that has slackened.

This is not biologically implausible. Cognitive psychology has long documented carry-over effects between tasks. Mental set, the tendency to apply a problem-solving strategy beyond its useful range, is a textbook example. So is the well-replicated finding that performing a task in a state of high external scaffolding can degrade subsequent independent performance, a phenomenon educators have long known as the assistance dilemma.

What the reported study would add is an EEG-level signal, that the brain is not merely behaving as if it has just been scaffolded but is in some quantifiable sense still in the scaffolded state, with reduced engagement in the networks that would ordinarily be doing the work. If that signal replicates, the implication is that AI use is not merely a labour-saving device whose benefits and costs balance out neatly. It is a state-altering one.

This is where the strongest existing evidence in the literature, the MIT Media Lab paper Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task, becomes essential context. Authored by Nataliya Kosmyna and seven co-authors and posted to arXiv in 2025 as preprint 2506.08872, the paper studied 54 participants in the Boston area aged 18 to 39, who wrote SAT-style essays under one of three conditions: with a large language model, with a search engine, or with no tools at all. EEG recordings during writing showed that brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed network engagement; search engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity. Eighty-three per cent of LLM users were unable to quote from the essays they had just produced. In a fourth session, when LLM users were reassigned to brain-only writing, they continued to show weaker neural connectivity than the consistent brain-only group. The MIT authors called this carry-over cognitive debt.

The MIT preprint was not peer reviewed when it was posted, the sample was modest, and the authors themselves cautioned against the most sensational interpretations. But the basic shape of its finding, that there is a residual neural signature after the AI is taken away, is precisely the shape of the claim that the April 2026 reporting is now amplifying. The newer study, on the description circulating in the science press, extends the logic to elementary cognitive tasks rather than essay writing, and to far shorter exposures.

It is too early to know whether the April 2026 work will hold up under peer review and replication. It is not too early to ask what the world should do if it does.

Cognitive Offloading, Without Romance

The mechanism most often cited for both the chronic and acute findings is cognitive offloading: the use of external tools to reduce the demands on internal cognition. The concept predates the AI debate by decades. Writing things down is cognitive offloading. So is asking a colleague. Offloading reduces working-memory load and frees attention. Under certain conditions, it also reduces depth of processing, weakens encoding into long-term memory, and degrades the capacity to do the offloaded task without the tool.

What seems to be different about generative AI is the scope, the seamlessness and the ambient nature of the offload. A calculator does arithmetic. A search engine fetches documents. A large language model writes the paragraph, generates the answer, structures the argument and presents the result in finished form. The cognitive task it performs is not retrieval but synthesis, the very thing that, in classical accounts, is supposed to constitute the active work of thinking.

The Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon paper presented at CHI 2025 in Yokohama, authored by Hao-Ping Hank Lee and colleagues and based on a survey of 319 knowledge workers analysing 936 real-world AI-assisted tasks, gives this dynamic empirical shape in the workplace. The paper found that higher confidence in AI was associated with less critical thinking, while higher self-confidence in one's own abilities was associated with more critical thinking. The authors described a shift in the nature of cognitive work itself, from information gathering toward verification, from problem-solving toward integration of AI output, from doing toward supervising. They warned of what they called cognitive atrophy.

The proposed mechanism for an acute effect, then, is not mysterious. During AI-assisted work, the cognitive networks responsible for evaluating and integrating outputs remain active. The networks responsible for original generation, planning and synthesis quieten down. When the tool is taken away, the still-quietened networks do not instantly come back online. There is a lag. The lag is what the EEG picks up. The lag is what shows up in error rates and response latencies on the unaided task that follows.

This is, importantly, not a permanent change. Nothing in the existing literature suggests that ten minutes of AI use causes structural damage to the brain. The relevant concern is not about lasting injury but about state, about the cognitive tone in which the next task is begun, and how quickly that tone recovers when the scaffolding is withdrawn.

Reversibility, And What We Do Not Yet Know

Here the honest answer is that the science is at the very beginning of being able to say anything precise. The MIT preprint hints at carry-over within and across sessions, but its design does not isolate the time course of recovery. The reported April 2026 work claims acute impairment immediately after use; it does not, on the publicly available descriptions, characterise the recovery curve in detail. We have evidence of a measurable effect on the order of minutes after AI use, and we do not yet have systematic evidence about whether that effect dissipates within an hour, a day or a longer period, nor about whether repeated daily exposures produce cumulative residue.

The plausible space of outcomes is not fanciful. If the effect resolves quickly and completely after each exposure, it is roughly analogous to the post-meeting fog that anyone who has spent two hours in a video call recognises, an irritation that fades. If it resolves slowly, or if repeated exposure produces cumulative dampening, the deployment-context implications become substantial. A nurse consulting an AI scribe before a complex assessment, a teacher grading with an AI marker before lesson planning, a junior solicitor moving from AI-drafted briefs to in-court argument: all are scenarios in which acute carry-over, even if reversible, has the potential to land on the high-stakes unaided task that follows.

The claim that needs neither hyping nor dismissing is the modest one. There is evidence, from multiple research groups and instruments, that recent AI use leaves a footprint on subsequent unaided cognition. The size of that footprint, its time course, and its dependence on the type of task, the type of AI and the individual user, are all open questions.

Where The Footprint Lands

The deployment contexts in which acute carry-over would matter most are, helpfully, the same contexts in which AI is being most aggressively deployed. They are not the recreational ones. Nobody is particularly worried about the cognitive aftermath of asking a chatbot to write a wedding speech. The relevant contexts are workplaces where consequential decisions are made under time pressure, classrooms where developing minds are still acquiring the very skills that AI is offloading, healthcare settings where lapses cost lives, and public services where outcomes determine whether citizens are housed, fed, treated or detained.

Take healthcare. In the United Kingdom, AI scribes and clinical-decision-support assistants have proliferated in primary care since 2024, with the Department of Health and Social Care actively encouraging the use of approved tools to reduce administrative burden on general practitioners. The case for these tools is strong; clinician burnout is a public-health emergency in its own right, and time spent transcribing is time not spent with patients. But the consultation that follows the AI-assisted note is not a low-stakes task. It is the next patient. If the cognitive tone with which the clinician enters that next consultation is even slightly slackened by the immediately preceding offload, the relevant question is not whether the tool, on average, saves time. It is whether the unmonitored carry-over is being detected, accounted for, or even acknowledged.

In classrooms, the acute frame inverts the existing debate. The debate so far has largely been about whether students who use AI to do their homework will eventually fail to learn how to write or reason. The acute frame asks a different question: what does it mean to ask a student to use an AI in the first half of a lesson and then to demonstrate understanding in the second? If the cognitive state in which that demonstration happens is materially different from the state of a student who never used the tool, then the assessment is not measuring what it purports to measure. The Department for Education's June 2025 guidance on AI in schools acknowledged that students still needed a strong foundation in reading, writing and critical thinking to use AI effectively. The acute literature, if it stabilises, suggests the guidance does not go nearly far enough. It is not enough to know how to use the tool. The question is what happens when you put it down.

In workplaces more generally, the carry-over question intersects with the dynamic identified by Lee and colleagues at CHI 2025: workers shifting from generation to verification, from problem-solving to integration. If the verification mode itself depends on a cognitive state that is, in the moment, dampened by the just-preceding AI exposure, then verification is precisely the function being undermined. The dynamic is recursive.

In public services, the stakes are starkest. Algorithmic systems already mediate decisions about welfare entitlements, child-protection assessments, criminal-justice risk scoring and immigration triage in many jurisdictions. The case-workers operating those systems are increasingly being given AI-assisted summarisation, drafting and recommendation tools. The decisions they then make about real human lives are made, in some cases minutes after closing the assistant. Whether the cognitive tone in which those decisions are made is materially different from the tone of an unaided counterpart is not a niche concern. In the deployment contexts that matter most, it is the central one.

