A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe. In a lawsuit filed last month, former Prosper, Inc. salesman Chad Hudgens alleges his managers also allowed […]
Month: February 2008
Epic Meeting
Epic Meeting ?Modelling of Interaction Between a Spatula and a Human Brain,? Kim V. Hansen, Lars Brix, Christian F. Pedersen, Jens P. Haase and Ole V. Larsen, Medical Image Analysis, vol. 8, 2004, pp. 23?33. (Thanks to Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, who are at Aalborg University, Denmark, explain that: […]
March mini-AIR
The March issue of mini-AIR just went out. Topics include: How to Drastically Reduce Crime; Dekay, an Emblematic Man; Self and Fruits and Vegetables; Yet Another S-Kitty Question; Side-Scan Steep-Slope Sonographs Poet; Baking by the Dead; Cognitive Head-Itch, Laid-on Sense; etc. (If you would like to have mini-AIR automatically sent to your email box every […]
Music to stand bolt upright to
To keep old people from falling down so much, says Dr Frederick R Carrick, play them songs sung by someone special. But Dr Carrick cautions that this is a musical power distinct from the mundane sort that shatters glass or eardrums or a listener’s complacency. So rare is this potency that only one singer – […]
Mel in Barcelona, Correction Yadda
Mel in Barcelona, Correction Yadda I am so sorry. Once again, I must ask you to publish a correction. Surely this sets some record; many people make long series of errors, but almost none of them discuss it in public. So here is the fourth or so in the series of corrections I have been […]
The Condimentary Preferences of Drosophila
The biologist known as MissPrism reports having disproved the theory that “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”: The Condimentary Preferences of Drosophila In a small-scale survey of the dietary preferences of kitchen Drosophila (species unknown), we find, contrary to received wisdom, that you catch significantly more flies with vinegar than with honey. […]
G.G.-Grandma?s Hand, As It Really Was
G.G.-Grandma?s Hand, As It Really Was Here is a corrected version of my great-great grandmother?s hand. Not only is the drawing corrected (one of the fingers was backwards?don?t know how that happened) but more important, so is the information. This was a model 24-C, the kind she usually supplied to scientists and heads of state. […]
Hiphuggers? Tingly Thighs
?Hiphuggers? Tingly Thighs,? Malvinder S. Parmar, Canadian Medical Association Journal, vol. 168, no. 1, January 7, 2003, p. 168. (Thanks to Maddalena Feliciello for bringing this to our attention.) The author, who is at Timmins and District Hospital, Timmins, Ontario, explains: I recently saw 3 mildly obese young women between the ages of 22 and […]
Arm-Wrestling and the Man (and the Machine)
Arm-Wrestling and the Man (and the Machine) ?Fracture of Humerus During Use of an Arm Wrestling Machine,? R.H. Helm and P. Stuart, British Medical Journal (Clinical research edition), vol. 293, December 20?27, 1986, p. 6562. That?s an excerpt from the article ?Improbable Medical Review,? published in AIR 13:5.
Menstrual Joy
Menstrual Joy The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation, J. Delaney, M. Lupton and E. Toth, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988. This is the book that contains the Menstrual Joy Questionnaire. That’s an excerpt from the article “Menstrual Joy,” published in AIR 13:5.