January 2011
43 posts
“People who describe themselves as both Asian and American, or see themselves as...”
– This is “according to a study led by Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, a psychologist at the University of Michigan,” quoted by Jonah Lehrer in a post about the notion of dual identity in the case of novelist and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov (who, for those of you who live under a rock, predicted...
For better or for worse
Fascinating data on interracial or interethnic marriages in the U.S.
White men and women are least likely to wed anyone else but each other while American Indians prefer to mix more than staying among themselves. Would love to see that for Europe, especially Britain and France!
— From London.
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Dealing With Assange and the Secrets He Spilled →
The New York Times’ executive editor tells of his toilings with J.A. and of a mock Christmas card:
“Dear kids,
Santa is Mum & Dad.
Love,
WikiLeaks.”
— From London.
Gadget panic
One of my colleagues tells me he went to a restaurant last night that asks guests to punch in their orders directly into a little electronic device. Sounds great except that the system had just broken down and panic among staff had broken out. It turned out in the age of iphones and blackberries no one had a pen or paper. Finally, after a long delay they were able to collect adequate equipment...
Help.
Does anyone know of an iPhone app that lets you have a conversation with more than one person at a time, either by chat or text, with push notifications?
Much obliged!
— From SF.
“I’m not saying all senior citizens who can’t master technology...”
– What does it say about you when you find yourself wondering how to best put into practice one of Sheldon’s ideas?
— From SF.
“No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else’s house.”
– Dame Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey - the miniseries created by Julian Fellowes.
Episodes one and two are available for viewing on the PBS site at the moment. All seven of them will, in time.
— From SF.
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The entire premise of 'Lost' came from a random... →
(Grounds for divorce.)
— From SF.
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WatchMy Gift to Jason, or How I Won Christmas (12 seconds).
— From SF.
“Though traditionally cosmetic surgery has been used to make patients look...”
– The year-zero face: is 36 the perfect age for a woman?
The reason why 24-year-olds like Miss Lohan look 36. I’d call it disturbing, but you’ve already thought it.
— From SF.
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“Clumsatwee is an art that must be practiced, Anna.”
– Jason, on studiously twee girls who figure being clumsy is charming.
(Verdict: it isn’t. Now put that felt flower down and look where you’re going.)
— From SF.
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“They have been photographed across Europe giving the appearance of happy...”
– Steven Erlanger’s NYTimes piece, The Odd Couple, describes the uneasy relationship between Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, and Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s Buffoon-in-Chief President.
The stability of the monetary union has always depended on them. More so now that some...
font get me not
So apparently texts that are written in a clean and easy-to-read font are also more easily forgotten.
Wired contributor Jonah Lehrer had that feeling when he read stuff on his Kindle and then found the scientific study that actually backed up his hunch.
Making material harder to learn “has been shown to lead people to process information more deeply, more abstractly, more carefully, and yield...
‘Cuddle Chemical’ Also Fuels Favoritism, Bigotry →
An extra dose of oxytocin - the hormone of attachment - enhances “group recognition” and makes men more ethnocentric, a Dutch study showed.
I guess this means Rush Limbaugh’s a super cuddly guy…?
— From SF.
You use email? How old-fashioned!
“My 14-year old son doesn’t use email; doesn’t even remember his email address. That’s because kids his age use social network sites instead, in his case, Facebook. Sure, that may be old news to the hip, tech savvy, but it was news to me.” (A reader comment to an equally interesting but less surprising NYT article on rapper 50Cent and facebook.)
It was news to me...
WatchSpeaking of ways to promote contraception, here’s an oldie but a goodie: wear condoms, from France.
If you’re curious about the ways in which the Dutch, the German and the French deal with teenage sex compared to the US, check out this excellent photo essay by Rachael Phelps in Slate.
— From SF.
“(…) the technology needed to not have sex at all is widely available on...”
– The Economist’s blog Democracy in America points out that the abortion rate in the US is three times that of Germany and twice that of France, and that the way to lower it is not to promote adoption, but to increase the use of birth control amongst teenagers.
Talk about stating the...
David Rakoff read a fantastic story on a This American Life program that I just came across as a podcast. I was totally enthralled and so eager to share it here but I couldn’t find a link. Instead, I found an older story by him that is equally good. It’s called ‘Frenemies’ and includes the fable about the tortoise and the scorpion.
This is how it starts:
Nathan, at one of...
