Bonni's shared items in Google Reader

The Trouble with Tribbles by Edward Gorey

2007-08-31T21:04:07Z

Haven’t you ever wondered what it would have been like if Edward Gorey had illustrated The Trouble with Tribbles from the original Star Trek series? Wonder no longer! (via MetaFilter)

In Which Case He Should Be Euthanized

2007-08-31T09:00:00Z

Rushing dad dragging kid along: Well, most super guys are good guys.
Four-year-old son: No, some super guys are bad.
Rushing dad: What would make a super guy a bad super guy?
Four-year-old son: Well, he might suck. Like, if he couldn't walk fast...

--Penn Station

Overheard by: klutch

Alsome | Thumbs up | Thumbs down |
Link · Email · Quote this! · Del.icio.us · Posted 2007-08-31

Shopping Teams

2007-08-29T04:00:00Z

Just Trying to Keep the Predators Away, Sweetie

2007-08-31T11:00:00Z

Whispering mom: Don't play with your skirt like that. You know what you forgot this morning.
Three-year-old, loudly: Panties!

Dunkin' Donuts
Virginia

Overheard by: callumny

Alsome | Thumbs up | Thumbs down |
Link · Email · Quote this! · Del.icio.us · Posted 2007-08-31

Kids are more innocent than you think. Fortunately!

2007-08-29T08:29:52Z

A while back at my partner's eldest's sleep over party.
10yo boy to another boy
"[insert name]'s sister doesn't swallow."
"Ever? How can she eat then?"
"I don't know..."

Conspiracy Theories

2007-08-14T12:17:46Z

Fascinating New Scientist article (for subscribers only, but there's a copy here) on conspiracy theories, and why we believe them:

So what kind of thought processes contribute to belief in conspiracy theories? A study I carried out in 2002 explored a way of thinking sometimes called “major event - major cause” reasoning. Essentially, people often assume that an event with substantial, significant or wide-ranging consequences is likely to have been caused by something substantial, significant or wide-ranging.
I gave volunteers variations of a newspaper story describing an assassination attempt on a fictitious president. Those who were given the version where the president died were significantly more likely to attribute the event to a conspiracy than those who read the one where the president survived, even though all other aspects of the story were equivalent.

To appreciate why this form of reasoning is seductive, consider the alternative: major events having minor or mundane causes -- for example, the assassination of a president by a single, possibly mentally unstable, gunman, or the death of a princess because of a drunk driver. This presents us with a rather chaotic and unpredictable relationship between cause and effect. Instability makes most of us uncomfortable; we prefer to imagine we live in a predictable, safe world, so in a strange way, some conspiracy theories offer us accounts of events that allow us to retain a sense of safety and predictability.

Other research has examined how the way we search for and evaluate evidence affects our belief systems. Numerous studies have shown that in general, people give greater attention to information that fits with their existing beliefs, a tendency called “confirmation bias”. Reasoning about conspiracy theories follows this pattern, as shown by research I carried out with Marco Cinnirella at the Royal Holloway University of London, which we presented at the British Psychological Society conference in 2005.

The study, which again involved giving volunteers fictional accounts of an assassination attempt, showed that conspiracy believers found new information to be more plausible if it was consistent with their beliefs. Moreover, believers considered that ambiguous or neutral information fitted better with the conspiracy explanation, while non-believers felt it fitted better with the non-conspiracy account. The same piece of evidence can be used by different people to support very different accounts of events.

This fits with the observation that conspiracy theories often mutate over time in light of new or contradicting evidence. So, for instance, if some new information appears to undermine a conspiracy theory, either the plot is changed to make it consistent with the new information, or the theorists question the legitimacy of the new information. Theorists often argue that those who present such information are themselves embroiled in the conspiracy. In fact, because of my research, I have been accused of being secretly in the pay of various western intelligence services (I promise, I haven’t seen a penny).

Lots of good stuff in the article, including instructions on how to create your own conspiracy theory.

When smart doesn't pay

2007-08-15T23:38:00Z

If being smart is so good, why are there so many dumb bosses? And how come brilliant people are always borrowing money off me, or seem to be going nowhere and stuck in dead-end jobs?

