Abracadabra is an incantation used as a magic word in stage magic tricks, and historically was believed to have healing powers when inscribed on an amulet.
The word is thought to have its origin in the Aramaic language, in which ibra (אברא) means “I have created” and k’dibra (כדברא) means “through my speech”, providing a translation of abracadabra as “created as I say.”
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” was a phrase made popular by Carl Sagan who reworded Laplace’s principle, which says that “the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.” This statement is at the heart of the scientific method, and a model for critical thinking, rational thought and skepticism everywhere. However, no quantitative standards have been agreed upon in order to define whether or not extraordinary evidence has been obtained. Consequently, the measures of “extraordinary evidence” are completely reliant on subjective evaluation and the acceptance of “extraordinary claims.” In science, the definition of extraordinary evidence is more a social agreement than an objective evaluation, even if most scientists would state the contrary.
photo { Nathaniel Ward }
How to survive an atomic bomb
The first thing to understand is that if you are still alive five minutes after a small nuclear weapon detonates, you are already very likely to survive.
Does it seem plausible that education serves (in whole or part) as a signal of ability rather than simply a means to enhance productivity? (…)
Many MIT students will be hired by consulting firms that have no use for any of these skills. Why do these consulting firms recruit at MIT, not at Hampshire College, which produces many students with no engineering or computer science skills (let alone, knowledge of signaling models)?
Why did you choose MIT over your state university that probably costs one-third as much?
photo { Robert Frank }
What would we do if we encountered an alien race? As it turns out, the question has garnered considerable academic thought since the first reported flying saucer sighting in 1947, not just as an inquiry in human psychology, but also as a way of contemplating what aliens might do if they ever found us. From astronomers to ufologists to anthropologists, scholars who have contemplated the various “contact scenarios” believe our course of action would strongly depend on the relative intelligence level of the newfound beings. Here, we outline what would happen if we encountered primitive, humanlike, and godlike aliens. (…)
In 1950 the U.S. military developed a procedure called “Seven Steps to Contact,” laying out the logical steps we would take upon discovering creatures with roughly human-level sentience. According to the steps, we would begin with remote surveillance and data gathering, and would eventually move on to covert visitations with the goal of gauging the performance characteristics of the aliens’ vehicles and weaponry.
related { Alien Abductions May Be Vivid Dreams, Study Shows }
photo { Laerke Posselt }
When Facebook goes public this year, it will raise at least $5 billion, making it the biggest Internet IPO the world has ever seen. The day it debuts on the stock exchange, Facebook will be worth more than General Motors, the New York Times Company, and Sprint Nextel combined. (…)
For roughly 65 years—say, from 1933 to 1998—the initial public offering was the engine of American capitalism. Entrepreneurs sold shares to investors and used the proceeds to build their young companies or invest in the future. After their IPOs, for instance, Apple and Microsoft had the necessary funds to develop the Macintosh and Windows. The stock market has been the most efficient and effective method of allocating capital that the world has ever seen.
That was a useful function, but it’s one that IPOs no longer serve. Going public is more difficult than it used to be—Sarbanes-Oxley regulations have made filing much more difficult, and today’s investors tend to shy away from Internet companies that don’t have a proven track record of steady profitability. That has created a catch-22: By the time a company can go public, it no longer needs the cash. Take Google. It had already been profitable for three years before raising $1.2 billion in its 2004 public offering. And Google never spent the money it raised that year. Instead, it put the cash straight into the bank, where the funds have been sitting ever since. Today, Google’s cash pile has grown to more than $44 billion.
photo { Femke Hiemstra }
Family income is associated with student achievement, but careful studies show little causal connection. School factors – teacher quality, school accountability, school choice – have bigger causal impacts than family income per se, according to a new analysis by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG).
{ EducationNext | Continue reading }
Conventional wisdom tells us that in the business world, “you are who you know” — your social background and professional networks outweigh talent when it comes to career success.
But according to a Tel Aviv University researcher, making the right connection only gets your foot in the door. Your future success is entirely up to you. (…)
When intelligence and socio-economic background are pitted directly against one another, intelligence is a more accurate predictor of future career success, he asserts.
