A man who had just bought an $8 million island off of Key West was arrested Saturday for participating in what police described as a scheme to steal $300 in household items from Kmart.

Officials at Kmart called Key West police April 5 after they say Andrew Francis Lippi, 59, had purchased several items, including a Keurig coffee maker and light bulbs, and returned the original boxes for a refund. But police say the boxes were stuffed with other items. For example, store officials said a basketball was inside the Keurig box. […]

The Miami Herald reports Lippi bought Thompson Island, which had been the home to the family of philanthropist Edward B. Knight. Lippi also owns the “Real World” house in Key West, where MTV shot its 17th season in 2006. […]

Lippi told the Herald the theft allegation is “complicated” and he’d rather not talk about it.

{ CBS News | Continue reading }

images { Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930 | Dexter, Episode 7, Season 6 }

An April 2016 Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) report advocated raising the minimum wage to deter crime. […]

Our results provide no evidence that minimum wage increases reduce crime. Instead, we find that raising the minimum wage increases property crime arrests among those ages 16-to-24, with an estimated elasticity of 0.2. This result is strongest in counties with over 100,000 residents and persists when we use longitudinal data to isolate workers for whom minimum wages bind.

Our estimates suggest that a $15 Federal minimum wage could generate criminal externality costs of nearly $2.4 billion.

{ National Bureau of Economic Research | Continue reading }

still { Death Wish, 1974 }

There are 290 species of pigeon in the world, but only one has adapted to live in cities. Feral pigeons are synanthropes: they thrive in human environments where they can skim a living off our excess, nesting in the nooks and crannies of tall buildings that mimic the cliff faces on which their genetic ancestors – Columba livia, the rock dove – once lived. We think of pigeons as grey but they are composed of an oceanic palette: deep blues and greens flecked with white, like the crest of a wave. […]

In the 1970s and 1980s, the US Coastguard trained pigeons to recognise people lost at sea as part of Project Sea Hunt. The birds were placed in observation bubbles mounted on the bottom of helicopters and trained to peck at buttons when they spotted a scrap of coloured fabric floating in the sea. Pigeons were able to find the fabric 93 per cent of the time. Human subjects managed the same task 38 per cent of the time.

Pigeons are more intelligent than we give them credit for, one of the few animals – along with great apes, dolphins and elephants – able to pass the mirror self-recognition test. If you mark a pigeon’s wing and let it look in a mirror it will try to remove the mark, realising that what it sees is a reflected image of its own body. Pigeons can recognise video footage of themselves shown with a five-second delay (three-year-old children find it difficult to comprehend a two-second delay). They are able to recognise individuals from photographs, and a neuroscientist at Keio University in Japan has trained them to distinguish between the paintings of Matisse and Picasso. […]

The first experimental pigeon drops of Operation Columba took place at the end of 1940, and from early 1941 until September 1944 the service dropped 16,000 pigeons on small parachutes over occupied Europe, in an arc running from Copenhagen to Bordeaux. Attached to the pigeons was a questionnaire asking whoever found them to provide intelligence – on troop movements, the position of guns or radar arrays and ‘the extent to which people could hear BBC radio clearly and their views of the service it provided’ – by return of pigeon. […] Over the course of the war the Germans became, as MI6 put it, ‘pigeon minded’. Rewards were offered for pigeons turned in, and booby-trapped birds were placed in fields to injure anyone who might be tempted to send information back to Britain. […] he British, too, were worried that German spies were using birds to communicate, and a team of British falconers was established to try to intercept them, but they only managed to catch friendly birds, probably because, despite the hysteria, there were no German pigeons in Britain.

{ London Review of Books | Continue reading }

photo { Bridget Riley, Untitled (Winged Curve), 1966 }

“In many countries, poor diet now causes more deaths than tobacco smoking and high blood pressure […] we have shown that, at the population level, a low intake of healthy foods is the more important factor, rather than the high intake of unhealthy foods”

[…]

more than half of all global diet-related deaths in 2017 were due to just three risk factors: eating too much salt, not enough whole grains and not enough fruit.

{ CNN | Continue reading }

The goal of this study is to determine if thong underwear use is associated with a higher report of urinary tract (UTI) or vaginal infections. […] We found that thong use is not associated with UTI, BV, or VY. Instead, sexual behaviors and hygiene choices are risk factors for these infections. We recommend that providers take a more complete sexual history to identify these risk factors rather than focusing on underwear as a primary risk factor.

