“Rocks or up?”
“Up, please.”
(…)
“In addition, most educated drinkers agree rye whiskey gives more complexity to the finished cocktail than bourbon. Since you’re obviously a little new to all this, let’s start you off with a Kentucky rye that’s been aged in Madeira cask and contains thirty percent corn…”
The most famous Einstein pronouncement on God came in the form of a telegram, in which he was asked to answer the question in 50 words or less. He did it in 32: “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”
The leg-to-body ratio (LBR) is a morphological index that has been shown to influence a person’s attractiveness. In our research, 3,103 participants from 27 nations rated the physical attractiveness of seven male and seven female silhouettes varying in LBR. We found that male and female silhouettes with short and excessively long legs were perceived as less attractive across all nations. Hence, the LBR may significantly influence perceptions of physical attractiveness across nations.
{ James Joyce }
Although fiction treats themes of psychological importance, it has been excluded from psychology because it is seen as flawed empirical method. But fiction is not empirical truth. It is simulation that runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers. In any simulation coherence truths have priority over correspondences. Moreover, in the simulations of fiction, personal truths can be explored that allow readers to experience emotions — their own emotions — and understand aspects of them that are obscure, in relation to contexts in which the emotions arise.
{ Fiction as Cognitive and Emotional Simulation by Keith Oatley | Continue reading }
images { 1. Pinocchio | 2. Maurizio Cattelan, Daddy Daddy, 2008 | 3 }
The slasher horror film has been the subject of frequent criticism based on the assumption that female characters in these films are more likely to be the victims of serious, graphic violence that is juxtaposed with explicit sexual imagery. The purpose of this study was to address limitations inherent in previous analyses of slasher films and examine whether gender differences exist in the nature of violent presentations. A content analysis of several indicators of violent and sexual content was conducted using a random sample of 50 slasher films that were released in North America between 1960 and 2007. Findings suggested that there are several significant gender differences in the nature of violent presentations found in slasher films. In general, female characters were more likely to be victims of less serious and graphic forms of violence, but were also significantly more likely to be victimized in scenes involving a concomitant presentation of sex and violence.
Is the desire to know other people’s secrets a natural instinct – or a vulgar vice?
The need to maintain a barrier against the outside world may be one of our most basic human urges; but another is the lust to know the unknown, to observe and indulge in the privacy of others. In his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life the sociologist Erving Goffman demonstrates how we all perform in various guises and to different groups of people, as if we were on stage. We preserve our “backstage” selves as an essential part of our identity – and it is this protected part of our personality that we attempt to mask, while harbouring a strong desire to penetrate those of others.
photo { Man Ray }
Bryan Caplan complains about evo psych folk who say we didn’t inherit “an overwhelming, conscious desire to have children,” and about my suggestion that “It is hard to tell grand hero stories” about high fertility.
photo { Richard Foulser }
Is being polite honest? Young adults aren’t quite sure. (…)
Should you honestly tell your roommate she looks fat in her summer white pants, or that he should dump his clingy girlfriend? When you put on a big smile for your sixth interview of the day in a seemingly hopeless job search, are you being honest?
These are questions our great-grandparents would have dismissed out of hand. In their world, there was virtue in being polite, and if you didn’t have something nice to say, you shouldn’t say anything at all. During the inner-directed 1960s, however — the era of the Human Potential Movement and self-actualization — sincerity and expressions of visceral emotions became our new definition of honesty. And these ideas stuck.
If a plagiarist plagiarizes from an author who herself has plagiarized, do we call it a wash and go for a beer?
That scenario is precisely what Steven L. Shafer found himself facing recently. Shafer, editor-in-chief of Anesthesia & Analgesia (A&A), learned that authors of a 2008 case report in his publication had lifted two-and-a-half paragraphs of text from a 2004 paper published in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia.
A contrite retraction letter, which appears in the December issue of A&A, from the lead author, Sushma Bhatnagar, of New Delhi, India, called the plagiarism “unintended” and apologized for the incident. Straightforward enough.
But then things get sticky. Amazingly, the December issue of A&A also retracts a 2010 manuscript by Turkish researchers who, according to Shafer, plagiarized from at least five other published papers—one of which happens to have been a 2008 article by Bhatnagar in the Journal of Palliative Medicine. (…)
Shafer said his journal is now running every submitted manuscript through CrossCheck, a copy-checking system that allows editors and publishers to screen papers for signs of plagiarism.
photo { Abby Wilcox }
The belief culture thrives on the false principle that all opinions are equal, even those without a shred of factual data, documentation, or reasoned methodology. It is a culture in which one in 20 Americans believe NASA faked the Apollo moon landings, and half the population believes the world was made in six days. (…)
There is a certain irony in the case of the United States, a nation founded on Enlightenment principles of rationality and now so eagerly becoming a culture of raw, unquestioning belief.
A link between quantum mechanics and topology implies the existence of an entirely new state of matter. And physicists have already found the first example. (…)
A key point here is that the circles in a flat 2 dimensional plane cannot form a Borromean ring.
Hospital sent man home with bone stuck in throat.
Polish policeman fines himself for walking on railway to meet daily quota.
Nashville billboards claim Jesus will return May 21, 2011.
Nurse guilty of raping another woman in Brisbane hotel toilets.
Digital video recorders do not change shopping behavior.
Woman shocked to find squirrel in toilet.
A lawsuit’s been filed by lawyers at the Texas Civil Rights Project because, allegedly, for the last seven years, the state’s Department of State Health Services has “deceptively and unlawfully sold, traded, bartered, and distributed blood samples” taken from babies.