Maybe it's because being smart doesn't actually pay. That's the suggestion in a study, reported here, which found that brains can be stop you getting rich. The study found that there wasn't much of a link between income and intelligence. Smart people also missed payments and maxed out their credit cards more often.

The researcher, Jay Zagorsky of Ohio State University, offers a whole lot of reasons why this seems to be the case. Maybe smarter people are busier so they pay less attention to routine things like paying bills. Maybe being smart gives them the opportunity to lead the kind of lifestyles that takes them close to the edge where they feel they can get away with spending more and saving less.

I would add that smarter people are also more likely to see things that others don't. Which means they are more likely to ask hard, uncomfortable questions and stir the pot, not necessarily a great career move.

And it's not the intelligence that's important, it's how you manage it. And that means the study's findings would not necessarily apply to everyone.

Still, these findings might give bosses the licence to act an absolute doofus all day. Zagorsky says the study is good news for the less IQ-endowed because it means it means low intelligence will not necessarily stop them making money. It also explains an Australian study, reported here, which found that bad bosses not only survive, they prosper and get promoted.

What's your take on the study? Have you found brains to be a hindrance? Do you work with excessively smart people and what are they like? Do you work for a dumb boss?

eBay Shares Take A Hit!

2007-08-16T20:19:00Z

The Market recovered some today, though it still finished in red territory but eBay ended up losing over 2.5%; closing at $33.64 -- down nearly $4 from the 52 week high it set just last week. It looks like the Skype blackout is the main culprit for drop in share price. This reminds me of the eBay Blackout in 2002 and the huge PayPal outage in 2004. It's the eBay outage Trifecta. Now they will have to revise their slogan the Power of Three!

Good thing Meg and Rajiv Duta sold their shares last week; the timing saved Meg $1.6 million and Rajiv $388 thousand.

Huh??? What is eBay Doing Now?

2007-08-15T23:24:00Z

Okay, call me completely confused!

eBay has spent the whole Spring and most of the Summer bringing down the hammer on the bottom 2% of sellers; hoping to clean up the site as well as reduce the low priced crap. I understood the idea behind that move, even if i didn't agree with how they went about it. Now they announce a new marketing effort to get new sellers. Does this make any sense?

"Here's how it works:
From today, August 15th through September 15th, we'll give you $5 for every friend you refer to sell on eBay (up to a total of 10 friends) via our Refer a Friend site. Note that your friend (or better still, friends) should never have sold on eBay before and should list an item during the dates mentioned. We'll credit your referral reward to your eBay Seller Account 6 weeks after the promotional period."

So you can earn $50 in credits if you refer 10 people to open a seller account and list at least one item. Such a deal!!

Why are they trying to get new sellers, especially newbies who are clueless about selling on eBay, when they are trying to clean-up the site. eBay is supposed to be getting new buyers and improve the buyer experience how does this effort accomplish that? I could understand referring 10 friends to buy on the site as a promotion but eBay doesn't need more sellers. The sellers who are here already can barely make ends meet.

eBay has told us over and over again that there is too much low priced crap on the site. What do you think these new sellers are going to be selling? My guess is a lot of low priced crap. Do they even think these promotions through? Besides, a large number of sellers are trying their hardest to get off of eBay, what makes eBay think they would refer anyone? This is a promotion doomed to fail.

What can eBay be thinking? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Compiling

2007-08-15T04:00:00Z

Jef Raskin

2007-12-16T00:00:00Z

"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining."

Relishing Life...and Death

2007-08-06T00:01:00Z

Here it is, you asked for it! A pickle (a sweet gherkin) and an olive. Hope you like!

[image: Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket]

2007-08-05T20:56:05Z

Creation and Destruction of Sand Mandalas

2007-08-02T22:57:00Z

"QUANTUM SHOT" #240

Art Reflecting the Sanctity & Transience of Life

Sand Mandalas are the sacred ancient tradition of highly detailed art, practiced by Buddhist monks in Tibet. With a rare dedication and utmost care they spend days constructing an intricate masterpiece out of many-colored grains of sand - then they sanctify it and (quite philosophically) demolish in a similarly prayerful & dedicated fashion. Read a Wiki article to learn more.

