"People ask: How can the weathermen be wrong so often? Here is the simple answer: They are trying to predict the future! It's a forecast, meaning a prediction about an event yet to happen."
Cool Tools: Zenni Optical
"Zenni offers the same fabulous advantages of decent glasses for super cheap, but they are much faster to deliver, and have a much better selection, and their website is much easier to use and order."
A Trick of the Mind
"Looking for patterns in life and then infusing them with meaning, from alien intervention to federal conspiracy."
Dear Musicians: The RIAA Is About To Totally Screw You Over (Again!)
"Once you have a bunch of big name musicians going very public about how the RIAA is screwing them over, it's going to be increasingly difficult for the RIAA to keep up the facade about how it's representing the interests of musicians while it's actively and vocally trying to totally screw them over."
Quit Trying to be So Safe!
"I really think the bottom line problem is that our society today is “too safe.” When we begin to defeat all the things that used to be dangerous, we lose quite a bit of perspective. We start to gauge safety/danger against absolute safety."
How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education
"The idea is to invert the normal rhythms of school, so that lectures are viewed on the kids’ own time and homework is done at school. It sounds weird, Thordarson admits, but this flipping makes sense when you think about it. It’s when they’re doing homework that students are really grappling with a subject and are most likely to need someone to talk to."
Isn't That A ...? Clouded By Imagination
"So our brains got used to jumping quickly to conclusions, even if they weren't the right conclusions."
What does it mean if you don't want to have sex?
"Asexuality began to emerge in the public sphere as a sexual orientation in the mid-1990s, after a massive study in the UK revealed that 1.05% of people described themselves as having "never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all."
The truth behind tax cuts: You might not be better off
"Receiving a tax cut is like standing up at a concert in order to get a better view. It’s easy enough to see why an individual might be tempted. But if everyone does it, the gains become much less clear-cut."
Logical punctuation: Should we start placing commas outside quotation marks?
I say: "I think we should".
Changing Education Paradigms
Video, about 12 minutes. An interesting talk on how education can be better.
How a differential gear works
"This great old video is a remarkably clear explanation of how a differential gear works -- the kind of thing that you could show to a young child or an adult and make the lightbulb go on for both of them. "
Physical Clutter Crowds Out Other Thoughts and Steals Focus
"A scientific study, however, explains what clutter does to your brain: it competes for attention, and crowds out the actual thoughts you want to move through."
Make Sure You're Prepared for Disaster with a 72-Hour Kit [Emergency]
"After Japan's earthquake and tsunami earlier this morning, most of the West coast and Hawaii are both under a Tsunami warning. If you don't have an adequate emergency kit in your home, here's how to put one together so you're prepared in the event of an emergency."
Deindividuation
"You are are prone to losing your individuality and becoming absorbed into a hivemind under the right conditions."
The Presurfer: In B Flat 2.0
"Very tasty little idea from Darren Solomon where 20 YouTube videos can be played in harmony and mixed by adjusting the volume sliders. " [link]
Illness-inducing video of the day
[Video from helmet-mounted cam of guy climbing a very, very tall transmission tower, click above]
I’ve never felt ill from watching a video before. If you are afraid of heights (or sane) this might be disturbing. Note: goofy little animation at the beginning is *not* the real video, give it a bit.
I’ve never felt ill from watching a video before. If you are afraid of heights (or sane) this might be disturbing. Note: goofy little animation at the beginning is *not* the real video, give it a bit.
20 questions that could change your life
"Asking them today could redirect your life. Answering them every day will transform it."
A Glass of Sprite
" I even broke my arm when I made the unwise decision to jump off the tailgate of a parked pickup truck and tumble down a hill. My broken arm shaped the rest of my life."
The Last Psychiatrist: Are Law Schools Lying To Their Applicants?
"Despite the fact that 'JDs face the grimmest job market in decades' the schools are somehow reporting to prosepctive applicants that, e.g., '93% of grads are working' and 'the median starting salary of graduates in the private sector is $160,000.'"