Interview with John Pistole, head of the TSA.
The global nuclear industry is willing to take big risks to get a piece of China’s nuclear budget. The danger is that in landing those fat contracts — and sharing technology with Chinese partners — the industry will help build a formidable rival.
Africa has more Serial-Killers than U.S. and Europe.
Asking children and teenagers to promise to tell the truth actually works.
Children who don’t like fruit and vegetables are 13 times more likely to be constipated.
The Era of Error-Tolerant Computing. Errors will abound in future processors…and that’s okay.
A map of the emotions, according to Spinoza, showing the dependency of all the emotions on Desire, Pleasure and Pain. Related: Metaphors, models & theories
Synesthesia and Artistic Experimentation [PDF]
Rich Women Prefer Attractive Older Men.
Fish Have Feelings (And They Can Be Seen In Their DNA).
Why do flamingoes like to stand on one leg? [via TYWKIWDBI]
Bees deprived of a good night’s sleep make shoddy dancers and poor communicators.
Cosmic accidents: 10 lucky breaks for humanity.
How to create temperatures below absolute zero.
Concentric circles in WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-Big-Bang activity.
Facebook is a few steps away from trademarking the word ‘face,’ online documents reveal.
It appears that non-Facebook members can also be traced via the Like button.
Branding in the Digital Age: You’re Spending Your Money in All the Wrong Places.
Why People Pay for Bizarre Experiences. “Contrary to what people predict, it’s not young and impulsive people who want to pay so much for these crazy experiences. It’s actually people who plan and are obsessed with being productive,” says Anat Keinan, who now teaches marketing at Harvard Business School.
Confessions of a College Pimp.
Memoirs of an Anonymous Phone Sex Worker.
How infidelity has become accepted and even expected in Russia.
How did chemists become the greatest force in fragrance? Few perfumes are crafted by hand in a dusty atelier. Instead, they come to life in the lab.
Can science explain art, music and literature?
Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian.
Warhol Foundation Threatens to End Financing of Smithsonian Exhibitions.
The Murder that Changed the Movies. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, shot in four weeks for $800,000, released 50 years ago.
George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It’s Okay.
Five Boys: The Story of a Picture.
Why do we drive on the parkway and park on the driveway?
How To Present Yourself In Court To Be Optimally Likable and Persuasive.
How to identify a shark on a biting rampage.
If a bear charges you, what exactly are you supposed to do?
How to hire a programmer when you’re not a programmer
A Brief History—and Future—of the Shopping Cart.
Interview with gastroenterologist Michael D. Levitt, the world’s leading authority on flatulence.
Attention-grabbing ambient advertising via New Zealand.
u gave away an iphone for a treo??? ewww man… wtf?
This is the uniform for crap party promoters all over Europe.
Lawyer Commercial. [via copyranter]
Many drivers enjoy the so-called “new car smell,” a mix of volatile organic compounds that rise from the plastic, leather, cloth, wood and other interior components of cars fresh off the assembly line. The aroma is so popular that some companies even sell “new car smell” air fresheners. But is “new car smell” intoxicating?
That appears likely to be an element of the defense of a Colorado driver charged in a hit-and-run accident, according to court documents filed this week, The Vail Daily News reports. The driver, Martin Joel Erzinger, a financial manager, allegedly fled the scene of a crash with a cyclist in July.
The “new car smell” from a month-old Mercedes-Benz may have contributed to Mr. Erzinger’s losing consciousness before the accident, his lawyers say.
The seemingly novel defense has been raised by an “accident reconstructionist” hired by Mr. Erzinger’s lawyers. They contend that Mr. Erzinger suffered from sleep apnea and dozed off at the wheel before driving off the road and striking the cyclist. (…)When the local police arrested him, the police records say, he was placing a broken side mirror and a damaged bumper in his trunk.
photo { Try it till you make it }
{ Acrobats strip for Pope Benedict XVI, perform topless in Vatican }
My most useful mental trick involves imagining myself to be far more capable than I am. I do this to reduce the risk that I turn down an opportunity just because I am clearly unqualified.
Evolutionary biologists suggest there is a correlation between the size of the cerebral neocortex and the number of social relationships a primate species can have. Humans have the largest neocortex and the widest social circle — about 150, according to the scientist Robin Dunbar. Dunbar’s number — 150 — also happens to mirror the average number of friends people have on Facebook. Because of airplanes and telephones and now social media, human beings touch the lives of vastly more people than did our ancestors, who might have encountered only 150 people in their lifetime. Now the possibility of connection is accelerating at an extraordinary pace. As the great biologist E.O. Wilson says, “We’re in uncharted territory.”
{ TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg | Continue reading | A map of the world, as drawn by Facebook }
3. Slow down your conversation. Don’t cut people off in your haste to get your two cents in. Listen—really listen—to what others are saying, instead of using the time to compose your rebuttal. Stop to think before saying (or posting or texting) something you may regret later.
4. Be slow to judge. There’s no good reason others should think, act or dress just like you. Honor diversity.
photos { Harri Peccinotti, Pirelli Calendar, 1969 }
The question now, as humanity pours greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, is not whether Antarctica will begin to warm in earnest, but how rapidly. The melting of Antarctica’s northernmost region — the Antarctic Peninsula — is already well underway, representing the first breach in an enormous citadel of cold that holds 90 percent of the world’s ice.
photo { Tony Stamolis }
