Lily Tomlin - Comedian & Emmy Aw winner

Lily Tomlin (born September 1, 1939) is an Academy Award-nominated American actress, comedian, writer and producer. Tomlin's body of work, which has spanned over 40 years, has garnered her several Tony Awards and Emmy Awards, as well as a Grammy Award.

First I heard about her in Funny Quote. About shagging. Then googleed. It lead me to wiki pedia. Both Wikipedia and Wiki Quote have a page about Lily Tomlin and her ex-tempore funny quotes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Tomlin

and...

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lily_Tomlin

her interview from ' Advocate Magazine'

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_2005_March_15/ai_n13629326/

Dan Ariely, the Behavioural Economist

I read for the first time about Dan Ariely in Economic Times, in Spiritual Quotient / Cosmic Uplink. The behavioural scienist. Wikipedia has a page about him. Also , his research publication, nearly 6 of them, are linked there, available in PDF version.

Here's what wiki says about him.
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Dan Ariely is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at MIT Sloan School of Management. He also holds an appointment at the MIT Media Lab where he is the head of the eRationality research group. Although he is a professor of marketing with no training in economics, he is considered to be one of the leading behavioral economists. Currently, Ariely is serving as a Visiting Professor at the Duke University, Fuqua School of Business where he is teaching a course based upon his findings in Predictably Irrational.

Dan Ariely grew up in Israel after birth in New York. He served in the Israeli army and when 18 suffered third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body from an accidental magnesium flare explosion during training.[1]

Ariely recovered and went on to graduate from Tel Aviv University and received a Ph.D. and M.A. in cognitive psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Ph.D. in business from Duke University. His research focuses on discovering and measuring how people make decisions. He models the human decision making process and in particular the irrational decisions that we all make every day.

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Selected publications
Try it, you'll like it: The influence of expectation, consumption, and revelation on preferences for beer
Dishonesty in Everyday Life and Its Policy Implications
Placebo Effects of Marketing Actions: Consumers May Get What They Pay For
Tom Sawyer and the Construction of Value
Effort for Payment: A Tale of Two markets
Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-Control by Precommitment
Seeing sets: Representation by Statistical Properties
Controlling the Information Flow: Effects on Consumers' Decision Making and Preferences
Coherent Arbitariness: Stable demand curves without stable preferences
Combining experiences over time: the effects of duration, intensity changes and on-line measurements on retrospective pain evaluations
Please see all publications

His famous book, ' predictably irrational', has a seperate website.

http://www.predictablyirrational.com/

Amazon link for his book , " Predictably Irrational " , is here.

http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Hidden-Forces-Decisions/dp/006135323X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208890191&sr=1-1

" Irrational behavior is a part of human nature, but as MIT professor Ariely has discovered in 20 years of researching behavioral economics, people tend to behave irrationally in a predictable fashion. Drawing on psychology and economics, behavioral economics can show us why cautious people make poor decisions about sex when aroused, why patients get greater relief from a more expensive drug over its cheaper counterpart and why honest people may steal office supplies or communal food, but not money. According to Ariely, our understanding of economics, now based on the assumption of a rational subject, should, in fact, be based on our systematic, unsurprising irrationality. Ariely argues that greater understanding of previously ignored or misunderstood forces (emotions, relativity and social norms) that influence our economic behavior brings a variety of opportunities for reexamining individual motivation and consumer choice, as well as economic and educational policy. Ariely's intelligent, exuberant style and thought-provoking arguments make for a fascinating, eye-opening read. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. "

Benjamin Libet, consciousness scientist

Reading ' Karmic Consciousness ' in ET. There was this reference to Dr.Benjamin Libet, who did a path breaking research in decision making and consciousness. Most of our impulsive actions are decided by unconsciously decided, he avers, and take place 10 milli seconds before we are ' aware' of it. He did ground breaking research on ' volitional acts' and ' readiness potential.

Here is is page in Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet

Benjamin Libet (April 12, 1916 - July 23, 2007) was a researcher in the physiology department of the University of California, San Francisco, and a pioneering scientist in the field of human consciousness. In 2003, he was the first recipient of the Virtual Nobel Prize in Psychology from the University of Klagenfurt, "for his pioneering achievements in the experimental investigation of consciousness, initiation of action, and free will".[1] In his acceptance speech, Libet summarized his life's research and highlighted his work on conscious volitional acts and the antedating of sensory awareness.

His page is very big on wikipedia. Needs to be read in leisure.
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Tributes
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Dr. Robert W. Doty, professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Rochester:[15]
“ Benjamin Libet's discoveries are of extraordinary interest. His is almost the only approach yet to yield any credible evidence of how conscious awareness is produced by the brain. Libet's work is unique, and speaks to questions asked by all humankind. ”

Dr. Susan J. Blackmore, visiting lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol:[16]
“ Many philosophers and scientists have argued that free will is an illusion. Unlike all of them, Benjamin Libet found a way to test it.

(a) Short notes on his experiments and theory, in this page :

http://www.consciousentities.com/libet.htm

(b) His acceptance of virtual nobel prize and speech, here in this link.

http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/psy/cognition/fr_nobel_E2003.html?http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/psy/cognition/nobelpreis_2003E.html

Christopher Dorris - The Peak Perfo Trainer

Swaathi referred me this book. " How to create your own dream " by Christopher Dorris. Not available in India. She procured this book from U.S and it cost her more than Rs.1,000/-. For such a fiction buff as her, it was surprising that she's reading self-help / personality development books ! For someone so evolved ! Any way, here is the amazon link of the book, which received a 5 star rating.

http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Your-Dream-Confidently-Brilliance/dp/0595315763/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207893485&sr=1-3

Also his website,

http://www.christopherdorris.com

look into wiki quote for some quotes.