Mike Arauz's Blog – The Archives

In no particular order, these are the blogs that made me say "Ooo," "Whoah," "Hmmm," "Wow," and "Ah Ha!" in 2007:

Noah Brier - www.noahbrier.com
Noah is a communications strategist at Naked. He was one of the first people I met as I began my job search last spring. His blog is delightfully eclectic, yet always seems to be right in line with my own fascinations and interests. A great example of how, if you don't limit your curiosity, you don't limit your discoveries.

Tina Roth Eisenberg - swissmiss.typepad.com/weblog
Authored by a Brooklyn-based graphic designer, and one of the most well curated and prolific design blogs I've come across on the web. SwissMiss is one of the few blogs whose entries I'm careful to never skip. With a dash of humor, I never know what I'm going to discover – whether it's a great new photographer, a tattoo mustache, or even a portable bbq – but I always go away feeling inspired.

Sean Howard - www.craphammer.ca
Sean works for a Toronto based branding firm. He's turned out to be a source of inspiration, and a great sounding board for my exploration of new media communications. Sean is one of the few bloggers I've found who is tackling some of the most conceptually expansive questions about social networking, marketing, and how we talk to each other in an increasingly digital world.

Scott Schuman - thesartorialist.blogspot.com
Although I was probably at the peek of my sartorial prowess in third grade, in my smart gray wool short suit and bow-tie, my affinity for great fashion has never wained. Scott's fashion photo blog is a stunning, and relentlessly inspirational collection of fantastic and original men's and women's clothing creations.

Tom Stafford and Matt Webb - www.mindhacks.com
I can't remember how I ended up stumbling across Mind Hacks, but it's turned out to be a terrific little thought-nugget of a blog. Covering interesting discoveries in neuroscience and psychology, it's introduced me to some incredibly eye-opening ideas about human behavior, and how much we still have to learn about the human brain.

Haalo - cookalmostanything.blogspot.com
If you're looking for a reason to do more cooking, Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once, will whet your appetite with its beautiful photos and mouth-watering recipes.

Nadejda - pan-dan.blogspot.com
This Italy-based blog is a carefully focused stream of some of the most beautiful industrial design I've ever seen. Chairs, lights, coffee tables, beds, benches...like you've never seen before.

Today on Mind Hacks I stumbled across this fantastic little flash interactive that teaches you about the different parts of a neuron, and how neurons function.

I've harbored an intense fascination with the basic premises of neuroscience for a few years now; in particular I've been interested in how the functions of our neurological system provide an apt metaphor for how we share information in through the web.

So, here's an oversimplified explanation of how neurons are like people connected to the internet.



Dendrites are the sensing, or listening part of the neuron. Any given neuron might have as many as 2,000 dendrites.

For internet users, our dendrites are our collected sources. Our list of RSS feeds of blogs that we've subscribed to. Our bookmarks. Our Facebook friends. These are all the voices we're listening to.



The Axon carries the signal from dendrites out to any other neurons that the neuron is connected to.

This represents our outgoing feed. After we've filtered all of the information that is coming in, a small portion of it is deemed worthy enough to pass on. This gets passed into our information stream and sent to the people who are listening to us.



The Myelin Sheath protects the axon, and also increases the speed and strength of the signals.

These are the tools and services we use to amplify and/or direct the information being passed through our feed. We may have a blog. We might use Twitter. We may share links through Facebook. Digg. del.icio.us. StumbleUpon.



The Synaptic End Bulbs are where electrical signals passed down the axon release neurotransmitters that are received by other neurons.

These are the posts themselves that show up on our blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, etc.



The human body's central nervous system consists of billions of neurons connected in an infinitely complex network.

This sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it? Think about all the sources you have coming in, and all the sources that are listening on the other end. Some of us might be powerful super neurons - like the NYTimes, for instance. Some of us might be minor neurons with less than a hundred regular listeners. And some of us might be relatively insignificant neurons with hardly any listeners. But, we're all connected to each other; it's the sum of those connections that makes the internet so revolutionary. And each day the number of listeners grows, and more and more neurons become connected to other neurons.

Also, like a typical electric circuit, the neural circuit only lights up if enough of the individual neurons are passing on the signal. In our world, an idea will only light up the network if enough individual users decide to pass it on.

We are in the midst of building a hugely complex and powerful system for sharing information; and it is continuously becoming exponentially more powerful.