The rise of men who don’t work, and what they do instead
And the coiffed brunette curls over Maybelline eyes, wearing Prince Machiavelli, Estee Lauder
Objective
To explore the basis for patient complaints about the oldness of most magazines in practice waiting rooms.[…]
Conclusions
General practice waiting rooms contain mainly old magazines. This phenomenon relates to the disappearance of the magazines rather than to the supply of old ones. Gossipy magazines were more likely to disappear than non-gossipy ones.[…]
If we extrapolate our findings of 41 magazines each month at an average cost of £3.20 ($5.00; €4.00) per magazine over the 8000 practices in the United Kingdom, this equates to £12.6m disappearing from general practices, resources that could be better used for healthcare. Practices should consider using old copies of the Economist and Time magazine as a first step towards saving costs.
image { Esquire, February 1956 }
Every day, the same, again
Scientists have created a chemical that can be added to food to make people feel full.
People trust NSA more than Google, survey says
List of search terms blocked in China
BitTorrent launches invite-only torrent-based browser
The Rise and Fall of Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge, America’s Worst Gay Power Couple
This startup wants to pay you to fly with strangers’ stuff in your luggage
Museums are mining increasingly detailed layers of information about their guests, employing some of the same strategies that companies like Macy’s, Netflix and Wal-Mart have used in recent years to boost sales by tracking customer behavior
It turns out that the modern affliction of spellcheckers wreaking havoc has been given a name.
Wittgenstein and Hitler Attended the Same School in Austria, at the Same Time (1904-1905)
‘Let’s break shit.’ –Guy Vidra
The Male Idiotic Theory (MIT) stipulates that the reason men are more prone to injury and death is simply because they “are idiots and idiots do stupid things“. Despite tons of anecdotal evidence confirming MIT, there’s never been a systematic analysis on sex differences in idiotic risk taking behaviour. Until now.
In a new study published in BMJ, researchers obtained 20 years worth of data from the Darwin Awards to tally up the sex of each year’s winner. For those not in the know, the Darwin Awards are given to people who die in such astonishingly stupid ways that “their action ensures the long-term survival of the species, by selectively allowing one less idiot to survive”. […]
Men made up a staggering 88.7 % of Darwin Award winners in 318 examined cases.
related { Males are more likely to die than females while in the womb }
They charged me 15 dollars. That’s how much it costs to only have 20 dollars.
This research proposes that because rounded numbers are more fluently processed, rounded prices (e.g., $200.00) encourage reliance on feelings.
In contrast, because nonrounded numbers are disfluently processed, nonrounded prices (e.g., $198.76) encourage reliance on cognition.
Thus, rounded (nonrounded) prices lead to a subjective experience of “feeling right” when the purchase decision is driven by feelings (cognition).
Further, this sense of feeling right resulting from the fit between the roundedness of the price number and the nature of decision context can make positive reactions toward the target product more positive and negative reactions more negative, a phenomenon referred to as the rounded price effect in the current research.
Results from five studies provide converging evidence for the rounded price effect. Findings from the current research further show that merely priming participants with rounded (nonrounded) numbers in an unrelated context could also lead to the rounded price effect.
Finally, this research provides process support by showing that the rounded price effect is mediated by a sense of feeling right.
photo { Photo Frances McLaughlin-Gill, Woman wearing yellow coat, scarf, hat, gloves and skirt, 1947 }
‘I’m giving everyone framed underwear for Christmas.’ —Andy Warhol
Frostbite is the freezing of parts of the body. Your cells are mostly water; when water freezes it forms crystals. The crystals are sharp and are larger than the same amount of water (ie. water expands when it freezes). This leads to punctures in the cell membranes; the affected parts of the body sort of digest themselves due to the release of enzymes from the broken cells. Frostbite usually affects the extremities - toes, fingers, nose, ear lobes, private parts for men - because they have less blood flow and are harder to keep warm. Your body also sacrifices these body parts in an effort to keep warm by constricting blood vessels to keep the majority of blood from cooling and carrying the cold back to the center of the body. […]
Hypothermia is the bone-chilling cold you feel when your entire body’s temperature is dropping. Your normal body temperature is 98.6 ˚F (37 ˚C) or thereabouts. At 95 ˚F (35 ˚C) hypothermia begins. At 91 ˚F (32.7 ˚C) you get amnesia, and below 85 ˚F (29.5 ˚C) you lose consciousness. […] Hypothermia can kill you in several ways, two of which have to do with electricity. Your heart beats because it supplies itself with a chemico-electrical jolt every second or so. This is what occurs in the sinus and AV nodes of the heart and is based on an electrical charge difference across the cells’ membranes in the node. Low body temperature messes with the membrane potential, so the heartbeat is slow and erratic. Too slow (bradycardia) or too erratic (arrhythmia) leads to a heartbeat so dysfunctional that it won’t push the blood through your body and you die from cardiac failure.
photo { Stephen Shore }
‘Anaxagoras agrees with Leucippus and Democritus that the elements are infinite.’ –Aristotle
New theories suggest the big bang was not the beginning, and that we may live in the past of a parallel universe.