The Consent That Was Never Asked For

The ethical literature on technology adoption has historically operated on a strong presumption: that adults, when offered new tools, are entitled to choose to use them, and that the costs of choosing are theirs to bear. This presumption rests on a thicket of assumptions which the acute-impairment frame, if it survives, calls into question.

The first assumption is that the user is the one bearing the cost. In the workplace, that is rarely true. A nurse using an AI scribe is not the principal bearer of the risk if her cognitive tone in the next consultation is dampened. The patient is. A teacher using an AI marker is not the principal bearer if his unaided judgement in the next lesson is reduced. The student is. The deployment of AI in service contexts shifts the costs onto people who were not party to the decision and who, in many cases, do not even know the tool was used.

The second assumption is that the user has been informed. This is, in practice, almost never the case. The patient who interacts with a clinician using an AI scribe is not, in the United Kingdom or in most other jurisdictions, given any disclosure that the scribe was used, much less that recent research has suggested an acute carry-over effect on subsequent unaided cognition. The student whose teacher has just spent half an hour grading essays with an AI marker is not informed. The benefits claimant whose case-worker's notes were drafted by a generative system is not informed. There is, in most settings, no equivalent of the medical-imaging consent form, no equivalent of the data-protection notice, no equivalent of any of the layered consent infrastructures that exist for less consequential interventions in the same lives.

The third assumption is that the cognitive risk is well characterised. It is not. The literature on acute carry-over is, at the time of this writing in April 2026, weeks old in its strongest formulations and months old in its broader contours. Honest informed consent at present would have to read something like: research suggests, but has not yet established, that recent AI use may produce a transient reduction in unaided cognitive performance, the magnitude and duration of which are not yet well understood. That is not a notice that any organisation in any sector is currently required to provide.

The result is a deployment landscape in which a class of cognitive risk has been quietly normalised across millions of high-stakes interactions, on the strength of an implicit assumption that the science was either not real or not relevant, and without any of the consent infrastructure that would be required to make the deployment ethically defensible if the science turns out to be both.

Who Is Currently Responsible, And Who Currently Is Not

The question of who has the responsibility to act on the emerging evidence has, at present, no clean answer. There is a thicket of actors with partial responsibilities, and a great deal of empty space between them where the responsibility falls through.

Regulators are the obvious candidates, but their instruments are not shaped for the problem. The European Union's AI Act, which entered substantive force during 2025, classifies systems by risk and imposes obligations on developers and deployers. It does not require disclosure of cognitive carry-over effects to end-users, nor monitoring in deployment. The United Kingdom's pro-innovation framework prefers sector-specific guidance and avoids cross-cutting consent obligations. The United States, post the rescission of the Biden-era AI executive order in 2025, has effectively no federal framework at all.

Employers have a duty of care to employees and, in regulated sectors, a duty of care to clients and patients. That duty arguably already extends to an obligation to understand the cognitive risks that workplace tools might impose. The General Medical Council in the United Kingdom and equivalent professional bodies elsewhere have begun to issue guidance on AI use in clinical practice, but these documents focus overwhelmingly on data protection, accuracy and clinical accountability. They do not, at the time of writing, address acute carry-over.

Educators bear a different but related duty. The Department for Education's guidance and the curricular adjustments under way in many school systems are mostly oriented toward whether AI use degrades the development of skill over time. They do not address whether AI use during an assessment, or in the hour before one, materially changes what the assessment measures.

Platform vendors are commercially positioned to be most relevant and culturally positioned to be least. The major AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Microsoft) have all published responsible-use guidance of varying depth, and have all engaged, with varying degrees of seriousness, with concerns about cognitive effects. None of them, at the time of writing, surfaces information about cognitive carry-over to end-users in the products themselves. The prevailing commercial logic, in which engagement and frequency of use are positive metrics, does not align with cognitive-risk disclosure, and there is no regulatory instrument forcing the alignment.

Individual users carry the residual responsibility, the way they carry it for every consumer product whose risks have been imperfectly disclosed. That is a thin reed to lean on in any sector where the user is, in fact, the patient or the student or the citizen rather than the operator of the tool.

The honest map of responsibility is therefore a sparse one. There is no regulator currently obliged to act, no employer currently obliged to act, no educator currently obliged to act, no platform currently obliged to act, and no user adequately positioned to act. The gaps are not bugs in the system; the system was not designed for the problem, because the problem was framed, until very recently, as chronic.

Replication, Caveats, And The Cost Of Waiting

It would be irresponsible to leave this account without flagging that the strongest version of the acute-impairment claim still rests on a small number of studies, much of it unreplicated and some of it not yet peer reviewed. The MIT preprint by Kosmyna and colleagues has the limitations its own authors acknowledged: a sample of 54 participants in a single geographic region, no peer review at the time of its initial release, and a fourth-session reassignment design that, while suggestive, is not definitive. The CHI 2025 paper by Lee and colleagues is a survey of self-reported behaviour, not a controlled experiment. The Gerlich 2025 paper in Societies is correlational and was subsequently corrected by the publisher in September 2025 for unrelated issues.

The reported April 2026 multi-institution study would be the strongest causal evidence yet, but its full methodological detail is not, at the time of writing, available for the kind of scrutiny that allows confident claims. It will need to be peer reviewed. It will need to be replicated. It will need to be tested against the standard battery of cognitive-experiment objections: demand characteristics, expectancy effects, the difficulty of isolating the AI-use intervention from time-on-task confounds, the question of whether the post-test deficit is a real cognitive change or a motivational artefact.

These caveats matter, and the article that elides them does the public no favours. They do not, however, license inaction. The asymmetry of the situation is consequential. The cost of acting on a finding that turns out to overstate its case is, mostly, the modest inconvenience of disclosure obligations that would have been good practice anyway. The cost of failing to act on a finding that turns out to be robust is the continued silent conversion of millions of high-stakes interactions into a field experiment whose subjects never agreed to participate.

The right posture, on the present evidence, is therefore neither alarm nor dismissal. It is the unfashionable posture of taking research seriously while it is still emerging, of treating disclosure and consent as prudent defaults under uncertainty, and of designing deployment contexts to be measurable, monitorable and reversible. None of these are dramatic interventions. None require believing that the strongest claims in the literature are true. They require only believing that they might be.

What The Evidence Demands, And What It Does Not

What the evidence demands is modest, and would be modest even if every study cited above were fully replicated and beyond serious dispute. It demands, first, that the deployment of AI assistants in high-stakes settings be accompanied by disclosure to the individuals whose welfare depends on the cognitive performance that follows. The patient is entitled to know that the clinician is using a scribe. The student is entitled to know that the teacher is grading with a marker. The benefits claimant is entitled to know that the case-worker has just closed a chatbot.

It demands, second, that organisations deploying these tools begin to monitor outcomes in a manner sensitive to acute carry-over. Quality-assurance audits exist; they have not, until now, been designed with the carry-over hypothesis in mind, but they could be without much trouble.

It demands, third, that regulators, professional bodies and educators begin to update their guidance with the acute frame in view, and stop treating the cognitive consequences of AI use as a problem of long-term skill development alone. It demands, fourth, that platform vendors stop pretending the question of cognitive effects is somebody else's department, and begin to surface, in their products, the relevant information that emerging research has produced.

What the evidence does not demand is panic. It does not demand that AI be removed from clinics, classrooms or public-service settings. It does not demand that workers stop using tools that, on net, help them do their jobs. It does not demand the kind of moral-panic legislation that would, if enacted on the present evidence, almost certainly do more harm than good.