{ Site | Continue reading }

unrelated { A man in Chicago attempted to board a plane butt naked }

screenprint on Perspex { Bridget Riley, Untitled [Fragment 2/10], 1965 }

Age-cutoffs for vaginal sex timing were similar for women and men, yet differed by gender for oral sex timing. Women were more likely than men to initiate vaginal sex (20% vs. 18%) and oral sex (19% vs. 16%) at an early age and less likely than men to initiate these behaviors at a late age (18% vs. 19% for vaginal sex, and 15% vs. 16% for oral sex).

Although most respondents initiated these two behaviors by young adulthood, a considerable proportion remained inexperienced, with men more likely than women to report inexperience with vaginal sex (7% vs. 5%), and women more likely than men to report abstaining from oral sex (8% vs. 6%).

{ International Journal of Sexual Health | Continue reading }

According to a recent scientific study, the way to avoid mosquito bites is to listen to electronic music - specifically dubstep, specifically by US artist Skrillex [study]

Physicists Reverse Time for Tiny Particles Inside a Quantum Computer

A major Greenland glacier that was one of the fastest shrinking ice and snow masses on Earth is growing again

Growing Corn Is A Major Contributor To Air Pollution, Study Finds

a cotton tote or a paper bag may be worse for the environment than a plastic one + organic cotton is worse than conventional cotton when it comes to overall environmental impact

More than 99.9999 per cent of all living organisms on Earth died. The Day the Dinosaurs Died

A doomsday fungus known as Bd has condemned more species to extinction than any other pathogen.

One wrong mutation and your beautiful daisy transforms into an eldrich horror

Here’s how many avocados it would take to kill you (also watermelon, coffee, dark chocolate…)

Man was mistakenly circumcised in mix-up at Leicester (England) hospital

Eleven experiments provide evidence that people have a tendency to ‘shoot the messenger,’ deeming innocent bearers of bad news unlikeable [PDF]

Peak velocity of elbow joint during hair combing activity for normal subject

A slowdown in image processing speeds up our perception of time passing as we age

For those who get the least amount of physical activity, replacing a half hour of sitting time with physical activity was associated with up to a nearly 50 percent reduction in mortality

Using stolen processing power to mine cryptocurrencies is a profitable criminal enterprise. But nobody realized the scale of the activity until now

The operatives utilized an arsenal of cyber tools, including a cutting-edge espionage platform known as Karma, in which Raven operatives say they hacked into the iPhones of hundreds of activists, political leaders and suspected terrorists.

New beer hitting the market can be used to develop Super 8 movie film. Kodak helped by testing it.

If intense warfare broke out tomorrow, India could supply its troops with only 10 days of ammunition, according to government estimates. And 68 percent of the army’s equipment is so old, it is officially considered “vintage.” [NY Times]

Since the 1950s, hundreds of dogs have jumped off this gothic stone bridge in a town near Glasgow. Many have ended up dead in the valley below. Researchers say there is a rational explanation, but in a land of superstition and mystery, others are not so sure. [NY Times]

not a phone in sight, everyone is just living in the moment, wish we could go back

denim “diaper”

Violette Morris (1893 – 1944) was a French athlete who won two gold and one silver medals at the Women’s World Games in 1921–1922. She was barred from participating in the 1928 Summer Olympics for her lack of morals — in particular, Morris’ penchant for wearing men’s clothing. […]

Morris underwent a double mastectomy (surgical removal of both breasts), which she claimed was in order to fit into racing cars more easily. She won the 1927 Bol d’Or 24 Hours car race. […]

In 1936, Morris became a spy for Nazi Germany. Following the German occupation of France, she became a member of the French wing of the Gestapo secret police. She was killed in 1944 in a Resistance-led ambush.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

We have scientifically studied magic tricks to explore the human mind. For example, we use cutting-edge eye-tracking technologies to investigate how magicians misdirect our attention, and this work informs us about why people fail to see things right in front of their eyes. […] Magic works because we are typically unaware of our mind’s limitations, and most magic techniques rely on exploiting these surprising cognitive biases and limitations. Magicians don’t simply manipulate what you perceive – they manipulate your false beliefs about how much you can perceive.