{ American Friends of Tel Aviv University | Continue reading }
A new approach to fMRI scanning offers a three-dimensional look at brain activation.
fMRI is already a 3D technique, of course, but in the case of the cerebral cortex - which is what the great majority of neuroscientists are most interested in - the 3D data are effectively just 2D images folded up in space. (…)
In a new paper, Minnesota neuroscientists Olman et al say that they’ve given fMRI a third dimension.
Wife shot dead by husband after dog poops in house.
Woman bites man after being called fat.
The first room bombards you with noise: Hitler speeches, wailing women, pounding Death Metal. The Hungary’s House Of Terror.
Modern dressers buy new fashions faster than we ever have before. Only about 15 percent of discarded clothing is recycled or reused, whether by individual or industry.
What science tells us about young girls and the incredible shrinking childhood. Featuring Ainsley, who began growing pubic hair at age 6. [NYT]
New research explains how speaking more than one language may translate to better mental health.
Does the brain ‘remember’ antidepressants?
You can’t do the math without the words.
A new treatment for cancer, by eating cancer cells.
A former researcher at Amgen Inc has found that many basic studies on cancer — a high proportion of them from university labs — are unreliable, with grim consequences for producing new medicines in the future.
How Cooperation Can Slow Emergency Evacuations.
Passengers litter less on carriages that smell of cleaning product.
Unless development patterns change, by 2030 humanity’s urban footprint will occupy an additional 1.5 million square kilometers - comparable to the combined territories of France, Germany and Spain, say experts.
The hidden history of lobotomy’s non-inventor.
Dimethyltryptamine is so hot right now. Interview with people who just smoked DMT.
How the Plummeting Price of Cocaine Fueled the Nationwide Drop in Violent Crime.
The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say).
New artificial intelligence programs can analyze data sets to produce news articles that mimic the human voice. Is the Future of Journalism Computerized?
Good journalism costs money. Good investigative journalism often costs a lot of money. How much? Editor John Drescher says it’s not unsual for the paper to spend $150,000-$200,000 on a single reporting project.
Middle school boys who are reluctant readers value reading more after using e-readers.
What’s the Earth really made of?
Smart windows keep heat out – but let light in.
Mage, Japan’s Island Beyond the Reach of the Law.
One reason for abandoning China is quality: Some products are too flawed to sell. [Thanks Paul]
What Do Movie Producers Do? A Movie Producer Explains.
How One Response to a Reddit Query Became a Big-Budget Flick. [Wired]
Houses in fairy tales are never just houses.
love that the official Dragon Tattoo DVD is confusing people for looking bootleg.
Damien Hirst gallery to open in 2014.
At 29, Sheikha Mayassa Al Thani is the art world’s most powerful woman.
Cindy Sherman talks about her selections for MoMA’s “Carte Blanche: Cindy Sherman” film exhibition.
Van Gogh’s Sunflowers Were Genetic Mutants.
Online dating scammers looking for money, not love.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW: Will My Date Have Sex On The First Date? ASK: Do you like the taste of beer?
Should I Date This Weirdo Who Sniffs My Crotch Sweat at the Gym?
The Enormous Benefits of Autophagy, or Why You Should Stop Eating Once in Awhile.
10 Reasons Why Dishwashers Are Better Than Hand-Washing.
Can static electricity kill you?
One pizzaiolo gets about 18,000 customers per week, of which approximately 50 ask for anchovies. Why Do Pizzerias Offer Anchovies?
