Stuff you must read today (Wed, 5 Dec 2012)

  • Lair of the Trapmaster | oglaf.com
    “Over-thinking”.

    ‘Nuff said. Or is it?

  • The Modern Man’s Guide to Cocktails | Details.com
    If you like your alcohol and you’re past the SHOTS-SHOTS-SHOTS stage of life.
  • Quote #306044 | QDB
    A humorous take on penis size and perspective – with a dash of behavioural science included.
  • The Cobra Effect: Full Transcript | Freakonomics
    “This is what…we call the “cobra effect” where you have a well-intended scheme, but instead of solving the problem it makes the problem actually worse”.

    Which is what I feel sometimes takes place in the Civil Service and the Government as well.

  • Sing Meatbags, Sing Medicine Angels! | This Rocketship Will Crash
    “We’re willing to sacrifice colossal resources to create these geniuses. However, doctors are no better than other people when it comes to policing their own brains. They are fallible, corruptible, and certainly capable of making more mistakes than, say, a computer. No one wants to admit that many minds working together to solve scientific problems get better results than one lone genius working in the dark”.

    The case for crowd-sourcing.

Stuff you must read today (Wed, 21 Nov 2012)

  • “Stuff”: The psychology of hoarding | Salon
    One issue not discussed in the article/interview, but discussed in the comments section and something I’ve also witnessed with my own eyes – hoarding usually occurs when people belong to lower socio-economic backgrounds because:

    1. They can’t afford to buy things when they need them; and
    2. They don’t know when they’ll need what they do, so they just keep everything.

  • Type Connection
    A typographic dating game for people who like fonts.
  • Self-Help for Skeptics | The Wall Street Journal
    “In times of stress, even people with close social networks can feel utterly alone. We’re often advised to ‘buck up,’ ‘talk to someone’ (who is often paid to listen) or take a pill. Wouldn’t it also make sense to learn ways to comfort and be supportive of ourselves?”
  • Communicant | Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science
    “Helen turned slightly in her chair and scooped her hair aside with one hand. There, at the base of her skull, was the thing we had spent so long discussing: a small, dimpled disk of alloy, anodized a fashionable lime green, laser engraved with the tiny characters defining her range of MAC addresses. Helen had got (sic) a Connection”.
  • The moral case for sex before marriage | The Guardian
    “Sexual morality isn’t about how long you wait. It’s about how you treat yourself and the people you’re with”.

Stuff you must read today (Fri, 3 Aug 2012)

  • The Power of Habit | Slate Magazine
    This article single-handedly inspired me to buy the book, which single-handedly inspired me to change my life. I exaggerate, of course, but believe me when I say that the article – and the book – are good reads that must be taken with a pinch of salt.
  • Why women lose the dating game | The Age
    “‘We arrived at the top of the staircase,’ Bolick wrote, ‘finally ready to start our lives, only to discover a cavernous room at the tail end of a party, most of the men gone already, some having never shown up – and those who remain are leering by the cheese table, or are, you know, the ones you don’t want to go out with.'”
  • 21st-century girl | Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science
    “‘Do you dream of mammoths?’ a talk-show host once asked me. I knew not to give him my first choice of answer; that would have enlightened his audience over the course of three and a half hours — so long as they had the basic grounding in biosciences required to understand it. I also knew enough to avoid my second answer, which was that his question was unintelligent, and that the entire interview had taken time I could have spent better in the laboratory.”
  • The Eye Test | PUEBLO Crew In Captivity in North Korea
    I seriously cannot remember how I came across this site but this anecdote, along with many others like it, is painfully hilarious.
  • Adam’s “rib” a Biblical euphemism | Improbable Research
    “In a letter to the editor in the American Journal of Medical Genetics, two authors suggest that the story of Adam’s rib being the humble beginnings of Eve is the result of a mistranslation. In reality, they suggest, the story is an explanatory myth for why humans are one of the few mammals lacking a baculum, or penile bone.”