How to Argue Properly
"It's easy to ruin relationships, at home or at work, by getting into an argument and letting it devolve past the point of usefulness. A good argument can produce a good things, however."
The Over-Interpretation of Dreams
"To see how much meaning people ascribe to their dreams, Carey Morewedge and Michael Norton asked participants to compare four ways of thinking about dreams... "
The Movement to Restore Children’s Play Gains Momentum
"For several years, studies and statistics have been mounting that suggest the culture of play in the United States is vanishing."
Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness
"The insurgency against the DSM-5 (the APA has decided to shed the Roman numerals) has now spread far beyond just Allen Frances. Psychiatrists at the top of their specialties, clinicians at prominent hospitals, and even some contributors to the new edition have expressed deep reservations about it. "
Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science
"Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? "
Why So Many People Can't Make Decisions
"Some people meet, fall in love and get married right away. Others can spend hours in the sock aisle at the department store, weighing the pros and cons of buying a pair of wool argyles instead of cotton striped."
TMI, Mr. President! TMI!
"But does our increasingly informal relationship with the man in the White House — not just President Obama, but any sitting president — diminish our respect for the man and reverence for the office? Should we leave the uncovering of private and behind-closed-doors habits to the historians?"
Enforce a Mandatory Holding Pattern to Curb Your Spending
"If you feel there's something you must have right away, there's a good chance you're experiencing a momentary lapse in judgment. A good way to determine whether or not you really something is to enforce a specific waiting period."
Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays
"In other words, from the standpoint of economic theory, gifts are often poorly matched with the recipient’s preferences, so holiday gift-giving results in what Waldfogel calls 'an orgy of value destruction'.”
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm at the point in my life when I get what I want (exactly what I want) when I need it. Gift giving is tough for me, because I have a hard time figuring out what someone would really like; recieving gifts is likewise as problematic for the reasons in the article.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm at the point in my life when I get what I want (exactly what I want) when I need it. Gift giving is tough for me, because I have a hard time figuring out what someone would really like; recieving gifts is likewise as problematic for the reasons in the article.
How The US Response Turns 'Failed' Terrrorist Attacks Into Successes
"Terrorism is a serious issue. No one's trying to downplay the fact that some very angry individuals are trying to kill an awful lot of Americans (and others as well). However, what's amazing is how incredibly bad the US appears to be at this particular game of chess."
Quote of the Day
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
- Winston Churchill
- Winston Churchill
TSA's Failure Based On The Myth Of Perfect Security
"As the complaints against the TSA ratchet up, various people are finally starting to point out why the whole concept of security theater is a farce. The entire setup is based on the idea that you can have 'perfect security.' But, if you wanted perfect security, the only way to do that is to not let anyone fly, ever."
Better Business Bureau: The Best Ratings Money Can Buy
"Consumer Watchdog Accused of Running 'Pay for Play' Scheme With Grading System"
Do we still need daylight saving time?
"Why everyone from the candy lobby to TV networks is weighing in on the daylight saving time debate."
Quote of The Day
"Marriage isn't a passion-fest; it's more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way."
- Lori Gottlieb, in a 2008 Atlantic article "Marry Him! The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough". Gottlieb has written a book of the same name based on the article.
- Lori Gottlieb, in a 2008 Atlantic article "Marry Him! The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough". Gottlieb has written a book of the same name based on the article.
Joey Pantoliano on depression, mental illness
"Pantoliano seeks to “stomp the stigma” of mental illness through his nonprofit organization “No Kidding, Me Too!” and recently made a documentary about his own experience and that of others learning to cope with mental illness. "
English. It's dead to me.
"The language's demise took few by surprise. Signs of its failing health had been evident for some time on the pages of America's daily newspapers..."
What to do when body parts fall off - CNN.com
"Whether it's a missing tooth or an eye that's popped out of its socket, many people don't know what to do in such situations."
5 Reasons Not To Go To College
"But as costs for college skyrocket, as two-thirds of Americans find work without a degree and as most students aren't going to directly use their degree anyway, it's high time we do ourselves a favor and take an objective perspective of the "going to college" question."