What it asks of us is the harder thing: to live, as adults, in the uncomfortable middle ground where evidence is suggestive but not yet conclusive, where the costs of action are real but bounded, and where the costs of inaction are uncertain but potentially large. The history of technology regulation is mostly the history of arriving at this middle ground decades after the relevant tools have already reshaped the landscape. The unfashionable possibility, this time, is to arrive earlier.

The Smaller, Truer Claim

Strip the press coverage of its more lurid framings and what remains is a claim that is smaller and harder to dismiss. The claim is not that AI is rotting our brains. The claim is not that ten minutes of ChatGPT will leave you intellectually impaired for the rest of the day. The claim is not even that the acute effect, if it exists, is large enough to matter in the average use case.

The claim is that there is a measurable carry-over effect from recent AI use to subsequent unaided cognitive performance, that the effect appears on the order of minutes rather than years, that the existing deployment of AI in high-stakes contexts has not been designed with that effect in mind, and that the consent and disclosure infrastructure required to make that deployment ethically defensible has not been built. The reported April 2026 study strengthens the first proposition. The MIT, Microsoft, Carnegie Mellon and Swiss Business School literatures of the past eighteen months have already strengthened the second. The third is empirical and visible to anyone who looks. The fourth is a matter of public policy that we have, until now, declined to address.

The room from the opening of this article, the desk and the laptop and the EEG electrodes, is not a metaphor. It is a research site, one of a small but growing number, in which the cognitive tone of recent AI users is being measured against the cognitive tone of unaided controls. Whether the field finds the effect to be small and easily managed, or large and policy-relevant, will become clearer in the months ahead. That it is being measured at all is the first piece of good news. That the measurements are not yet, in any meaningful sense, being relayed to the patients, students, clients and citizens whose welfare depends on the unaided performance that follows the use of the tools, is the part of the situation that does not require any further evidence to fix.

The technology will not pause for the science to catch up. The disclosure can.

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References & Sources

1. Kosmyna, N., et al. (2025). Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task. arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.08872. MIT Media Lab. https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/
2. Lee, H.-P. H., et al. (2025). The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25), Yokohama. Microsoft Research / Carnegie Mellon University. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-impact-of-generative-ai-on-critical-thinking-self-reported-reductions-in-cognitive-effort-and-confidence-effects-from-a-survey-of-knowledge-workers/
3. Gerlich, M. (2025). AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking. Societies, 15(1), 6. SBS Swiss Business School. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6
4. Gerlich, M. (2025). Correction: AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking. Societies, 15(9), 252. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/9/252
5. Sparrow, B., Liu, J., & Wegner, D. M. (2011). Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips. Science, 333(6043), 776-778.
6. Maguire, E. A., et al. (2000). Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97(8), 4398-4403.
7. Javadi, A.-H., Spiers, H. J., et al. (2017). Hippocampal and prefrontal processing of network topology to simulate the future. Nature Communications, 8, 14652.
8. Department for Education (UK). (2025, June). Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education: policy paper. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/generative-artificial-intelligence-in-education
9. European Parliament and Council of the European Union. (2024). Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Artificial Intelligence Act). Official Journal of the European Union.
10. UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. (2023). A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation. White paper. HM Government.
11. TIME Magazine. (2025). ChatGPT's Impact On Our Brains According to an MIT Study. https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/
12. WBUR News. (2025, September 16). Using ChatGPT as a homework tool? MIT researcher says think twice. https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/09/16/ai-study-essays-brain-cognition
13. Fortune. (2025, February 11). AI might already be warping our brains, leaving our judgment and critical thinking 'atrophied and unprepared,' warns new study. https://fortune.com/2025/02/11/ai-impact-brain-critical-thinking-microsoft-study/
14. Policy Options / IRPP. (2025, September). How AI is eroding human memory and critical thinking. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2025/09/ai-memory/
15. Frontiers in Psychology. (2025). The cognitive paradox of AI in education: between enhancement and erosion. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1550621/full

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

Listen to the free weekly SmarterArticles Podcast

In Summary: * As this quiet Friday in the Roscoe-verse winds down it finds me listening to the call of the MLB game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Yankees, the Yankees ahead 1 to 0 in the bottom of the 5th inning.

So many things happening out in the world this weekend: Memorial Day, I hope all those traveling this Holiday weekend do so safely, and I hope we all remember and honor the fallen members of our country's military branches who died serving our nation; Pentecost Sunday, those of us who follow traditional meditations, prayers, and liturgies have noticed a shift in our readings this week as the Church prepares our hearts and minds for Pentecost; and the running of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday up in Speedway, Indiana. Darned right, I'll be following the Race!

After finishing the night prayers, and after this baseball game, I'll be putting these old bones to bed and hoping for a restful sleep.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night. Details of that regimen are linked to my link tree, which is linked to my profile page here.

Starting Ash Wednesday, 2026, I've added this daily prayer as part of the Prayer Crusade Preceding the 2026 SSPX Episcopal Consecrations.

Health Metrics: * bw= 231.49 lbs. * bp= 139/77 (68)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:10 – 1 Jimmy Johns submarine sandwich * 10:30 – 1 peanutbutter sandwich * 12:15 – pizza * 18:00 – 1 barbacoa taco

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:30 – listening to local news talk radio * 05:10 – bank accounts activity monitored. * 05:40 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap, * 12:15 to 13:30 – watch old game shows and eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 15:30 – watching “Intentional Talk” on MLB Network * 17:00 – listening now to Yankees Radio ahead of their game vs the Tampa Bay Rays tonight

Chess: * 16:10 – moved in all pending CC games

I took about a two or maybe even three year break from really watching any movies. A few kid movies would be in the background or my wife might watch something while I would be reading something else and so forth. But I was pretty bored of them and could care less if I ever saw one again. Not too long ago I started joining my wife in watching some now and then. There are so many I haven’t seen now, even when I was watching them a while back it wasn’t very frequent. So I have a massive list of movies I could watch to try and catch up if desired.

Anyways, as I started watching movies again something has dawned on me pretty heavily. Most movies have no “good guys” in my view. Too regularly human life means just about nothing. So many films seem to be propaganda to promote murder and killing of the others – whoever that may be. The supposed good guys are often horrible murderous people, some of them end up killing dozens of people and sometimes multiples of that. On top of that many of the situations are completely avoidable.

It’s even more dramatic of a thing if you come to think of the Messiah’s teachings of the New Testament as what we literally are supposed to be doing. That is if you are a Christian. Not talking about vague scriptural references tied to some boring current life events one day of the week (church), but something we are to be living as our Law if we consider ourselves Christian. Not only are we not supposed to kill anyone, we aren’t supposed to hate them, or sue them, or resist evil being done to us by anyone. We are to return good for evil. How many movies have you seen that do that? I’ve seen a handful but not many and not really any lately. Probably the closest one is “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” (Spoiler alert for those who care about such a thing. Please pick up reading after “end of spoiling.”) The hero (the mother) could have destroyed many people at the end, but instead she helped fulfill the enemies’ repressed desires to de-escalate the entire doomful situation at the end. I found the whole thing a unique spin on the multiverse idea, which was refreshing. Lately I’ve found multiverse movies and series to have fairly lazy writing, it is just an easy way to get out of story flaws. (End of spoiling.) However I wouldn’t call that movie a great example of exemplifying great principles. If you filter most movies through the teachings of the Old Testament there aren’t many good guys. If you filter most movies through the teachings of the New Testament, there are only bad guys. It’s pretty funny stuff really, or sad stuff…

I quite enjoy books overall a lot more than movies these days.

