Top all-time · #6391
Richard Wiseman
Personal blog · richardwiseman.wordpress.comscienceculture
Richard Wiseman's personal blog at richardwiseman.wordpress.com covers science and culture. Since 2009, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 17 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Richard Wiseman's blog as a source of psychology research, mainly on luck, humour and practical self-improvement drawn from his books, such as 59 Seconds and The Luck Factor.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /books/the-luck-factor/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-04-21
What Hacker News says?
Try this book: "59 seconds" - http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/59-seconds-think-a-littl... It presents practical advice based on research papers in the field. A good book on brain hacks like the aforementioned spaced repetition is "Mind Performance Hacks": http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Performance-Hacks-Tools-Overclock... And another good read is "Pragmatic Thinking and Learning": http://pragprog.com/book/ahptl/prag…
Comment linking /59-seconds-think-a-little-change-a-lot/
on “Dizzying but invisible depth”Submitted A classic optical illusion brought to life as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere is a psychologist professor that studied exactly what you are describing and wrote a book on the results. https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/books/the-luck-factor/
Comment linking /books/the-luck-factor/
on “Survivorship Bias”Submitted The worst websites ever…. « Richard Wiseman's Blog as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGood book for you: Luck Factor. It talks a lot about this. https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/books/the-luck-factor/
Comment linking /books/the-luck-factor/
on “The Key to Good Luck Is an Open Mind”Submitted A new gorilla illusion video as a story · 2 points
HN discussionA skeleton walks into a bar. Then orders a bucket and a mop. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5M0bS4R0GCkybTpfTH... https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/psychology-of-humour/
Comment linking /psychology-of-humour/
on “Joke written by an AI: “A basic program walked into a bar ””Submitted Where does the ball come from? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionhttps://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/psychology-of-humour/
Comment linking /psychology-of-humour/
on “Joke written by an AI: “A basic program walked into a bar ””Submitted American publishers say Richard Wiseman's latest book is too skeptical. as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe "fits of nervous laughter" paper by Wiseman & Schlitz (1998) was replicated by Wiseman & Schlitz (1999) [1], with a similar yet different result: RW (again) found no effect of staring, MS found a significant (p=0.05) effect of staring, but with opposite direction than the 1998 paper. [1] https://richardwiseman.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/expt2.pdf , found on https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/research/parapsyc…
Comment linking /research/parapsychology/
on “The control group is out of control (2014)”Submitted Everyone was amazing yesterday (Birthday Paradox) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionFor anyone wanting to effect change in their lives, look to research that can be backed up by scientific method. I dislike the self-help industry immensely. One example of good, scientifically backed advice is the work of Richard Wiseman: http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/ In particular, I've found his book 59 Seconds quite useful. Similarly, I learned about Wiseman's work from the Less Wrong community, which is e…
Comment linking /
on “How to Have the Best Year of Your Life (without Setting a Single Goal)”Submitted The Sunday Puzzle as a story · 1 points
HN discussionBoffins have done research on this a bunch of times[1][2][3]. Average length of best jokes is 103 (exactly) words by the way, as explained by Richard Wiseman to Sean Moncrieff at the 7m45s mark of this Newstalk radio-show segment[4]. Anyway … the scientifically proven funniest joke in the world is: Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He's not breathing and his eyes are glazed, so his friend…
Comment linking /research/laughlab/
on “World's Oldest joke traced back to 1900 BC (2008)”There's an entire subreddit devoted to a technique for fooling the brain into thinking an image is pornographic by overlaying patterns that obscures clothed sections [1] (and at least one more about more generic optical illusions) Not quite the color balance, but how anyone can assert the brain is hard to exploit is beyond me. [1] it's this technique - links is probably nsfw: https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/201…
Comment linking /2010/09/07/naked-women-illusion/
on “A.I. Has Grown Up and Left Home”Discussed on Richard Wiseman's blog: http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2010/10/28/chaplin-time-... Possible (non-time traveller) solutions: http://www.hearingaidmuseum.com/gallery/Carbon/WesternElectr... http://www.phisick.com/a7et82lutz.htm
Comment linking /2010/10/28/chaplin-time-travel-video-solved/
on “Time Traveler Caught in a 1928 Film?”
