blink is another one of those novels that discusses a facet of human nature most people are acutely aware of, but don't understand; the human brain's ability to process certain pieces of information with blinding, even unreasonable, speed. it is a phenomenon so mysterious that it has historically bordered on the supernatural. but gladwell, through a variety of cases, employs both hard and soft sciences to try to explain and understand what is happening as if he were debunking his very own x-file.

in the end it strikes me as a work not meant to teach you how to do it but instead to appreciate that an identifiable chemistry is at work. in many of the examples used, people don't know how they are able to do what they do and/or often aren't aware it is happening. furthermore, these moments occur at an individual level, like when the right combination of details are put in front of a person with the right combination of education and experience a little spark flashes in the room and left behind is a magic gobstopper, constructed out of thin air and with no intentional planning.

on the suck side, much study has gone into taking commercial advantage of these cerebral reactions, which gladwell dips into, in the name of profit. i always find that side of science quite distasteful. in this case though, i feel it is good to know, even though i'm seemingly impotent to deflect the practices at hand. aside from this one dark matter, the book holds a bevy of entertaining curios.