{ The Psychologist | Continue reading }

related { we report a series of studies investigating the “paranormal potential” of magic performances }

If you know that a public company has done a bad thing, and no one else knows about it, how can you use that knowledge to make money? […]

This is a financial column, so we tend to focus on the financial-markets answers: You can short the company’s stock, or buy put options, or buy credit-default swaps. Then you can either sit back and let the market discover the bad thing, or you can bring it to the market’s attention, by announcing the bad thing and maybe also by taking some extra steps—generally suing or calling up a regulator—to get the ball rolling. This approach has some crucial advantages; most notably, if the company is very big and the thing is very bad, this is a good way to make a whole lot of money. But there are disadvantages too. You tend to need a lot of capital to make a lot of money doing this; if you don’t have enough money to make a big bet against the company, you’ll probably have to sell your idea to a hedge fund that does, and you’ll get only a portion of the upside. There are all the general financial risks of short selling: The stock could go up for reasons unrelated to the bad thing, “the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent,” etc. There are the specific risks of noisy short selling: The company will accuse you of fraud, people won’t believe your revelations because you have money at stake, etc. There is also the risk of insider trading: Depending on how you came to know of the secret bad thing, there may be some legal risk to you from trading on it.

But those are just the markets-y ways to make money from misbehavior. There are also lots of lawyer-y ways. There are whistleblower programs that can reward you for telling regulators—particularly the Securities and Exchange Commission—about the bad thing. (The SEC’s program focuses on securities fraud, of course, but everything is securities fraud so you can be creative.) If you are a lawyer looking to profit from the bad thing, you can find a victim of the bad thing and sue for damages (and take a cut), or you can find holders of the company’s securities and sue for securities fraud (and take a bigger cut), because, again, everything is securities fraud. […]

The really long game, if you are a lawyer, is that you can become a federal prosecutor, investigate the company for misconduct, push it to hire a fancy law firm staffed with former federal prosecutors to conduct an expensive internal investigation, and enter into a non-prosecution agreement that requires the company to pay millions of dollars to an outside monitor who is also a former federal prosecutor. Do a few of these—expanding the scope of criminal liability for corporations, and normalizing the notion that corporations should resolve their criminal liability by hiring ex-prosecutors as monitors and investigators—and then leave for a private law firm where you get paid to do the investigations and the monitoring, while the next generation of prosecutors creates business for you. […]

Avenatti clearly did not do a good enough job of making the extortion look like something else to satisfy prosecutors. I don’t know if he did enough to satisfy a jury; perhaps we’ll find out. But he didn’t do nothing; the complaint contains some gestures in the direction of Avenatti being a legitimate lawyer with a legitimate case from a legitimate client trying to reach a legitimate settlement. He didn’t just ask for money; he demanded that Nike do an internal investigation and that he be in charge of it. (And be paid a lot.) It’s not pure, naked blackmail; it is a settlement negotiation that gets a little deeper into blackmail territory than you’d ideally like. But any settlement negotiation is, you know, “give me money or I will sue and that will be embarrassing for you,” so it is a matter of degrees.

{ Matt Levine/Bloomberg | Continue reading }

pigment ink on cotton paper { Aneta Grzeszykowska, Beauty Mask #10, 2017 }

Litigation stemming from an incident in which a middle-aged woman tripped while stepping backward to take a photograph, and without first looking in her direction of travel, led to an observational study of the frequency with which people taking photographs step back without first looking where they were stepping. Prior research on looking before stepping backward did not exist.

Research assistants asked a convenience sample of middle-aged women to take a photograph of the assistants standing in front of a building. The task required the participants to step away from the building. The study found that 87% of the participants looked back at least once before or during a backward step, and that 83% of the steps away from the building were preceded by or accompanied by a look in the direction of travel. Suggestions for future research are provided.

{ Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting }

related { “The First Moonwalk” — Bill Bailey at the Apollo Theatre, New York, 1955 }

unrelated { Man accused of sexually abusing minor identifies himself as Michael Jackson }

still image { Faye Dunaway in Eyes of Laura Mars, 1978 }

“I took this photo of an interior wall of a gate guard tower at ‘Victory Base’ in Baghdad in 2004. The graffiti is a classic example of the grim and cynical sense of humor soldiers cultivate in order to maintain their sanity in war.” —Stephen Richey, U.S. Army, 1977-2010

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

Paranoia is the most common symptom of psychosis, but paranoid concerns occur throughout the general population. […]

We suggest that paranoia should not solely be viewed as a pathological symptom of a mental disorder but also as a part of a normally-functioning human psychology.

{ Nature Human Behaviour | Continue reading | PDF }

screenprint on Perspex { Bridget Riley, Untitled [Fragment 5/8], 1965 }

Does a new partnership differ from its preceding one? […] This study sought to understand whether a new relationship differs from the one that preceded it.