Quote of the Day
Wired: Why is it so hard to convince people, even when the science is so clear?
Simon Singh: Science has nothing to do with common sense. I believe it was Einstein who said that common sense is a set of prejudices we form by the age of 18. Inject somebody with some viruses and that's going to keep you from getting sick? That's not common sense. We evolved from single-cell organisms? That's not common sense. By driving my car I'm going to cook Earth? None of this is common sense. The commonsense view is what we're fighting against. So somehow you've got to move people away from that with these quite complicated scientific arguments based on even more complicated research. That's why it's such an uphill battle. People start off with a belief and a prejudice--we all do. And the job of science is to set that aside to get to the truth.
- Simon Singh, writer, in an interview with Wired.
Simon Singh: Science has nothing to do with common sense. I believe it was Einstein who said that common sense is a set of prejudices we form by the age of 18. Inject somebody with some viruses and that's going to keep you from getting sick? That's not common sense. We evolved from single-cell organisms? That's not common sense. By driving my car I'm going to cook Earth? None of this is common sense. The commonsense view is what we're fighting against. So somehow you've got to move people away from that with these quite complicated scientific arguments based on even more complicated research. That's why it's such an uphill battle. People start off with a belief and a prejudice--we all do. And the job of science is to set that aside to get to the truth.
- Simon Singh, writer, in an interview with Wired.
You’re a failure - now get over it
"New research suggests our obsession with success is a handicap."
Greetings from Idiot America
"There's never been a better time to espouse, profit from, and believe in utter, unadulterated crap. And the crap is rising so high, it's getting dangerous."
Quote of the Day
"Google's Eric Schmidt recently stated that every two days we create as much information as we did from the beginning of civilization through 2003. Perhaps the sheer bulk of data makes it easier to suppress that information which we find overly unpleasant. Who's got time for a victim in Afghanistan or end-of-life issues with all these Tweets coming in?"
- Dave Pell, from http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/08/11/129127690/too-much-information-can-sometimes-mean-we-miss-the-big-picture
- Dave Pell, from http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/08/11/129127690/too-much-information-can-sometimes-mean-we-miss-the-big-picture
America: Land of Loners?
"Americans, plugged in and on the move, are confiding in their pets, their computers, and their spouses. What they need is to rediscover the value of friendship."
Debt Repayment Is a High-Interest No Risk Investment
"Paying off debt you hold turns the rate of interest on that debt into a guaranteed investment. As long as you're paying off the high-interest debt you're essentially earning money by avoiding future fees."
The BP Cover-Up
"BP and the government say the spill is fast disappearing—but dramatic new science reveals that its worst effects may be yet to come."
The Paradox of the False Positive
"That’s the paradox of the false positive. When you try to find something really rare, your test’s accuracy has to match the rarity of the thing you’re looking for."
Quote of The Day
"We've basically decided to keep pumping greenhouse gases into Mother Nature's operating system and take our chances that the results will be benign - even though a vast majority of scientists warn that this will not be so. Fasten your seat belts. As the environmentalist Rob Watson likes to say: "Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That's all she is." You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot tell her that the oil companies say climate change is a hoax. No, Mother Nature is going to do whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate, and "Mother Nature always bats last, and she always bats 1.000," says Watson. Do not mess with Mother Nature. But that is just what we're doing."
- Thomas Friedman, quoting Rob Watson, discussing the U.S. Senate's recent failure to pass climate change legislation.
- Thomas Friedman, quoting Rob Watson, discussing the U.S. Senate's recent failure to pass climate change legislation.
The Real Damage - How much does that really cost?
"The Real Damage is a new tool to help you visualize how much your purchases REALLY cost. If you owe money, when you buy something instead of paying off your debt the real cost of that purchase isn't shown on the tag. This tool shows you how much that money would have saved you, if you had applied it to your debt. In other words, the real damage."
The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good
"Nothing is perfect and waiting for the perfect moment or killing yourself trying to ensure that every thing your hand touches is done perfectly is a sure way to not get anything done at all."
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