Medicine Buddha Mandala, built by the Namgyal Monastery monks in Moscow in May 2002

(image credit: centre.smr.ru)

It all starts with the void... the empty canvas:

Then the "master plan" is etched on the blue surface:

Traditionally, finely ground colored stones were used, not dyed sand.

Extreme care is needed, and lots of time - weeks ot it, even if the mandala is created by a team of monks! Mandala construction is often seen as a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional environment - somehow altering the "world-lines" of our real world, enhancing the harmony and definitions within.

(image credit: Oleg Bartunov)

Some mandalas (such as Mandala Kalachakra the "Wheel of Time")show as many as 700 various deities inside their intricate pattern.

Cups of various mandala offerings:

Close to finishing:

(images courtesy: Ackland Art Museum and Sergey Maximishin)

There is also a site which shows the 30-day creation of a five-and-a-half foot Medicine Buddha sand mandala in Ackland's Yager of Asian Art (by the Ven. Tenzin Thutop and the Ven. Tenzin Deshek - two Buddhist monks from the Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca, New York). The Mandala was created from February 26, 2001 through March 21, 2001 as part of the exhibition Buddhist Art and Ritual from Nepal and Tibet. (This exhibition and its related programs have ended now)

Another mandala creation (day-by-day process) can be observed here

The Kalachakra Sand Mandala:

(image credit: Wikipedia)

Mandala dedicated to the world peace and cooperation between countries (Mandala Kalachakra)

(image credit: Oleg Bartunov)

(Almost) Natural Ritual of Destruction

After sanctification of Mandala, the monks proceed to demolish it. The de-construction at times seem highly structured (every deity is demolished in certain order) and sometimes chaotic (if mandala is placed in high-traffic areas, people who pass by and bystanders are encouraged to step on random parts, introducing an element of chance). Plus exposure to the elements adds to its decay.

(image credit: Sergey Maximishin)

Finally all the sand is deposited in a body of water. "This process symbolizes the transience of life and the ideal of non-attachment to the material world".

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The Mythology/Biology of Fairy Rings [The Voltage Gate]

2007-08-03T15:40:57Z

Fairy rings are regarded in legends across Europe and North America. In Wales and much of Britain, people thought the rings were leftover from the merriment of fairies. In Ireland they are associated with leprechauns. In Germany, witches gathered around the rings at night. In Scandinavian tales (from which, by the way, Tolkien borrowed heavily), elves danced among the mushrooms in meetings called älvdanser.

In reality, fairy rings are the result of the natural tendency of mycelium (the underground "spreading" portion of the organism) to spread out in a ring shape.

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Book Illustrations

2007-07-29T19:41:00Z

Lately, the archive has at times felt very slow to me. I built the database in the winter and now I am filling and cleaning it and Thursday I masochistically decided that the 25th of February should no longer come before the 3rd of February in my chronological sort. This decision inevitably made the database better but meant that I had to manually go through over 2,000 records. Let’s forget about headache Thursday and go back to Tuesday and also forward to Saturday (I have heard that time might not be as linear as we think). These days I finally did some work with the media database. The task was nothing special, I was entering images and their information into the database, it was what I was working with that made it so interesting. I spent a total of 6 or so hours on Tuesday clicking the same buttons and hitting the same keys and yet my interest was held the whole time.
This is only one testament to how lovely the illustrations were. I was working with book illustrations from the early 1900’s that were some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Steve and ASIFA-Hollywood have kindly let me post some of them on my blog so that I could better describe to you how I felt about them. It was incredibly difficult to choose but I limited myself to only a few. . . which really means I will have to post more up at a later date.
I will start with these. These are 1912 illustrations from Bland tomtar och troll 6 (Among Elves and Trolls) by John Bauer. Bauer was a Swedish artist known for his fairytale illustrations. This following one struck me first because of its composition. Bauer allows the sky to fill a majority of this picture with just two small elements, a bush and a man on a horse, at the bottom to balance it. This allows the sky to have full the grandeur that the gorgeous colors give it. The colors. While I don’t want to make a blanket statement about any of the illustrations I am going to show you, I have to admit that it always comes back to the colors for me in these. I am horrible at coloring, even with crayons on a placemat my sister always exceeded me and went places I could not easily follow. I think this is why I am so fascinated by these artists' use of colors that, at times, can be so subtle and yet so striking at the same time. Lastly in this illustration I notice the regal horse with his distressed rider. The juxtaposition of the nature of the horse and the human accentuates the rider’s pain just as the beauty of night sky also serves to enhance it. Sorry if I talked too much about it, but look for yourself:

This next one is also a Bauer illustration and I really wanted to show it to you to point out how brown the whole background is while still being so interesting. I think Steve gets a lot a crap from certain people about the fact that the archive spends its time on book illustrations, comics, static art instead of just focusing on animation. I think animators could learn a lot from this art. I have found in certain recent animation that people love their backgrounds to be colorful and eye-catching. I don’t think that should be a focus, the animation should be the focus. But this doesn’t mean that the backgrounds should be lackluster. Animators only need to look at this illustration to know that. I also want to show you this illustration to point out that while it is obvious that the troll is far from “pretty” there is an undeniable appeal to it. Sadly, I don’t think the people at Dreamworks saw this illustration before they made Shrek. Well, that movie’s loss.

Okay I could show you more Bauer illustrations but I will restrain myself and show you now two illustrations by Charles Robinson from Our Sentimental Garden and then The Secret Garden. These are kind of Art Deco and are obviously from around the time when advertising art hit its stride. Notice the vibrant colors as well as the contrasting shadow.

There are less colors in this one, obviously, but just as gorgeous.

Okay, I love that those of you who have reached this part have actually read this whole post, because this is getting long. I think I will stop now and continue with more illustrations another day because I want to be able to talk about them without losing my audience.
Wait! No, I will show you one more that I don’t think I needs too much of an explanation of how great it is. It is a Peter Pan illustration by Mabel Lucie Attwell and maybe I just love it because it is so sweet. I don’t think I need to justify why I like this one.

Thank you!

It's a Good Thing You Have a Trust Fund

2007-07-30T07:00:00Z

Girlfriend: Why are you banging your head on the pole?
Boyfriend: I'm making my head stronger.
Girlfriend: You don't make it stronger that way, you just hurt yourself.
Boyfriend: It does both.

--Crowded E train

Overheard by: Laurie

Alsome | Thumbs up | Thumbs down |
Link · Email · Quote this! · Del.icio.us · Posted 2007-07-30

Stress and weight gain

2007-07-30T07:18:00Z

There is, apparently, truth to the idea that people under stress may gain weight – and it's not just that people simply choose to escape their problems by eating. And this is only one of the reasons stress isn't good for your general health.

Scientists Discover Key To Manipulating Fat; Pathway Also Explains Stress-induced Weight Gain

In the paper, the Georgetown researchers describe a mechanism they found by which stress activates weight gain in mice, and they say this pathway -- which they were able to manipulate -- may explain why people who are chronically stressed gain more weight than they should based on the calories they consume.

The key to the process that was found is a peptide (small protein) neurotransmitter called neuropeptide Y (NPY). NPY is produced under conditions of stress, as a by-product of the "fight-or-flight" response mediated by the sympathetic nervous system. An animal under conditions of chronic stress will have higher levels of NPY. The hormone was discovered 25 years ago, and earlier research indicates that it acts in the brain to increase appetite. (Although other aspects of the response may suppress appetite, which is why some overly stressed people may be emaciated.) The appetite-suppressing hormone leptin acts by inhibiting the activity of neurons that contain NPY.

What the new research found, however, is that, more importantly, NPY, acting outside the brain in adipose tissue, also alters an animal's metabolism to increase storage of fat:

As part of the study, Zukowska and her team examined the effect of several forms of chronic stress that mice in the wilderness can encounter, such as exposure for an hour a day over a two-week period to standing in a puddle of cold water or to an aggressive alpha mouse, and they conducted the experiments in combination with a regular diet or with a high-fat, high-sugar diet. Stressed animals fed a normal diet did not gain weight, but stressed mice given a high-fat diet did. In fact, the researchers found these mice put on more weight than expected given the calories they were consuming.

