I enjoyed this short film about creative people and their desks. I especially like the quote (I'm paraphrasing), "If a cluttered desk is evidence of a cluttered mind, then what is an empty desk?" Above is a picture of my own cluttered mind.
Desk – Music and Sound Design from Aaron Trinder Film:Motion:Music on Vimeo.
One of those stories that highlights why life truly is stranger, or at least more interesting, than fiction:
Behind the door, under a thick layer of dusk lay a treasure trove of turn-of-the-century objects including a painting by the 19th century Italian artist Giovanni Boldini.
The woman who owned the flat had left for the south of France before the Second World War and never returned.
But when she died recently aged 91, experts were tasked with drawing up an inventory of her possessions and homed in on the flat near the Trinité church in Paris between the Pigalle red light district and Opera…
But he said his heart missed a beat when he caught sight of a stunning tableau of a woman in a pink muslin evening dress.
The painting was by Boldini and the subject a beautiful Frenchwoman who turned out to be the artist's former muse and whose granddaughter it was who had left the flat uninhabited for more than half a century.
I'm not a big fan of hybrid animals. Flying squirrels? Rats with long poofy tails are bad enough, but when they can fly they become downright repulsive. Fish that can walk across land? Scary. Fish that can fly? They just keep me from wanting to get into any kind of boat that's not armored. Even if you don't agree with me you have to admit that this is kinda freaky:
From an article about the 2010 Ig Nobel Awards:
Peace prize
Awarded to psychologist Richard Stephens and others at Keele University for confirming that swearing relieves pain. Stephens, who began the study after striking his thumb with a hammer, found volunteers could tolerate more pain if they repeated swearwords rather than neutral words. He suspects that "swearing induces a fight-or-flight response and nullifies the link between fear of pain and pain perception".
Man, do I have a plethora of experiences I could use to back up these findings. Exhibit A: When I was a freshman in college I played soccer for a small Lutheran college in Nebraska. Before one home game our coach told us that his wife was disturbed by some of the language she heard from us on the field and he asked us to watch our mouths. Well, we all thought he was full of crap but me being a wet-behind-the-ears freshman I decided to do my best to honor his request. I was doing fine until midway through the second half when an opposing player absolutely demolished me with a late tackle. He hit me so hard I did a full flip and landed on my back, and since these were the days before shin guards were required I had no protection where he hit me. As soon as I hit the ground I spewed out so many f-bombs and unique combinations of every curse word known to man that I'm sure I made even the saltiest people in attendance blush. When they dragged me to the sideline I stole a glance at the coach's wife and she looked like she'd been sucking on a bagful of lemons, but I couldn't have cared less because my leg was half broken and the cussing really did seem to help.
Very interesting outlook from the man behind TED:
For some unknowable reason a study of what makes gals dig guys on the dance floor has been completed. According to the results this is a good dancer:
And this is a bad dancer:
Here's the abstract from the study:
Male dance moves that catch a woman's eye
Male movements serve as courtship signals in many animal species, and may honestly reflect the genotypic and/or phenotypic quality of the individual. Attractive human dance moves, particularly those of males, have been reported to show associations with measures of physical strength, prenatal androgenization and symmetry. Here we use advanced three-dimensional motion-capture technology to identify possible biomechanical differences between women's perceptions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ male dancers. Nineteen males were recorded using the ‘Vicon’ motion-capture system while dancing to a basic rhythm; controlled stimuli in the form of avatars were then created in the form of 15 s video clips, and rated by 39 females for dance quality. Initial analyses showed that 11 movement variables were significantly positively correlated with perceived dance quality. Linear regression subsequently revealed that three movement measures were key predictors of dance quality; these were variability and amplitude of movements of the neck and trunk, and speed of movements of the right knee. In summary, we have identified specific movements within men's dance that influence women's perceptions of dancing ability. We suggest that such movements may form honest signals of male quality in terms of health, vigour or strength, though this remains to be confirmed.
Never have so many multisyllabic words been used to explain how you know a guy's a dork.
For what it's worth this explains my fondness for pubs over clubs.
Found via bookofjoe.
Those of you old enough to remember Webvan will likely greet news of any grocery delivery service with a healthy dose of skepticism, and rightfully so, but I think that the folks behind Relay Foods, currently in operation in Richmond and Charlottesville, are onto something. Here's Bookofjoe's review of the service and here's the "How it works" page on their site. Very cool and something I'd love to see in the Triad.
The British Pathe website is a very good place to lose track of time. From the site:
The world's finest news and entertainment video film archive
You can view and buy films and still photographs from the entire archive of 90,000 videos covering newsreel, sports footage, social history documentaries, entertainment and music stories from 1896 to 1976.
Here's a taste:
From NPR:
Why such a big discrepancy between worries and reality? Barnes says parents fixate on rare events because they internalize horrific stories they hear on the news or from a friend without stopping to think about the odds the same thing could happen to their children…
So, what’s a worried parent to do? Barnes has a simple prescription: helmets and seatbelts. Yup, that’s right, helmetsand seatbelts. "I know it sounds boring," she says, but according to her research, making kids wear protective gear and buckle up in the car cuts kids' chances of death by 90 percent and their chances of serious injury by 78 percent.
You should read the article to see the top five worries parents have, the top five actual hazards to children and the discrepancy between them.
For the record I encouraged my children to eat things they dropped on the floor even if it took longer than five seconds to pick it up, to draw outside the lines and that making your bed is overrated. I also encouraged them to watch PG-13 movies when they were 12 1/2. On the other hand I've told my 16 year old daughter that all boys carry fatal diseases and that there's literally not a good one to be found on the face of the Earth.
That's my definition of responsible parenting, what's yours?
Befuddled 