If you would like a refresher on the “Sermon on the Mount” here are the scripture chapters to review:

Matthew chapter five & six & seven

Luke chapter six starting in vs 20:

And the introduction to the ten commandments is in Exodus chapter 20:

What movie heroes are following this? What group of people are following this? To me these are the basic fundamental Laws of God. It’s sort of like the Constitution of the Kingdom of Heaven. Perhaps the entirety of the scriptures would be the Heavenly Constitution. However in my view everything builds upon the principles laid out in the “Ten Commandments” and the “Sermon on the Mount.” For those who are Jewish, Christian, and Muslim the Old Testament Laws could help unify people towards a better world. What if we all lived the fundamental teachings in the ten commandments taught in Exodus 20? And the “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew 5-6 and the “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke 6 could be unifying Law for Christians and Muslims. To Christians because the teachings came from our Messiah, and to Muslims because these teachings come from what the Qur’an says are the words of a prophet. I also believe that our Messiah was a prophet, the greatest of all. With the Qur’an teaching that the Messiah is a prophet, perhaps it would be important to read and follow the instructions given by Him. This is about 55% (see graph here) of the world’s population that could come to some basic agreement. What if we all unified through the Laws in scripture instead of divided through political law. The Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist scriptures I’ve read also have similar ideals taught. I realize people see many things in scripture differently. But I see in the majority of people I have met through life a desire to be a pretty decent person. I think many people desire to live by these ideals. Do you want to kill anyone? Even if you support war, would you really want to go over there and kill those your nation is at war against?

It seems to me the separation of church and state is primarily to make men the people’s false authority (false gods) over the true Authority. I’m not saying I want a merger of church and state again – that has led to a whole lot of tyranny and murder. I’m just saying if the state can push people into obeying the state first and foremost they would love that – and I believe that is what has happened. I believe that those who believe in God as the issuer of truth, and what we ought to be living, could do just that. Maybe we could put the true Church of God above the church of state. I do not believe there to be “one true church” as a registered organization. Those registered organizations are subject to the state. I believe that the Church of God includes people of many faiths and sects. It is the remnants scattered abroad, primarily individuals, putting the Laws of God first in their life. Those following the higher Laws taught throughout all scriptures I have read.

I believe the only way for the Kingdom of Heaven to blossom is through a voluntary means. Where people through love of God follow His Law. We have individuals around the earth following these things, some with high fidelity. If we had groups and communities doing such a thing the fruits of this way of life would shine. This would show that the Kingdom of Heaven is far superior to the kingdoms of men. I believe this is how the earth can come to peace. Not through governments taking away the power of another government to pursue nuclear enrichment, but through people choosing to live the higher Laws of God over the insanities of political law and the governments of men. Let’s stop killing. Even if our governments try to recruit us into the killing fields, lets stop killing. Leo Tolstoy was right in his book “The Kingdom of God Is Within You” (download book for free), we can refuse to fight for any kingdom of man. And if that government punishes us or kills us for refusing to kill others under their claimed authority – we will be blessed by the only true Authority.

Hello

There are still things I avoid writing about

My neighbour going around all white, with hair like dried hay, like a ghost, for example.

Like an angry ghost

And that through my actions, she ended up in this state

She used to have purple cheeks and a purple nose resembling mine

But now she is a ghost with an axe and a chainsaw, making firewood, chopping up a tall straight pine tree which toppled during the storm around New Year’s Eve.

It’s like it’s my fault because she is unable to adapt, a mind that maybe was frigid to begin with but now it’s  too old

she can’t see my point of view, though I can see her

It used to be mine too

Because my mind isn’t like that, it’s soft and flexible like a rubber band; I can adjust

But it’s snapped

I can’t turn back now

And I’m better off now

But I feel terrible nonetheless

But I can’t turn back

I chose myself

One baseball game.

Despite there being two other basketball games tonight, both featuring teams I generally follow, and both with start times that fit rather well into my schedule, I'm opting to follow a baseball game tonight.

Tonight's Rays vs Yankees game, with its scheduled start time of 6:06 PM CDT fits even better into my schedule. And the game announcers on Yankees Radio are both entertaining and relaxing to listen to. Easy decision then: tonight I follow the Tampa Bay Rays / New York Yankees MLB Game.

And the adventure continues.

Each month, Washingtonian magazine’s print issue offers a two-page photo spread, with the publication’s June 2026 issue featuring one of our images. The photo is from an open practice I visited in March of the Old Glory DC rugby club, the area’s Major League Rugby franchise that plays at George Mason University stadium in Fairfax, Virginia.

At the practice, I got a ground-level shot, sprawling out on the pitch (field) as the ball is pushed in the middle of a scrum. The photo, shown above, has Old Glory DC’s assistant coach Stan South standing over the scrum as the forwards, the bigger players, push their opponents to take possession of the ball.

I pitched the images to publications in the region, and Washingtonian responded. Washingtonian is a glossy monthly politics and lifestyle magazine that features a two-page photo spread they call the Big Picture, in its Capital Comment section toward the front of the print issue. And the magazine’s art director chose that photo for the June issue’s Big Picture.

Big Picture photos are available only in the print issue and not online, but Washingtonian sent me a PDF of the spread, which I posted on technewslit.com. More photos from the open practice and the club’s first home match at George Mason University stadium are found in the TechNewsLit collections on Smugmug.

Each of the photos in these galleries carries a Creative Commons – Attribution license.

Copyright © Technology News and Literature. All rights reserved.

Anoniem Ingezonden Klein Stukje van een Groter Stuk, indien mogelijk afkomstig van een Beroemd Persoon met enige invloed op de macht over u.

Het was eerder allemaal anders. Nu zijn alle mensen die niet slapen wakker maar dat was niet altijd zo. Ik kan me de tijden nog herinneren dat als je sliep dat niet meteen wou zeggen dat je niet wakker was, mensen deden twee of meer dingen tegelijk. Ik ken er die konden liggen, zitten en staan tegelijk! Kom daar nu nog maar eens om. Mensen gingen ook anders om met elkaar, men beet elkaar in de oren of kietelde elkaar liefkozend onder de oksel om aan te geven dat er iets op het punt stond om te gebeuren, nu geeft men dat zelden of nooit aan of juist veel te vaak ook als het niet zo is of als datgene wat staat te gebeuren niet noemenswaardig is laat staan goedaardig of ontwikkeld. Het is me wat. Ik denk wel eens dat ik op de verkeerde manier geboren ben dat ik daarom geen verkeerd been heb voor opstaan, dat ik het gewoon allemaal in de smiezen heb, en waarom, waarom! Ik kan er met mijn enkels niet bij. Het is gewoon raar gelopen vanaf dat ene moment waarop het eerder in de pas liep, weliswaar niet de passende maat maar zeker een pas met enige regelmaat, wel meer dan dat. Nou. Hoe het zo ver heeft kunnen komen kan ik wel wat meer over kwijt, dat moet dan wel na de volgende onderbreking, met een streepje – Het is zo ver gekomen omdat het de afstand heeft afgelegd, de afstand zat eerst nog om de schouders gewikkeld van een moedwillig persoon maar een held heeft deze omgelegd en toen de afstand meegenomen en daarna laten af leggen, op die manier schoot alles lekker op. De afstand was vijfmaal het kwadraat keer drie en dat dan op een gegeven moment delen door elkaar, schudden eigenlijk en zodoende en des as treus al te min niet is het niet anders, het moest zo zijn, het zijde zo, zo als het zijde zacht. Niet meer en niet minder dan een beetje waar, dat zeg ik! Ik ben blij dat ik hier en nu mijn doelpunt nog een keer kon maken dankzij dit ingezonden stukje en een afgekeurd dood splmoment, dan is er tenminste één omroep die nog deze week iets zinnigs kan melden al moet die kans er nog wel in. Dank voor u aandacht ik groet u ook namens de machthebbers (van weleer).