What does the S in the dollar sign represent? [more: Wikipedia]
10 Most Concealable Weapons (including Razorblade Cap) [video]
Hell’s Angels Forever, NYC. [video]
It’s been a long time coming, but last night it happened: one of the greatest hackers of the 20th Century (or was it just his doppelganger?) went up against Anonymous, greatest hacktivist collective of the 21st Century. (…)
Mitnick was a legendary hacker at the dawn of the Internet and before. Convicted of wire fraud, computer fraud, and illegally intercepting a wire communication, he served nearly four years in prison. (…)
Tuesday night, he, or someone impersonating him, decided to play with Anonymous.
photo { Daniel Ribar }
Some people are born without the ability to experience pain. When I learned about this disorder, my first response was a twinge of jealousy. (…) But it turns out that I’m probably better off with my capacity to feel pain. How do you know to take your hand away from the fire if it doesn’t start to hurt? What keeps you from pushing yourself too hard if your body isn’t fighting back? Walk on a broken ankle? (…)
There is also disorder in which people do not feel something if they are not looking at it. So if a man picks up a briefcase while looking at it, he is fine, but as soon as he glances away, he will drop the briefcase. This has something to do with our haptic perception but I cannot find the name of it.
I’ve heard a few stories, over the years, of what happens when collectors who own art try to sell that art through a gallery. In the first instance, the gallery is always very bullish, and promises to sell it for a high price at a modest commission. But then it somehow never sells, and the consignor becomes increasingly desperate, and eventually accepts a sum of money from the gallery which is a mere fraction of the amount originally mooted. It’s a standard m.o. in the gallery world: never sell anything too quickly, and wait instead for the seller’s need for cash to be as urgent as possible. That minimizes the amount the gallery needs to pay the seller, and therefore maximizes the amount the gallery can keep for itself. (…)
In a nutshell, Jan’s no-good son Charles got desperate for cash, and so sold her Lichtenstein through Gagosian without her knowledge or consent. What’s more, his desperation was so obvious to Gagosian that he wound up getting spectacularly ripped off: while Gagosian had initially promised him $2.5 million for the piece, the final payment to Cowles was just $1 million. (…)
No matter who wins the legal case, is that the opacity, skullduggery, and information asymmetry in the art world should put off anybody who ever thinks they’re dealing fair and square with a prominent dealer.
{ The New York Times’ City Room blog reports that Koons is in talks with Friends of the High Line, the conservancy group charged with managing the park, to bring one of his sculptures to the converted greenway. What sculpture would that be? A full-sized replica of a 1943 Baldwin 2900 steam locomotive. | Gawker | Thanks Tim }
Life on the organ transplant list is miserable. The wait can take years, while you work your way up a list of tens of thousands. Sixty thousand people are on the list for kidneys alone, and the average person will be there for about five years. Because the organs all work together, the failure of one of them can slowly destroy the rest, making the person sicker and sicker as the years stretch out. No one has a guarantee. In the US, about eighteen people die every day waiting for an organ. (…)
So it makes sense that there’s a black market for organs out there.
IQ, whatever its flaws, appears to be a general factor, that is, if you do well on one kind of IQ test you will tend to do well on another, quite different, kind of IQ test. IQ also correlates well with many and varied real world outcomes. But what about creativity? Is creativity general like IQ? Or is creativity more like expertise; a person can be an expert in one field, for example, but not in another. (…)
The fact that creativity can be stimulated by drugs and travel also suggests to me a general aspect. No one ever says, if you want to master calculus take a trip but this does work if you are blocked on some types of creative projects.
illustration { Shag }
Who made and launched Stuxnet in the first place? Richard Clarke tells me he knows the answer.
Clarke, who served three presidents as counterterrorism czar, now operates a cybersecurity consultancy called Good Harbor. (…) We have virtually no defense against the cyberattacks that he says are targeting us now, and will be in the future. (…)
“I think it’s pretty clear that the United States government did the Stuxnet attack,” he said calmly.
previously, Stuxnet { The out-of-controller | I don’t sleep. I wait. }
illustration { Jonathan Koshi }
The major investors in the diamond mines realized that they had no alternative but to merge their interests into a single entity that would be powerful enough to control production and perpetuate the illusion of scarcity of diamonds. (…)
De Beers proved to be the most successful cartel arrangement in the annals of modern commerce. While other commodities, such as gold, silver, copper, rubber, and grains, fluctuated wildly in response to economic conditions, diamonds have continued, with few exceptions, to advance upward in price every year since the Depression. Indeed, the cartel seemed so superbly in control of prices — and unassailable — that, in the late 1970s, even speculators began buying diamonds as a guard against the vagaries of inflation and recession.
images { Google search }