[T]he answer to that question seems to be “mostly no.” One year into a new partnership (P2T2) our sample was no different from one year prior to the breakup of their previous union (P1T1) on relationship and sexual satisfaction, perceptions of relational instability, and the frequency of conflictual and intimate exchanges. While sexual frequency and perceived admiration did improve across unions in the full sample, there was no change for either in our follow-up analysis with the subgroup of participants where relationship duration at P1T1 corresponded to P2T2.

Given stability in the majority of constructs examined in this study, why does it seem as though a new partnership is different from those in the past?

Sandwiched between these points of stability are periods of change and upheaval: one partnership deteriorates and draws to a close and the bliss of new love is discovered before disillusionment pulls individuals back to old patterns. The deterioration prior to termination may be especially salient in perpetuating the belief that new unions are different.

{ Journal of Family Psychology | Continue reading }

photo { Fred Herzog, Man With Bandage, 1968 }

Plane forced to turn back after mother forgets her newborn at airport

a $380K ‘flying motorcycle’

Q, the world’s first genderless voice

The Boombox Incident (The process for removing bald people from photos)

Quantum computing for the very curious

Seat Choice in a Crowded Café: Effects of Eye Contact, Distance, and Anchoring

The relation between shyness and creativity … shyness was negatively associated with creative imagination, but positively associated with aesthetic sensitivity.

Extremely precise visual long-term memories for frequently encountered objects

Nail Scissor as a Rare Foreign Body in the Urethra

Despite anecdotal evidence seen on television and in movies, there is zero actual research to support penetrating traumatic brain injury (TBI) as an intervention to kill zombies

MIT Historian alleges that scientists and officials representing the United Nations, the Red Cross, and the World Health Organization covered up evidence that hundreds of thousands of people died from radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. The scientific consensus was that the Chernobyl accident will, at most, result in the deaths of just 200 people over an 80-year life span. Previously: Thirty years after the Chernobyl disaster, it has become clear that radioactivity might be less harmful than originally thought.

$100,000-a-night Damien-Hirst-designed Las Vegas hotel room is the most expensive in America

Easy trick to stay positive

#the17mstosuccess #richaf #poundinP pic.twitter.com/p413lzVuyk

— kyle Dunnigan (@kyledunnigan) October 11, 2018

many people will reject their own arguments – if they’re tricked into thinking that other people proposed them.

{ Neuroskeptic | Continue reading }

set of 10 woodcuts in ultramarine blue, on Okawara paper { Donald Judd, Untitled, 1988 }

Ms. Giannulli, 19, is the daughter of the actress Lori Loughlin and the designer Mossimo Giannulli. […] Ms. Giannulli is a social media influencer with close to two million YouTube subscribers and over a million Instagram followers. In September, she posted two paid advertisements on Instagram that highlighted her identity as a student. […]

Ms. Giannulli […] was criticized in August after posting a video […] in which she said that she was only going to college for “gamedays, partying.”

“I don’t really care about school, as you guys all know,” she said. […]

Ms. Giannulli is one of a number of celebrity offspring who have lived out their teenage years on social media. In the video for which she was criticized, she described how the dissolution of a romantic relationship had been particularly difficult because people would send her tweets, Instagram posts and Snapchats of her ex with other young women.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

A total of 50 people nationwide were arrested in the largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice, officials announced. Those arrested include exam administrators, coaches at elite schools, and nearly three dozen parents — including actress Lori Loughlin.

{ CNN | Continue reading | full indictment }

image { 1991 Topps Toxic High School #19 }

Ten years after the financial dramas of Autumn 2008, I take stock of what we have learned, what we have done, and what we have yet to do if we would avoid a repeat performance.

The primary lessons I draw are that income and wealth distribution, the endogeneity of credit-money, and finance system structure all matter profoundly not only where justice, but also where systemic stability is concerned.

The longer-term tasks still before us include a much broader and financially engineered diffusion of capital ownership over our population, citizen central banking, a permanent national investment authority, continuous public open labor market operations, debt-free or low-debt education and health insurance, and an updated form of segregating capital-raising primary from asset-trading secondary markets in the financial sector.

Shorter-term tasks include debt-forgiveness, a restoration of labor rights and countercyclical progressive taxation, and restored citizen-ownership of our secondary market makers in home mortgage and higher education debt.

{ LawArXiv | Continue reading }