Lydia's Weekly Lifestyle blog is for today's African girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things that may interest today's African girl.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Pépé Pépinière, Titi. This week's subjects: Fascinator for corporate!!!, Menstrual Problems, and Ilona, Italian Restaurant

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Fascinator for corporate!!! Let’s talk about how to bring a fascinator into the office without looking like you missed your way to a bridal shower. Hair matters. A lot. Low buns, slick ponytails, or soft waves keep the look polished and office-appropriate. You want “boardroom chic,” not “garden party chaos.” Placement is also key—slightly to the side, confident but not chaotic. Let’s talk accessories—less is more, babe. Skip the chunky earrings if your fascinator already has detail. Opt for simple studs or delicate hoops. Your goal is harmony, not a fashion argument. And of course, own it. The real secret to pulling off a fascinator at work? Confidence. Walk into that office like your outfit has a calendar invite. When styled right, your fascinator isn’t out of place—it’s ahead of its time. Because honestly, why should fascinators only come out for special occasions… when every workday is a chance to serve a look and be present!!! Menstrual Problems. What are Menstrual Problems? Menstrual problems are difficulties or symptoms that occur during a woman’s menstrual period. They can affect the amount of bleeding, the level of pain, or the regularity of the menstrual cycle. These problems may be caused by hormonal changes, stress, poor diet, medical conditions, or lifestyle factors. Common menstrual problems include menstrual cramps (pain in the lower abdomen during menstruation), heavy menstrual bleeding, irregular periods (periods that come too early, too late, or are missed), headaches during menstruation, nausea or dizziness, lower back pain, fatigue and weakness. Foods that can increase menstrual problems may include salty foods (may increase bloating and water retention), sugary foods like sweets, pastries, and soft drinks (may increase inflammation and fatigue), caffeinated drinks such as coffee and energy drinks (can worsen cramps and headaches), fried and very fatty foods (may increase inflammation and pain), highly processed foods such as instant noodles and packaged snacks. And foods that can help reduce menstrual problems are spinach, beans, lentils, eggs, fish, banana, avocado, dark chocolate (small amounts), nuts, ginger, turmeric, leafy green vegetables, tomatoes, milk, yogurt and cheese. We can also reduce menstrual problems by drinking plenty of water, applying a warm compress or heating pad to the lower abdomen, exercising lightly such as walking or stretching and getting enough rest and sleep and avoiding too much stress.

Ilona, Italian Restaurant, 1st Floor, Ayna Plaza, 3B Noi Fetreke St, Airport Residential Area, Accra. We were told for a good lasagna Ilona was the best so we booked a table for the evening. We could sit outside, on a sort of open covered terrace, or inside with the air conditioner. The set up is nice, spacious, Picassso style pictures on the wall, modern. Anytime I visit an Italian restaurant for the first time I’ll order a spaghetti carbonara, for me this is the testcase to see whether the cook knows what he is about or they are just opening packages and heating them in the microwave. Their linguini carbonara went for 260 GHC. For the lasagna their only choice was lamb lasagna at GHC 275. linguini carbonara Lasagna is slices of pasta with fillings between them, then in the oven with cheese. Main variations are beef, fish, and vegetarian.
Lasagna A tot of absolute vodka went for GHC 50, Ciroc is 90, a bottle of San Pellegrino sparkling water for 55 GHC and half liter of Heineken draft beer was at 75 GHC. Service was reasonable but a few too many waiters for too few things. The food arrived in no time, faster than you can cook pasta, and the lasagna was a sort of mash mash where the layers of pasta had been overcooked, you could not even cut pieces off it, a spoon was best. The minced lamb was rather tasteless. I am not a lasagna expert but for the carbonara I have my say. One softly fries diced onions in olive oil, then some garlic, then little cubes of smoked guanciale (salt cured cheek of a pig, if not available smoked bacon can do), the very lean fat from the guanciale will allow further frying and together with the onion and the garlic becomes the sauce, then add dry white wine which evaporates but which gives it extra flavour. Guanciale Take the ready cooked hot spaghetti, (be careful with the salt because the guanciale is also a bit salty), put a raw egg yolk through it, the heat of the spaghetti will soft cook the yolk which now becomes a lubricant for the spaghetti to “flow”. No cream needed. Add your sauce, some freshly ground black pepper and parsley and enjoy your spaghetti carbonara, or linguini carbonara. Add grated parmesan cheese according to your taste. I hope their cook reads this, he had added a bucket load of hot cream with a little molten cheese to the linguini and sprinkled a few pieces of thin dry fried bacon on top of it. And I think he forgot the salt. The cream made it extra heavy, I only managed to fall asleep after midnight. We did take away the uneaten half of the lasagna pudding because my friend has backyard chicken. This came with a nice paper bag and a carton container rather than the common polytene container, and they did not charge for it. A plus. Washrooms are neat and pleasant as well. Prices are inclusive of all taxes, but the bill took more than 10 minutes.

Lydia...

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Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

A Mutiny For The Forest

And it was a first Timed in every worry The parts of war And doing the jury in quick work Lots of succession to grow old Fading in the Paris wind,- a part of my family We knew we could sake this promise Repealed by foreign-born As full as the possible There was power by the timid And a solo effect That birds had carbon And the golden wing-tips Playing our Water For the things we had hidden I was born to a foreign planet In repeal of the nine-second law And acquitted by the feral Seeing the Supreme Court I was shunned by law And had no way to make news So to pitch to the whale A frail infraction And Justice to be secure I was served the death sentence Supposing it would decay- This plot of Heaven I was sent to make-believe Bristling past every bush With nights of candor and one And the irks were every two I spoiled the evident in Rome And acceded by law There was nothing left Nothing But promontory not We could supply every purpose And look into Israel Rain for the center And winning the injust We had every international And in the stream automatic I was literally on time So to shoots every May We planted Heaven And cherished the wind And so the rain followed We carried every nest- Each branching hour And upon rest Awaited the straight sky- to lift and pull what we planted And making verse- in Swahili and Hebrew Asked for ten pence And fired at the Willow In each reprieve- there would be unjust Linings of sulphur And days of clay automatic So surfacing wearily We won the West In only a cannon- was the ceremonial draw And made it late to our jettison A horse for the Bible Weddings new and untold A species for our land And I was unusual But nothing more On this Justice land- Earth.

Oorblog VVA ; Menselijk Schild erwerk

Welkom bij alweer de eerste aflevering van de zo veelste serie rondom de vele bizarre creaturen die de mensheid in de huidige staat van kunstzinnige opwinding verkerend ons hier zo digitaal voorschoteld en wel nadat ze het eerst zelf zo raar heeft klaar gemaakt. Geniet voort van de alledaagse freakshow die we media noemen. Vandaag ontmoeten we onappetijtelijke Hein. Wij waren uitgegaan dat hij mager zou zijn aangezien Hein drie jaar geleden uit vrije wil heeft besloten niet meer te eten. Nu we Hein hier voor u en ons in het openbaar vertonen zien we dat Hein er gewoon gezond uit ziet.

We wandelen met Hein door het cultuur gebied, het Industrie, Winkel, Vermaak en Sport zone Welgelegen Hier ontstaan omdat het heel bereikbaar is gemaakt, ongeveer met alle vehikels op dit moment mogelijk, sporend met de trein, in alle soorten brandstof van a naar b transporterende wagens, op fietsen ook die met batterij, al wandelend, of brommend of scootend, met een bootje over de vers gegraven Wel vaart, en zelfs met een helikopter mits er iemand zeer teleurgesteld is over de manier waarop het laatste evenement op zijn of haar tijdlijn is verlopen, ingestort. Hans zal ons tijdens deze wandeling langs talloze niet bekeken bezienswaardigheden vertellen over waarom hij al 3 jaar en 5 maand niet meer eet sinds het jaar 65754 tot op heden jaar 65763 na het spontaan ontstaan van Keizer Sop.

