
Author of the #1 iOS app Creative Whack Pack https://xitter.cf/t.co/IaRvxofCDr and creativity classic “A Whack on the Side of the Head” https://xitter.cf/t.co/WDMYJ3wBrr + Ball of Whacks.
Near Palo Alto, California
Joined March 2007
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Announcing my newest product: CREATIVE WHACKS Deluxe Edition, an illustrated deck of 100 strategies to provoke your creativity. “Business brilliance.” — USA/Today
CREATIVE WHACKS is a richly expanded, enlarged, and revised edition of the classic Creative Whack Pack card deck. Amazon link for more information: a.co/d/ezpTahv
This edition has 60% more #creativity strategies (100). Also, the cards are 30% larger allowing bigger illustrations.
RECOMMENDED FOR: innovators, artists, engineers, designers, writers, teachers, students, coaches, and anyone trying to spark their thinking. Check it out!
The answer is #LarryDavid.
Now that the father-son duo of Larry Ellison and his son David Ellison have successfully acquired the #Warner studio to be folded into #Paramount, people are wondering what the new entity will be called.
Warner Paramount? Paramount Warner? Keep as Paramount Skydance?
The best move is to name it after Larry and David, or simply “Larry David”. It would be the most powerful Larry David in Hollywood by far.
I just saw the obit of Ben Rosen in the NYT. He was an analyst (Rosen Electronics Letter), venture capitalist, key principal in the creation of Lotus 1-2-3 and Compaq. Made me think of Esther Dyson @edyson and the glory days of the 1980s software industry, and the high-tech conferences I put on in Palo Alto from 1981-1985.
I just paid for the upcoming volume 4 (July ‘26 to July ‘27) of the County Highway newspaper. Lots of fun stories ahead! I’ve been a subscriber since Day One in 2023! Go get ‘em guys and gals! @walterkirn @countyhwy
Sixty-nine years ago today, one of my best friends entered the world.
None of us knew then how many lives he'd change, how many laughs he'd create, or how many perspectives he'd reshape.
Today, we raise our cups a little higher for @ScottAdamsSays.
To Scott ☕️
One of the more creative things I’ve seen online in a while. Nice job!
Restoring Van Gogh’s Ear & Mending His Broken Heart youtube.com/shorts/GwyNTXY2D… via @YouTube
Happy 90th birthday to Keir Dullea (May 30), star of the all time great #Kubrick film, 2001. He played Dr. David Bowman. #KeirDullea
I’v become a big fan of @johnkonrad ‘s insights over the past seven weeks. Knows his stuff.
Happy “0-Birthday” greetings to #TuringAward winner @RobertMMetcalfe, a multi-talented gentleman who invented #Ethernet, founded @3Com, and inspired several generations of innovators.
I first met Bob in 1980 and he shared many useful innovation insights with me over the following years.
Bob’s one of the good guys! Many happy returns!
@robynsmetcalfe #BobMetcalfe
Happy 341st birthday today to #JSBach (1685-1750) the greatest composer of all time!
I met Paul Ehrlich at a Stanford event 15 years ago and chatted with him for 10 minutes. He smiled broadly when I told him I watched him on the Johnny Carson Show in the late 1960s.
When I told him that my favorite #PaulEhrlich with that name was the great German biochemist (1854-1915 — pictured here) who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine (1908) for a cure for syphillis, he frowned and walked away.
Spooky results. @armano
🚨BREAKING: MIT hooked people up to brain scanners while they used ChatGPT.
What they found should concern every single person reading this.
ChatGPT users showed 55% weaker brain connectivity than people who didn't use it. Not after years. After just four months.
Here's how they tested it. 54 people were split into three groups: one used ChatGPT to write essays, one used Google, and one used nothing but their own brain. They wore EEG monitors that tracked their brain activity in real time across four sessions over four months.
The brain-only group built the strongest, most widespread neural networks. Google users were in the middle. ChatGPT users had the weakest brains in the room. Every time.
Then the memory test hit. Participants were asked to recall what they'd just written minutes earlier. 83% of ChatGPT users couldn't quote a single line from their own essay. They wrote it. They couldn't remember it. The words passed through them like they were never there.
It gets worse. In the final session, ChatGPT users were told to write without AI. Their brains were measurably weaker than people who never used AI at all. 78% still couldn't recall their own writing. The damage didn't go away when the tool was removed.
Meanwhile, brain-only users who tried ChatGPT for the first time? Their brains lit up. They wrote better prompts. They retained more. Their brains were already strong enough to use AI as a tool instead of a crutch.
The researchers also found that every ChatGPT essay on the same topic looked almost identical. More facts, more dates, more names. But less original thinking. Everyone using ChatGPT produced the same generic output while believing it was their own.
MIT gave this a name: cognitive debt. Like financial debt, you borrow convenience now and pay with your thinking ability later. Except there's no way to pay it back.
The question isn't whether ChatGPT is useful. It's whether the price is your ability to think without it.
#ScottAdams passed away this morning at age 68. I read his Dilbert comic occasionally in the 1990 and 2000s. But starting in 2015, I tuned into his “Coffee With Scott Adams” at least once a week. I watched his final farewell program yesterday — it was a sad yet somehow an upbeat broadcast. What a mind he had, and also as he might put it “an incredible skill stack.” Scott made a difference many people’s lives.
Hail and farewell, Scott!
In light of the current news:
I wish the leaders of both political parties would be this unequivocal.
I was in #Venezuela in 2008 doing a series of creativity seminars for business. I was ordered NOT to wear my standard “red beret” as part of a presentation about thinking like an “artist” because they feared it might infuriate #HugoChavez and his followers. I caved and wore a black beret instead. I remember Caracas as being a spooky place back then, and was happy to depart at week’s end.
I just made my annual contribution to FIRE, The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, @theFireorg for their incredible work to protect our #FirstAmendment rights of #FreeSpeech.
I encourage you to give as well!
Remember, we don’t want to end up like Starmer’s UK or Germany where a simple Tweet can get you in prison.
I started doing this years ago at the recommendation of Glenn Reynolds @instapundit. Good luck to @glukianoff and his team!
Great news! The iOS app version of the CREATIVE WHACK PACK is now FREE!
j.mp/cwpap
Former #1 on the Apple App Store.
Sorry to note the passing of architect #FrankGehry today at age 96.
I have fond memories of touring his then just-opened #Bilbao museum in 1999 with my daughter right after her high school graduation. Quite a treat!
“Business brilliance.” — USA/Today
Announcing my newest product: CREATIVE WHACKS Deluxe Edition, an illustrated deck of 100 strategies to provoke your creativity.
CREATIVE WHACKS is a richly expanded, enlarged, and revised edition of the classic Creative Whack Pack card deck. Amazon link for more information: a.co/d/ezpTahv
This edition has 60% more #creativity strategies (100). Also, the cards are 30% larger allowing bigger illustrations.
RECOMMENDED FOR: innovators, artists, engineers, designers, writers, teachers, students, coaches, and anyone trying to spark their thinking. Check it out!






















