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The biggest casualty of everyone being so connected is productivity. No one is getting much done at the office. A few ways you can maintain a healthy brain at work. One activity we all need is sufficient down time, when the brain is refreshed through being non-goal focused. For real down time, people need vacations where they fully switch off. This may require changing how we think about annual leave. Instead of expecting people to take long vacations, we can encourage a shorter annual break, with an extra-long weekend each month to enable recovery. Another ingredient of the "Healthy Mind Platter" is focus time. This is when we focus intensely on a single task, making deeper connections across the brain. Focus time is important for long-term memory as well as overall brain health.

[David Rock is cofounder of the Neuroleadership Institute, a consultant and author of Your Brain at Work.]

The report detailing hacking activities by the Chinese government against U.S. targets all but confirmed what everyone suspected: the Chinese, along with other nations and groups, are gathering information that could disrupt the operation of critical infrastructure in this country, including power plants, chemical factories and air-traffic control systems.

To be clear, the report from U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Mandiant did not say the Chinese government has actively tampered with these systems. The only two counties thought to have actually altered industrial processes in another country are the United States and Israel, which are suspected of infecting an Iranian uranium enrichment plant with malicious software that caused the centrifuges to spin out of control and self-destruct. But the Mandiant report said it was likely Chinese military personnel that hacked into Telvent Canada, a firm now known as Schneider Electric that makes switches and other gear for oil and gas pipelines. The Chinese military denies the allegations, calling them "groundless both in facts and legal basis."

Organizers at CREDOMobile — the progressive organization that mounted an energetic protest outside the home of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg – say they have had a week’s worth of trouble trying to post photos and information about their demonstration on Facebook, despite repeated outreach to the Palo Alto firm.

“It’s been pretty funny corresponding with Facebook support personnel about our inability to post an update on CREDO’s protest of Mark Zuckerberg’s fundraiser for Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and his “Republican War on Women,” said Becky Bond, Political Director of CREDO. Her organization slammed the 28-year-old tech wizard for hosting Gov Christie at his Palo Alto home after the Garden State Gov has repeatedly cut funding for Planned Parenthood in his state. “Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is about making the world more open and connected. What CREDO is trying to do is be open about Zuckerberg’s connection to the “Republican War on Women,” she said. “Looks like Facebook is failing on that principle both this past week with its founder raising money for anti-woman Gov. Christie and with technical problems with its platform.”

[Commentary] Three weeks ago, Akamai released their State of the Internet report with findings from Q3 of 2012. The quarterly report typically includes a list of average speed measurements for different countries around the world. Some commentators have suggested that these figures indicate serious competitive problems with the U. S. broadband marketplace, but things are not necessarily as dire as critics would think.

It’s important to understand what the Akamai report – and others that compare speeds among nations – actually measures. While many of these tests provide interesting and useful data – and can clue us in to how broadband markets are performing over time - they do not provide the kind of consistent and calibrated measurements that make direct comparisons among countries possible. Although speed tests can be a useful tool for assessing some aspects of network performance, measurement methodologies vary significantly. This is why the average speeds measured for the U. S. by Akamai (7.2 Mbps), Ookla’s Speedtest.net (15.91 Mbps), YouTube (8.09 Mbps) and the FCC rankings (15.6 Mbps) show large discrepancies. Akamai itself offers a disclaimer in an FCC filing that makes it clear the report does not purport to measure local access speeds, nor do its measurements “conform to the reporting categories of the FCC’s Form 477 (e.g. speed tiers).”

Drawing conclusions about how nations compare with regard to broadband access services from tests that do not actually measure access speeds is not advisable. Very few broadband speed tests provide a technically sound basis for making such comparisons. Broadband speeds have seemingly become the sole focus in the debate over U.S. broadband and Internet policy. As such, it’s important to understand what the various studies are measuring in this regard and how they should be interpreted. Bad or even misconstrued data leads to bad policy, and considering the huge role broadband will play in manufacturing, health care, energy management, education, and nearly every other sector of the economy, policy makers cannot afford to get this one wrong. Using a multi-stakeholder approach to test modeling and data gathering, as the FCC/Sam Knows test does, provides the best data from which to craft fair and effective broadband policy.