Beeld 1. Hein staat met zijn handen in zijn broekzakken in de buurt van een druk bezocht snel vreten restaurant. Het korte vraag gesprek op deze culturele expansie locatie over Heins bizarre ongewoonte vangt aan. De gezichtsloze zich zelf zelden of nooit filmende vraagstem stelt zijn eerste vraag al daar rondom deze lui die als bezetenen zich zelf dwangmatig volproppen met lekker smaakvol maar vrij zinloos maal materiaal, eten dat tijdens het eten zelf meer energie kost dan het ooit kan leveren.

Aard – Hein nu je hier staat krijg je dan geen trek in een hapje?

Hein – Nee geen enkele. Twee maanden nadat ik zelf besloot te stoppen met eten is de trek er in compleet verdwenen.

Aard – Wat ik me vooral afvraag wat je er toe bracht om zo in enen daarmee te kappen, waar liep je tegen aan.

Hein – Ach, zo moeilijk was het eigenlijk niet, ik had mijn toetje naar binnen gelepeld en dacht 'Ik heb genoeg!'

Op de achtergrond is het geluid van diverse sirenes te horen, samen op jacht naar de ongelukkigen.

Aard – Wat was 'genoeg' in dit geval?

Hein – Ik zat vol, mijn hele leven at ik iedere dag veel en na dat toetje had ik het idee dat ik nu wel genoeg had gegeten en wel voor alle jaren die nog gingen komen. Ik had in het voor gegeten zo noemen we dat bij ons thuis. Dan ging je zeer vroeg ergens heen waar waarschijnlijk niet veel te eten was en ver voor de normale etenstijd vrat je dan het hoofdmaal op zodat de rest van de dag de trek in eten niet zou opspelen en de trip verpesten.

Aard – Hoe kon jij weten dat je op dat moment genoeg had gegeten voor de rest van je leven?

We staan stil bij een spoorweg overgang en Hein geeft pas antwoord als de vijf treinen zijn gepasseerd, de rode knipper lichten zijn uitgedoofd en de malle elektrieken bel wordt uitgeschakeld

Hein – Dat was slechts een raar opkomend idee, zelf vond ik het ook wel dom om zoiets te denken, en toch bleek de gedachte terecht.

Aard – Als je het zo'n dom idee vondt waarom at je dan toch niet gewoon verder, zoals gewone stervelingen iedere dag doen, moeten doen.

Hein – Ze moeten niks Aard, dat zie je toch! Ik had gewoon genoeg en zij hebben dat blijkbaar nooit of ze voelen dat niet.

Hein sloeg af naar links richting het bedrijven & duurlopen in kringetjes park tevens plek waarop rij studenten de eerste rijlessen ondervinden, we liepen hier veelal tussen langzaamrijdend en stilstaand verkeer al was er van een file geen sprake.

Aard – Kreeg je helemaal geen last van niet meer eten?

Hein – Ik had in het begin wel eens trek maar honger had ik dus nooit, trek is gewoon een hoop vaste gewoontes rondom eten. Alles wat eten is, wat er bij hoort, de etenstijden, het opzoeken van eten bij de vaste trek pleisters, koelkast, broodtrommel, bij de keuken en in de buurt van alle zaken waar eten voor verkoop klaar ligt, restaurants, winkels maar ook in de nabijheid van media spelers, tv radio internet gerelateerd daar is eten heel vaak in beeld of komt bijzonder vaak ter sprake, dat valt meer op met trek dan zonder. Eten is overal heel prominent aanwezig, in de gehele natuur en zeker in onze maal alsmaar door cultuur.

Een geluid zo net nog residerend in de verte komt opeens heel dichtbij. Het bleek een horde dravende bizons bezig met de dwingend aanbevolen participatie cursus voor beter integreren met gestaag grazende koeien

Hein – Ik was er ook echt klaar mee hoor. Iedere keer dat gedoe er om, de herhaling van zetten in gezelschap van zetmeel en zuivel, de tocht langs de voedselketen in winkelketens, het schillen der aardappels, de grote hoeveelheid handelingen horend bij eten. Het vrat heel veel energie veel meer dan ik eigenlijk leek te verbruiken in niet etenstijden. Ik dacht ook dat ik juist daar genoeg van had, dat kook wekker en winkel gedonder, niet van eten zelf. Het was beide en omdat ik was opgehouden met het ene volgde het andere.

Aard – Het moet dan zo zijn dat je tijdens alle eerdere maaltijden zoveel energie hebt ingenomen dat je energie batterijen volledig vol zitten en bijna niet meer leeg lopen, in ieder geval tot een onbekend moment.

Hein – Daar lijkt het op. Ik zit inderdaad propvol en ik loop maar langzaam leeg.

Aard – Je verbruikt vandaag toch ook aardig wat energie, meer nog dan de meeste anderen ervaar ik nu, waar zit die lading dan opgepot?

Ze komen aan bij het Malie Polder veld de aangewezen locatie voor protesten van allerhande aard. Twee partijen demonstreren daar tegen elkaar over het recht om vaker geweldloos te mogen protesteren, ze doen dat al spijkerpoepend. De spijkers zijn eerst met schrootbommen in elkaars bips geschoten.

Hein – Ik zou het niet weten. Het enigste dat ik weet dat mijn genoeg het ook echt is, bij anderen is het alleen maar een klank. Hun genoeg is altijd bezig met meer, en meer anders, het artikel omruilen, schuiven met de inhoud voorheen bekendstaand als de panelen, de stopcontacten verplaatsen in plaats van verwijderen, zeg maar.

Aard – Eh ja, nou, zeg Hein, u heeft tot vandaag de media gemeden, begrijpelijk als media gebruiker waardeer ik iedereen die daarop nooit te zien of horen is, zoals ik ook nooit ontstane problemen echt het allermeest waardeer ook al waren ze allemaal meer dan mogelijk, waarom heeft u dan toch meegewerkt aan dit bescheiden item zodat dit vreemde levensrelaas mogelijk opvalt en juist daar bij de mensen die leven en werken rondom het onbegrip des nooit genoeg.

Hein – Och, u bent echt een zeer beperkt speler in het grote alles overal omroepen veld. Die paar lezers zullen denken dat u mijn ware verhaal uit de duim zuigt, en daarnaast werkt u als één van de weinige schrijver denkers alhier precies zoals ik elke dag leef, zonder weblog eten, kijkcijfers en lezer statistieken, geld (beloning), oorblog leden, applaus en of boe geroep, de eer, de prijzen, het (wederzijds) respect, troepen volgelingen, schare trouwe lezers, opmerkelijke soorten van daadwerkelijke waardering, eten dus voor makers van een dergelijk blog programma en voor dit VVA webblog voedsel gaat u ook al nooit naar de grote aandacht supermarkt voor het inkopen van dergelijke uitingen voor het tonen en stemmen betreffende respectabele klanken, kortom u omroep werk lijkt wel bijna op mijn lijf geschreven.

Net op dat moment horen ze luid en duidelijk voor het eerst deze middag ijselijke stilte vallen

pok verdomme, klote veters

Aard – Toch zou het heel misschien zo zijn dat mensen uit de nooit genoeg sector dit artikel toch via via onder ogen krijgen (dat is in deze samenclustering van willetjes eigenlijk volstrekt normaal) en daarna u gaan benaderen voor meer van dit soort shows of nog erger voor onderzoek naar het enorme energie opslag vermogen daar ergens zetelend in u lijf wat dan?