[…]
Time’s arrow may in a sense move in two directions, although any observer can only see and experience one.
photo { Tania Shcheglova and Roman Noven }
‘I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.’ —Steve Martin
It’s called “beauty work.” It’s a digital procedure of sorts, in which a handful of skilled artists use highly specialized software in the final stages of post-production to slim, de-age and enhance actors’ faces and bodies. […]
Under strict non-disclosure agreements, Hollywood A-listers have been quietly slipping in and out of a few bland office buildings around town, many to sit in on days-long retouching sessions, directing the artists to make every frame suitable. […]
Hips are narrowed, calves slimmed, turkey-necks tucked. Pores are tightened. Eye-bags reduced (often, entire hangovers are erased). Hair is thickened, teeth whitened. Underarm-skin is de-jiggled. Belly fat obliterated, abs raised.
Every day, the same, again
How addicts gained the power to reverse overdoses
When a man was fitted with a new heart, his mind changed in unusual ways. Why?
Effect of Vaginal Electrical Stimulation
The Sex Lives of Sex Researchers
Evidence for ‘bilingual advantage’ may be less conclusive than previously thought
Men were influenced by lucky numbers, the women by unlucky numbers
A simple trick to improve your memory
You can’t detox your body. It’s a myth. So how do you get healthy?
Art Collectors, Beware: Even Steve Martin Got Sold an $850,000 Forgery
How Some Video Stores Are Thriving in the Age of Netflix
12 excellent features from directors who never made another feature
‘If you need a friend, get a dog.’ –Gordon Gekko
Several weeks ago, Vidra communicated the new vision to the staff in what I am told was an uncomfortable stream of business clichés ungrounded in any apparent strategy other than saying things like “let’s break shit” and “we’re a tech company now.”
‘every time I go by this Fresh Market, this dude with a whole beard-trimmer aesthetic is in front of it making out with a different woman’ —Jeb Lund
[D]etoxing – the idea that you can flush your system of impurities and leave your organs squeaky clean and raring to go – is a scam. It’s a pseudo-medical concept designed to sell you things.
“Let’s be clear,” says Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, “there are two types of detox: one is respectable and the other isn’t.” The respectable one, he says, is the medical treatment of people with life-threatening drug addictions. “The other is the word being hijacked by entrepreneurs, quacks and charlatans to sell a bogus treatment that allegedly detoxifies your body of toxins you’re supposed to have accumulated.” […]
In 2009, a network of scientists assembled by the UK charity Sense about Science contacted the manufacturers of 15 products sold in pharmacies and supermarkets that claimed to detoxify. The products ranged from dietary supplements to smoothies and shampoos. When the scientists asked for evidence behind the claims, not one of the manufacturers could define what they meant by detoxification, let alone name the toxins. […]
Then there’s colonic irrigation. Its proponents will tell you that mischievous plaques of impacted poo can lurk in your colon for months or years and pump disease-causing toxins back into your system. Pay them a small fee, though, and they’ll insert a hose up your bottom and wash them all away.[…] No doctor has ever seen one of these mythical plaques, and many warn against having the procedure done, saying that it can perforate your bowel.
The urb it orbs
According to a study released this week by Brown University’s Department of Modern Culture and Media, it now takes only four minutes for a new cultural touchstone to transform from an amusing novelty into an intensely annoying thing people never want to see or hear again. […]
“We project that by 2018, the gap between liking something new and wishing yourself dead rather than hearing it again will be down to 60 seconds,” Levinson said. “And by 2023, enjoyment and abhorrence will occur simultaneously, the two emotions effectively canceling each other out and leaving one feeling nothing whatsoever.”
{ The Onion | Continue reading | via Nathan Jurgenson }
Every day, the same, again
WhatsApp is cited in nearly half of all Italian divorce proceedings
Most American presidents destined to fade from nation’s memory, study suggests [more]
Women outperform men in some financial negotiations
‘Off switch’ for pain discovered
Forty percent of trials reported significantly greater long-term weight loss with diet compared with aerobic exercise. Diet+aerobic exercise resulted in significantly greater weight loss than diet alone in 50% of trials.
things you (probably) didn’t know about the Middle Ages
Many theories have hypothesized that Protestantism should have favored economic development. Using population figures of 272 cities in the years 1300-1900, I find no effects of Protestantism on economic growth.
Does Religious Beliefs Affect Economic Growth? Evidence from Provincial-level Panel Data in China
The balcony scene in “Romeo and Juliet” is not actually in Shakespeare’s play.
Alfredo Martinez strapped his little brother to a rocket engine at the age of 12, was shot in the leg in Guatemala by a death squad in the 1980’s, and he himself shot his dealer at an art fair in New York City with a self-made gun.
Much Contemporary Art is a Sham Says Famous British Critic
Startup wants to build you a personal website that’s automatically updated with your own data
The Cost of the “S” in HTTPS [PDF]
The tattoos are worn exactly as a regular temporary tattoo would be worn. The sensors simply sit atop the skin without penetrating it and interact with Bluetooth or other wireless devices with a signal in order to send the data.
