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...Hillary Rodham Clinton never forgets to summon the argument that she has more experience. But as the Florida State simulations show, experience doesn't always help. In fact, three decades of research into expert performance has shown that experience itself - the raw amount of time you spend pursuing any particular activity, from brain surgery to skiing - can actually hinder your ability to deliver reproducibly superior performance...
...Experts tend to be good at their particular talent, but when something unpredictable happens - something that changes the rules of the game they usually play - they're little better than the rest of us. Chess grand masters can recall almost entire chessboard layouts from their games (approximately 25 pieces, compared with an average of four for novices), but when chessmen are randomly arranged on a board, those grand masters can recall the placement of only about six pieces. Similarly, experienced actors remember script lines much better than novices do, but they are no better at remembering material other than scripts...
...journal Ergonomics, a team of researchers found that while new drivers and truly expert drivers (members of Britain's Institute of Advanced Motorists) checked their mirrors often and applied their brakes early, regular drivers with 20 years' experience rarely checked their mirrors and braked much later. Experience in a particular task frees space in your mind for other cognitive pursuits - wondering what's for dinner, answering your cell, singing along with Justin Timberlake - but those things can distract you from the accident you're about to have. Experience can also lead to overconfidence: a study in the journal Accident Analysis...
...That future isn't quite as bright as the National Front might hope. Although the ruling coalition is composed of more than a dozen ethnically based parties, minority Chinese and Indians are complaining more loudly about perceived government discrimination. In particular, many non-Muslims feel it is getting harder to freely practice their own faiths. Ethnic and religious tensions have gotten so bad, in fact, that even Abdullah admits the National Front probably won't match its 2004 landslide victory. Compounding matters are high consumer prices that have shocked Malaysians who are used to living cheaply off the bounty...
...State Bank of Pakistan is ratcheting up interest rates, though it still expects inflation "to remain high" through the rest of 2008. That won't impress vegetable vendor Faiz Mohamed, 50, who says that Pakistan's economic success in the past few years has benefited only the elite. "A particular class has earned a lot from the investment, the new [cell] phones, all that," he says, from behind his worn metal scales. But, he says, "the poor man has become poorer...