Every nation is keen to find new propaganda weapons to use against its rival nations. Some nations now gleefully use the Ig Nobel Prize. Here’s a recent (September 18, 2019) example, in an editorial in the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun: Ig Nobel Prizes encourage people to enjoy science with a smile Winners of the Ig […]
Tag: China
Moving Chairs in Starbucks: Rice-Wheat Cultural Differences in China
The famed Chinese cultural divide — wheat-centric in the north, rice-centric in the south — plays out even in today’s coffee shops, suggests this new study: “Moving Chairs in Starbucks: Observational Studies Find Rice-Wheat Cultural Differences in Daily Life in China,” Thomas Talhelm, Xuemin Zhang, and Shigehiro Oishi, Science Advances, Vol. 4, no. 4, April […]
Cuteness Engineering (2017 book)
Are you looking for a “state of the art monograph which presents a unique introduction to thinking about cuteness and its incorporation into modern, especially computer-based, products and services” ? If so, you could consult Cuteness Engineering : Designing Adorable Products and Services (Springer International Publishing, Hardback £61.99 or e-Book £48.99). Here is an example chapter […]
The ‘Usefulness of Uselessness’ and a vice versa update
It was somewhere around the 4th century BC that Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou raised the idea of ‘The Usefulness of Uselessness’. Master Zhuang pointed out that objects (or information) which appear at first sight to be quite useless, can, on further investigation (and/or at a later date, and/or at another place) sometimes turn out to […]