Monday, November 10, 2014
Tragic Tale
Bill Mantlo was a legendary writer for Marvel Comics in the 1970s and 1980s. But today, he inhabits a broken body abandoned by both the health insurance industry and the federal healthcare reform meant to help people like him. This is his story.
Probably my most hated comics writer once i got to teenage years, when i realized he was writing to an audience that was now below my intelligence. But that is a quibble in comparison to what happened to him in the American health system.
The Maple Leafs’ Collapse Is A Victory For Rationality
This is not me being overdramatic. This was a season with a built-in black-and-white storyline, making it a referendum on who better grasps hockey—those who know how to interpret the numbers, or those actually running a team.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Work in the Age of Anxiety => The 40-Year Slump
[…]In 1974, wages fell by 2.1 percent and median household income shrunk by $1,500. To be sure, it was a year of mild recession, but the nation had experienced five previous downturns during its 25-year run of prosperity without seeing wages come down.
What no one grasped at the time was that this wasn’t a one-year anomaly, that 1974 would mark a fundamental breakpoint in American economic history.
The gambling machines helping drug dealers ‘turn dirty money clean’
“[…] It’s the main business around here. Take dole, turn it into weed, sell them, take your profits and put them into the machines. If you win, you are quids in. If you lose, you get cash from the money shops to cover your losses. Back to dole and buying drugs. There’s nothing else around here to do.”
Winning The Price Is Right
For example, in the most recent season of Price Is Right, the Honda Accord LX was valued in different games as $22,587, $22,480 (twice), $22,934, $22,423, $22,791, and $22,841. In six of the seven times it appeared, the exact value was needed in order to win it. Memorizing prices ahead of time—even if you had a hunch you might have a shot at that Honda—has less value than you think.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
What No One Tells You About Losing Lots of Weight
After all that work, it can be a disappointing blow to discover that bodies that have lost 50-plus pounds simply don’t look like bodies that have maintained a steady weight since reaching adulthood.
The Fat Trap
While researchers have known for decades that the body undergoes various metabolic and hormonal changes while it’s losing weight, the Australian team detected something new. A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost.
Friday, September 20, 2013
The Most Depressing Discovery About the Brain, Ever
Nyan and his collaborators have been running experiments trying to answer this terrifying question about American voters: Do facts matter?
The answer, basically, is no. When people are misinformed, giving them facts to correct those errors only makes them cling to their beliefs more tenaciously.