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.
Why Can’t Canada Win the Stanley Cup?
[…] there is almost certainly a shortage of N.H.L. teams in Canada relative to the demand for hockey there and the revenues that Canada contributes to the league. […] Had the distribution of N.H.L. teams more closely matched fan interest in the sport across the United States and Canada, Canada would have more teams in the league and – very probably – at least one Stanley Cup championship.
Finally, and related to the excess demand for hockey in Canada, Canadian teams routinely sell out their arenas at high ticket prices — whether or not they are any good. This may reduce their incentive to compete.
Don’t miss that fans vs. income plot.
A Personal Statement from Iain Banks
[…] I’ve asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow (sorry – but we find ghoulish humour helps).
One of my favourite authors of recent years.
Refusing to apologize can have psychological benefits (and we issue no mea culpa for this research finding)
Despite an understanding of the perception and consequences of apologies for their recipients, little is known about the consequences of interpersonal apologies, or their denial, for the offending actor. In two empirical studies, we examined the unexplored psychological consequences that follow from a harm-doer’s explicit refusal to apologize. Results showed that the act of refusing to apologize resulted in greater self-esteem than not refusing to apologize. Moreover, apology refusal also resulted in increased feelings of power/control and value integrity, both of which mediated the effect of refusal on self-esteem. These findings point to potential barriers to victim–offender reconciliation after an interpersonal harm, highlighting the need to better understand the psychology of harm-doers and their defensive behavior for self-focused motives.
via Metafilter
Procedures & Applications: Academy Awards Nominations and Single Transferable Vote
Candidate E is known as the Condorcet winner, as it defeats all other candidates in pairwise, head-to-head elections. The Condorcet winner, if one exists, is viewed as a compromise candidate that garners support from the entire electorate, because it can defeat every other candidate head-to-head. Hence, a more specific critique is that [Single Transferable Vote] may not elect the Condorcet winner, if one exists.