Hein – Tja, dan neem ik deze mensen uit die sector mee uit eten naar dat junkfood restaurant waar deze uitzending mee begon dan is dat probleem ook weer uit de weg.

Laatste shot, Hein loopt voorbij de met zwaar hekwerk afgesloten poort van een fabriek voor chips en cookies slaat af en loopt voorgoed uit ons ogenblik.

“The ecosystems I was born into, and that form my body, are a boundary, a border between two separate and linked systems. On a macro scale, the boreal and mixed hardwood forests came together to create something new: a zone of overlapping presence that requires care, kindness, sacrifice and reciprocity to continue to bring forth a diversity and abundance of new life.”

— Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead, p. 68

Wer schon einmal versucht hat, eine längere Liste, Fachbegriffe oder eine Präsentation auswendig zu lernen, kennt das Problem: Einzelne Informationen verschwinden schnell wieder aus dem Gedächtnis. Besonders schwierig wird es, wenn die Inhalte wenig miteinander zu tun haben. Genau hier setzt die sogenannte Loci-Methode an – eine jahrtausendealte Lerntechnik, die bis heute verwendet wird.

Der Grundgedanke ist simpel: Man verbindet den Lernstoff mit bekannten Orten. Tatsächlich nutzt die Methode eine Stärke unseres Gehirns, die viele im Alltag unterschätzen: Menschen erinnern sich oft erstaunlich präzise an Räume, Wege und räumliche Abläufe. Wer sich etwa an seine Primarschule oder die Wohnung der Grosseltern erinnert, sieht häufig sofort konkrete Bilder vor sich. Die Loci-Methode macht sich genau dieses räumliche Gedächtnis zunutze.

Woher kommt die Methode?

Die Ursprünge der Loci-Methode reichen bis in die Antike zurück. Schon griechische und römische Redner nutzten sie, um lange Reden frei vortragen zu können. Bücher waren damals selten und teuer, vieles musste auswendig gelernt werden. Besonders in der #Rhetorik spielte das Gedächtnis deshalb eine zentrale Rolle.

Der Legende nach geht die Methode auf den griechischen Dichter Simonides von Keos zurück. Nachdem ein Gebäude eingestürzt war, soll er die Opfer anhand ihrer ursprünglichen Sitzordnung identifiziert haben. Daraus entstand die Einsicht, dass räumliche Anordnungen Erinnerungen besonders zuverlässig strukturieren können. Später verwendeten auch berühmte Redner wie Cicero diese Technik.

Auch moderne Gedächtnissportler greifen bis heute auf dieselbe Grundidee zurück. Der technologische Fortschritt hat die Funktionsweise unseres Gehirns nämlich nicht verändert. Noch immer gilt: Bilder und räumliche Vorstellungen prägen sich meist leichter ein als abstrakte Informationen oder reine Textfolgen: „Unserem Gehirn fällt es schwer, sich schnell mehrere unzusammenhängende Begriffe oder Zahlen zu merken.“ [1] Genau deshalb helfen Bilder und Orte beim #Lernen.

Wie ist die Methode aufgebaut?

Die Loci-Methode folgt einem klaren Ablauf. Sie benötigt keine besondere Begabung, wohl aber etwas Übung. Anfangs wirkt der Prozess oft ungewohnt, nach einigen Anwendungen wird er jedoch deutlich einfacher.

Im Zentrum stehen drei Elemente:

1. eine vertraute Route oder Umgebung
2. feste Ankerpunkte entlang dieser Route
3. bildhafte Verknüpfungen mit dem Lernstoff

Zunächst wählt man einen Ort, den man sehr gut kennt. Das kann die eigene Wohnung sein, der Arbeitsweg, ein Spaziergang durch die Altstadt oder sogar ein vertrautes Schulzimmer. Wichtig ist lediglich, dass die Reihenfolge der Orte eindeutig ist.

Anschliessend legt man konkrete Stationen fest. In einer Wohnung könnten das beispielsweise Eingangstür, Garderobe, Sofa, Tisch, Bücherregal und Balkon sein. Diese Punkte bilden später die Struktur für die Informationen.

Nun beginnt der eigentliche Lernprozess: Die Inhalte werden als möglichst lebendige Bilder mit diesen Orten verbunden. Je ungewöhnlicher oder absurder die Vorstellung, desto besser funktioniert sie oft. Genau darin liegt eine gewisse Eigenart der Methode. Unser Gehirn reagiert besonders stark auf Überraschungen, Emotionen und skurrile Bilder.

Wer sich etwa die Reihenfolge bestimmter Begriffe merken möchte, könnte sich vorstellen, dass auf dem Sofa plötzlich ein riesiges Wörterbuch explodiert oder dass aus dem Kühlschrank französische Vokabeln herausfliegen. Solche Bilder wirken albern – und genau deshalb bleiben sie häufig haften.

Wie kann man die Methode konkret verwenden?

Besonders gut eignet sich die Loci-Methode für Lernstoff mit klarer Reihenfolge. Dazu gehören beispielsweise:

• Vokabeln
• Präsentationen
• historische Ereignisse
• Fachbegriffe
• Listen
• Prüfungsthemen

Nehmen wir ein einfaches Beispiel aus dem Sprachlernen. Angenommen, man möchte sich fünf französische Wörter merken. Die Wohnung dient dabei als Route.

An der Eingangstür sitzt eine riesige „pomme“ (Apfel), die den Weg versperrt. Auf dem Sofa springt ein „chat“ (Katze) herum. Im Badezimmer schwimmt ein „poisson“ (Fisch) in der Badewanne. Am Küchentisch liegt ein überdimensionales „livre“ (Buch), und auf dem Balkon steht plötzlich ein „cheval“ (Pferd).

Wer später gedanklich durch die Wohnung geht, ruft dadurch automatisch die Begriffe ab. Die Orte dienen als mentale Auslöser.

Ähnlich funktioniert die Methode auch bei Präsentationen. Statt den Vortrag Wort für Wort auswendig zu lernen, verbindet man die einzelnen Themen mit Stationen entlang einer Route. Dadurch erinnert man sich an die Reihenfolge und an die wichtigsten Inhalte, ohne mechanisch auswendig sprechen zu müssen.

Im Berufsalltag kann die Technik ebenfalls nützlich sein. Wer sich Namen, Gesprächspunkte oder Abläufe merken möchte, kann diese gedanklich an Orte koppeln. Gerade bei Vorträgen oder Prüfungen hilft dies oft gegen das bekannte „Blackout“-Gefühl.

Die Methode ist also leicht und überall einsetzbar. Allerdings gilt auch: Die Technik ersetzt kein Verständnis. Wer Inhalte nicht begreift, kann sie zwar kurzfristig speichern, aber kaum sinnvoll anwenden.

Warum funktioniert das überhaupt?

Die genaue Funktionsweise des Gedächtnisses ist bis heute nicht vollständig verstanden. Bekannt ist jedoch, dass räumliche Orientierung und bildhafte Vorstellungen tief im menschlichen Denken verankert sind.

Die Loci-Methode nutzt dabei mehrere psychologische Effekte gleichzeitig:

• Strukturierung von Informationen
• Verknüpfung mit bekannten Räumen
• emotionale oder absurde Bilder
• aktives statt passives Lernen

Gerade der letzte Punkt wird häufig unterschätzt. Viele Menschen lernen passiv: lesen, markieren, wiederholen. Die Loci-Methode zwingt hingegen dazu, Informationen aktiv umzuwandeln und mit eigenen Vorstellungen zu verbinden (Elaboration). Dadurch entsteht eine tiefere Verarbeitung des Lernstoffs.

Ein weiterer Vorteil liegt darin, dass Reihenfolgen stabil bleiben. Wer seine Route kennt, kann Inhalte oft erstaunlich zuverlässig abrufen.

