Author Archives: Alison Kidd
What does it mean “to know by heart”?
There’s an intriguing recent study showing that people’s sense of whether faces are familiar to them or not is affected by physiological signals from the heart. The experimental subjects were wired up to a heart monitor and during the facial … Continue reading
Maybe we’re the ‘weird lunatics’ not them
Challenging article by Slavoj Zizek in the New Statesman about why we, as Europeans, feel so threatened by the migrant refugee crisis. We feel threatened by the strangeness of the other instead of seeing the strangeness in ourselves through other … Continue reading
Talk to the humans….
If you are an academic and/or a scientist, read this recent lecture by Daniel Gilbert. It’s worth it. Ouch. Click to access SPSP2016.pdf
Domestic Energy Storage
We are thinking of buying a domestic storage battery to better exploit our PV panels. They already generate more electricity than we use over the course of a year (see graph below), but that doesn’t mean we have sustainable electricity … Continue reading
Growth and Waist
UK grocery sales in decline for first time in 20 years. … was the shocking headline in the Guardian in November 2014. At a time of very low inflation, UK shoppers failed to buy more from supermarkets than they had … Continue reading
An Experimental Mix of Birds, Psychology and Art
Background For the past year, I’ve been a member of the ‘Larks and Ravens‘, an experimental group of two artists and a psychologist. We’re exploring how to create visual contexts which trigger people into seeing their world differently for a … Continue reading
Energy Storage – Report of Smart Energy Wales Conference
The Prospectors recently attended a 1 day Conference organised by Smart Energy Wales on energy storage and smart grids. It was billed as ” bringing together the most experienced practitioners from industry, academia and the public sector to provide insights and … Continue reading
Electric Car Running Costs
Individuals don’t generally buy things for their collective benefit, so industry and government would be wasting their time trying to persuade us to buy electric cars because they offer a better long term personal transport solution for society and the … Continue reading
Chaotic or coherent behaviour?
Many years ago, we did some collaborative research on ant behaviour with a delightful group from the University of Bath. The way it challenged our thinking about human behaviour has stayed with us ever since. This recent article provides a … Continue reading
Working on ideas which go against the mainstream
Refreshing to read a synopsis of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book ‘David and Goliath, Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants‘. In particular, Gladwell talks about the French Impressionists who were exploring a radically different way to paint and were … Continue reading
The Prospectory 