What’s in a name? Possibly a life of crime. An unpopular name – like Alec, Ernest, Ivan, or Malcolm – is more likely to spell trouble than favourites Michael, Matthew or Christopher, according to research presented Saturday at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of B.C. “There is a positive […]
Month: November 2008
The birth of The Buckley Method
Have you ever run an organization whose mistakes killed lots of people, thus attracting unpleasant publicity? The Buckley Method was designed with your needs in mind. The web site of the Buckley School explains: In 1984, a toxic gas leak in Bhopal, India killed nearly 3000 people. The tragedy was terrible. So was the seeming […]
Engineering frontiers: The untapped power of breast motion
Harnessing the untapped power of breast motion one day recently I had an idea. As I rode public transportation to the office, my messenger bag slung uncomfortably across my chest, I thought, “Why not put the girls to work?” Human-powered devices are showing up everywhere, from Rotterdam’s sustainable dance floor to human-powered gyms in Hong […]
When punks grow old
Can punk rockers remain orthodox when they grow old? Joanna R Davis, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, confronts this painful question in her study Growing Up Punk: Negotiating Ageing Identity in a Local Music Scene, published in the journal Symbolic Interaction. “Punk developed in both the United Kingdom and the United […]
The Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzations.
When reading the The Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzations, see especially the section called “Comparing Sympathies: Tom and Wile E. Coyote” Coyote, on the other hand, is in a desperate situation. He and Roadrunner appear to be the only living organisms (besides cacti) in the vast desert expanse they inhabit. If Coyote wants dinner, Roadrunner is […]
The making of Kaboom
The rogue filmmaker knows as Pes explains how he engineered the film “Kaboom.”
2008 IgNobel Ceremony video now available on Google Video
For those of you who weren’t able to make it to Sanders Theatre to see the Igs in person, or if you weren’t near a computer to watch it streamed live, for those of you who just want to see it one more time, or for those of you who were unable to view the […]
“Helicopters Collect Whale Snot from Blowholes”
“Helicopters Collect Whale Snot from Blowholes” is the headline on a November 10, 2008 LiveScience report that begins: Tiny, remote-controlled helicopters hovering above the blowholes of whales have collected snot samples that could help scientists learn which bacteria lurk in seemingly healthy cetaceans in the wild. “Up until now, all the information we have from […]
Brain dreck
The curious thing is that the article is generally full of quite sensible advice for managing employees but its just wrapped up in this bizarre alternative universe neurobabble. Somehow we’ve got to the point where people feel they can’t give good advice without waving poorly-understood neuroscience around like it was a recently enlarged willy. Se […]
STATISTICS LESSON: Randomness all around you
I consider myself as prone to foolishness as anyone I know, in spite of my profession and the time spent building my expertise on the subject. But here is the exception; I know that I am very, very weak on that score. My humanity will try to foil me; I have to stay on my […]