Big Bang, Universe, Sun & Earth, Life begins…
Amazing unknown transparent vehicle captured over Vienna, Austria - Nov 26, 2014 [Thanks Tim]
Is a dream autobiography or fiction?
10 of The Most Counter-intuitive Psychology Findings Ever Published
1. Self-help Mantras Can Do More Harm Than Good
[…]
3. Criminals Show Cooperation and Prosocial Behaviour in Economic Games
[…]
5. We Make Many Decisions Mindlessly
[…]
6. Opposites Don’t Attract
[…]
10. Sometimes a Pregnant Woman’s Depression is Advantageous For Her Baby
{ BPS | full story }
Every day, the same, again
Russia: Passengers ‘get out and push’ frozen plane
Around three percent of the Swiss secretly eat cat or dog
Dogs hear our words and how we say them
The mysterious ‘action at a distance’ between liquid containers
Utah Considers Cutting Off Water to the NSA’s Data Center
Twitter Users Are More Likely to Follow Others With The Same First Name But Nobody Knows Why
Automatic gender spoof detection (make-up and mustaches)
Winston Churchill Received the First Ever Letter Containing “O.M.G.” (1917)
European art collective created a bot that crawls the Darknet and makes one purchase per week
TED Talk: How to Dispose of a Chimp’s Body by Col. Frank Tuplin
‘Comme je me sens vieux. Comme je me sens peu fait pour l’être. Jamais je ne vais savoir être vieux.’ –Georges Bernanos
“Find your sugar baby,” the site exhorted its users.
This year, Paul Aronson, an 84-year-old from Manhattan, contacted a 17-year-old girl, Shaina Foster, through the site and took her out to dinner. On a second date, Ms. Foster brought along her twin sister, Shalaine.
For a few hours on Oct. 1, the evening looked as if it might turn into an old man’s fantasy. The three dined at an expensive restaurant in Midtown. Then Mr. Aronson invited the teenagers to have a drink with him at the four-story brick townhouse he owns on East 38th Street.
He bought a bottle of raspberry-flavored rum from a liquor store on the way, a defense lawyer said. But instead of receiving caresses or whispered flirtations, Mr. Aronson ended up tied to a coffee table for 20 hours. […]
Prosecutors say the two girls bound him with zip ties, took $470 in cash from his wallet and went on a spending spree with his credit cards, buying makeup and clothes. […]
Before he was tied up, Mr. Aronson had given the teenagers a tour of his townhouse and let them play with his tiny dog, a Yorkshire terrier named Muffins, Mr. Kennedy said. Then he poured them glasses of rum and asked them about their sex lives. […]
“He asked to do things I wasn’t going to do,” she told Detective Darryl Ng at the 17th Precinct after the girls were arrested on Oct. 21. “He is ugly, old and disgusting. I tied him up. I took his money and left. He was starting to creep me out.”
Every day, the same, again
Man’s toilet explodes while city crew cleans sewers
Researchers able to turn sawdust into gasoline
Babies remember nothin’ but a good time, study says
Inferring the best response from a large range of possible actions frequently involves difficult computations that the brain is unlikely to perform rapidly. Nevertheless, humans often do well in such situations. How the human brain exploits and explores options
Being in a position of power can fundamentally change the way you speak, altering basic acoustic properties of the voice, and other people are able to pick up on these vocal cues to know who is really in charge, according to new research
Experimental and Field Evidence that Morality and a Sense of Humor are Psychologically Incompatible [PDF]
When Apple announced the iPhone 6 this September, however, it didn’t have a sapphire screen, only a regular glass one. And a month later, the small New Hampshire-based company chosen to supply Apple with enormous quantities of cheap sapphire, GT Advanced Technologies, declared bankruptcy. The terms Apple negotiated committed GT to supplying a huge amount of sapphire, but put Apple under no obligation to buy it.
The police do not do trauma clean-up. Neither do firefighters or ambulance crews or emergency services. Instead, hired hands like Sandra handle the clean-up at crime scenes, deaths, floods and fires.
How the love of a high school girl sparked a gang war
Linguistic Mapping Reveals How Word Meanings Sometimes Change Overnight
‘Knock, knock! Who’s there?’ —Shakespeare
The malware, called “Regin”, is probably run by a western intelligence agency and in some respects is more advanced in engineering terms than Stuxnet. […]
Symantec said it was not yet clear how Regin infected systems but it had been deployed against internet service providers and telecoms companies mainly in Russia and Saudi Arabia as well as Mexico, Ireland and Iran. […]
“Nothing else comes close to this . . . nothing else we look at compares,” said Orla Cox, director of security response at Symantec, who described Regin as one of the most “extraordinary” pieces of hacking software developed, and probably “months or years in the making”. […] “Sometimes there is virtually nothing left behind – no clues. Sometimes an infection can disappear completely almost as soon as you start looking at it, it’s gone. That shows you what you are dealing with.”
And when the groove is dead and gone, yeah, you know that love survives
Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor, known as the “Farewell” Symphony, was composed by Joseph Haydn and dated 1772. […]
During the final adagio each musician stops playing, snuffs out the candle on his music stand, and leaves in turn, so that at the end, there are just two muted violins left.