Vor- und Nachteile

Die Methode hat klare Stärken, aber auch Grenzen. Hilfreich ist sie insbesondere dann, wenn grosse Mengen an Fakten gelernt werden müssen. Viele Menschen erleben zudem, dass Lernen dadurch kreativer und weniger monoton wird. Die Methode funktioniert ohne technische Hilfsmittel und lässt sich nahezu überall anwenden.

Allerdings braucht der Einstieg Zeit. Gute Bilder zu entwickeln ist anstrengender, als Informationen einfach zu lesen. Gerade am Anfang empfinden viele die Technik als umständlich. Hinzu kommt, dass sie sich nicht für jede Art von Lernen eignet. Tiefes Verständnis, kritisches Denken oder mathematische Zusammenhänge lassen sich dadurch nicht automatisch verbessern.

Auch die Wiederholung bleibt wichtig. Ohne regelmässiges Auffrischen (Spaced Repetition) werden die mentalen Bilder mit der Zeit unscharf: „Ohne Wiederholung werden die gemerkten Bilder im Kopf immer unschärfer.“ [2]

Warum man die Loci-Methode auch heute noch anwenden kann

Die Loci-Methode gehört zu den ältesten bekannten Lerntechniken – und vermutlich auch zu den unterschätztesten. Ihr Erfolg beruht nicht auf Magie oder aussergewöhnlichen Gedächtnisleistungen, sondern auf einer geschickten Nutzung menschlicher Wahrnehmung.

Wer bereit ist, sich auf die ungewohnten Bilder und räumlichen Vorstellungen einzulassen, entdeckt oft eine überraschend wirkungsvolle Lernstrategie. Eine so einfache Methode mag altmodisch wirken aber vielleicht liegt genau darin ihre Stärke.

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Fussnoten [1] Luca Intzen, „Mnemotechnik: Lernen mit der Loci-Methode“, Betzold Blog, 2026. [2] „Loci-Methode“, Wikipedia, 2026.

Bildquelle Henry Robert Morland (1716/19–1797): Woman Reading by a Paper-Bell Shade, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Public Domain.

Disclaimer Teile dieses Texts wurden mit Deepl Write (Korrektorat und Lektorat) überarbeitet. Für die Recherche in den erwähnten Werken/Quellen und in meinen Notizen wurde NotebookLM von Google verwendet.

Topic #Erwachsenenbildung | #ProductivityPorn

Returnee Blues #1, 2026 – Mixed Media on paper, 50 cm x 65 cm | 19.6” x 25.6”

Thought I'd finally found a housekeeper to pop in once a week to assist with cleanup. But that was three Fridays ago, and every time she doesn't show up even though the date and time were of her very own choosing. Similar situation with the plumber who first promised to show up two weeks ago. I've set three different appointments with the mirror place, every time they say they'll call me the day of to confirm and never do. Carpenter too been dragging me on for four weeks now.

Not sure why the need to hound someone to do work for you before they do it even after they promise doing it is such a widespread phenomenon in Cairo. I remember only needing to contact a housekeeper back in Houston just once to agree on the day, time, and fees, and she stuck to the same schedule like clockwork for three years before I had to move (Tidyqueen, if anyone in Houston is reading this and looking).

It's such a tedious energy-sucking thing in Cairo, because on any given day I'm expecting someone to show up, I find it extremely difficult to lock in and really get into the zone of whatever project I have on my table; the anticipation of impending distraction lingering in the back of mind all day.

And some of the stuff that needs tending too isn't superfluous. We've got pipes blocked with weeks full of piss and shit at this point.

Now I know why all my homies have moved into compounds; a virtually non-existent development less than 10 years ago. They tell me whenever anything needs fixin', all they have to do is call a number and help is on the way in less than 24 hours. That's enough of a perk to explain the seemingly unquenchable compound craze that has taken over the country in recent years, but I still can't stand that shit. Nothing spells a seething distaste for “the plebs” quite like a gated “community”.

#journal #work #Cairo

I wouldn't exchange any of my failures for someone else's success

I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that I have little natural talent for social media. Everyone around me seems to glide through it effortlessly, I’ve never met a single person who manages to flop on their own feed. Behind every post sits a little self applause. And LinkedIn… well, that’s its own special arena of pain. Endless check ins from endless networking events. At some point, people collectively realized that professionally, showing up to pose for the picture was more advantageous than showing up for their actual work.

I still haven’t mastered the art of caring about these social expectation circles as much as I care about the work itself. My charisma is conditioned to hold up for around 8h pretty well, it is trained for my worker class needs by now. As long as I get the chance to go home and have a walk with my dog after a full day, I'll be alright.

But the truth is, what really loads my battery is the work itself. I am a sucker for my own work. I drool over whatever I’m researching. Not because I’m chasing praise, and not because I grew up drowning in compliments (I didn’t, for the record). Of course acknowledgment is nice, and I expect it like anyone else, but give me a market, a cluster, a brand, a product repositioning, a generation to decode, and I’m gone. It’s the context, the ecosystem, the cold water dive into the problem that pulls me in every time.

I love to understand what drives people’s habits. I want to understand what in our muggle brains convinces us that this product, that service, or that choice is the one that fits us best. That curiosity has always been the real drug behind working in advertising for me: being a total outsider to a territory until it suddenly becomes a project, and then I’m knee deep in the mechanics of a new electric car battery that’s about to shift an entire category. Or what is the deal between millennials and barrel jeans and humble fashion, and then you ask me: Who else cares about it, Paula? Exactly, that's why I love it.

It’s the nonsense that gets me. The leap from “I know nothing about this” to dissecting an entire ecosystem like a forensic scientist. My interest is infinite. That moment when a market, a behavior, a cultural quirk reveals itself, that’s the spark that always brought me the feeling of being on the right direction. And honestly, I really believe that's what makes people interesting: the fact they are interested on things.

It’s a shame that this spark ends up being funneled into an industry that’s basically an engine of the capitalist system, you could say that, and I’d agree 200%. I just wish more professionals carried that same spark into their own fields. Imagine being treated by a doctor who genuinely wants to understand your issue. Or a therapist who’s deeply invested. Or an engineer who’s even half as curious about city planning as they are about their deadlines. Architects, politicians, the whole spectrum.

The world would look completely different if more people were fueled by intrinsic curiosity instead of just going through the motions of their profession. Real success has always felt subjective (almost quiet) to me. It never lived in the awards, or the big campaign launches, or the press releases with my name tucked into the credits. I get it: the industry worships those things, so I’m supposed to care about them too. But my gratification comes from somewhere else entirely, from the investigation, the digging, the unraveling.

And yes, I bang my head against things. A lot. The route has been recalculated more times than I can count. But in the middle of all that rerouting, I’ve learned so much about people, and about social bubbles that were never mine to begin with. My work allows me to move through any circle with the ease of a generalist, and that’s the real reward. The quiet one. The one that actually matters.

Talking to a politician, scheduling slots with his secretary, exchanging with the cameraman. Briefing the production team. Approving the material from the content creator, defending your idea to the CEO of whatever I couldn't care less, then grabbing a coffee with the new intern who's a sweetheart. Stumbling into your competitor at an industry event, only to realize they could be your best friend after some drinks. It’s humbling, in the best possible way. People assume this kind of work lifts you into some glossy, unrealistic realm where you float above reality. It’s the opposite. It drags you right back into the reality of things, the human mix, the plurality, the constant shifting between worlds. That’s the part I love because it keeps me grounded.

Honestly, my failures, awkward moments, and bizarre situations make for far better stories than any perfectly delivered project ever could. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. The mess, the curiosity, the detours, that’s where the good stuff lives.

/May26