"They gained twice as much fat as would be expected, and it was all in their belly area," Kuo said. Stressed versus non-stressed animals ate the same amount of food, but the stressed animals processed it differently, she said, explaining, "the novel finding here is that NPY works on fat tissue, not in the brain."

In part, the research showed that NPY experimentally delivered in a mouse activated a G-protein coupled receptor called (naturally) a neuropeptide Y2 receptor (Y2R). (This is just one of 5 known NPY receptors.) Activation of Y2R was observed to promote storage of fat in adipose tissue:

[The] pathway involves two players -- a neurotransmitter (neuropeptide Y, or NPY) and the receptor (neuropeptide Y2 receptor, or Y2R) it activates in two types of cells in the fat tissue: endothelial cells lining blood vessels and fat cells themselves. In order to add fat selectively to the mice they tested, researchers injected NPY into a specific area. The researchers found that both NPY and Y2R are activated during stress, leading to apple-shape obesity and metabolic syndrome.

So NPY can lead to increased fat storage. But the converse is, happily, also true: blocking the NPY receptor shrinks fat:

Both the weight gain and metabolic syndrome, however, were prevented by administration of Y2R blocker into the abdominal fat.

Metabolic syndrome, you recall, comprises several undesirable elements, such as hyperglycemia, high blood pressure, central obesity, decreased HDL cholesterol, and elevated triglycerides. All of these can lead to more serious health problems, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. So there is the possibility that blocking Y2R could be beneficial to humans:

"We are hopeful that these findings might eventually lead to control of metabolic syndrome, which is a huge health issue for many Americans," [the study's senior author, Zofia Zukowska] said. "Decreasing fat in the abdomen of the mice we studied reduced the fat in their liver and skeletal muscles, and also helped to control insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, blood pressure and inflammation. Blocking Y2R might work the same way in humans, but much study will be needed to prove that."

Another account of this research reports expressions of optimism for development of human drugs to control stress-induced health problems:

Stress can be fattening, study finds

Mary F. Dallman of UC San Francisco said in an editorial in the same journal: "A large gap in our understanding of how chronic stressors lead to abdominal obesity has been filled…. Their results were remarkable and have profound implications for new drug development."

But it's not a sure thing. There is another hormone, called PYY, Pancreatic Peptide YY, or Pancreatic Peptide YY_3-36. PYY is structurally similar to NPY and in fact can activate some NPY receptors. It has been found to decrease appetite when it activates NPY receptors in the brain. At least two biotech companies (Amylin and Nastech) have investigated using PYY directly as a drug to induce weight loss. So far this effort has had only mixed results.

Here's another report on the research discussed above: How we can stop stress from making us obese. And here's a blog post that raises some good questions about this research: Scientists Stressed About Weight Loss.

Apart from the effects of NPY, chronic stress can cause a variety of health problems besides weight gain, obesity, and their knock-on effects. Robert Sapolsky of Stanford has done copious research into the ill effects of chronic stress. He points out that the fight-or-flight response of animals in the wild, which is activated during periods of acute danger (predators), and is adaptive in those circumstances, can turn harmful when stress is chronic, as happens frequently with primates such as humans:

Why Do Humans And Primates Get More Stress-related Diseases Than Other Animals?

Why do humans and their primate cousins get more stress-related diseases than any other member of the animal kingdom? The answer, says Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, is that people, apes and monkeys are highly intelligent, social creatures with far too much spare time on their hands.

"Primates are super smart and organized just enough to devote their free time to being miserable to each other and stressing each other out," he said. "But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick."

Tags: stress, obesity, weight gain, neuropeptide Y

Feigned Affection

2007-07-27T07:10:01Z

by Mick Stevens

Faux exotic typefaces

2006-11-17T04:12:19Z

Not that long ago I wrote about the preservation of typeface features across different scripts. Here's an observation of a different cross-script typeface phenomenon. You are undoubtedly familiar with typefaces that provide Roman characters in a style that is evocative of other, non-Roman scripts. For example, on a Chinese food container, you might see a typeface like this one:

There are typefaces that evoke Hebrew characters, like this one from the cover of an album of Klezmer music:

Other typefaces are designed to resemble Arabic script, and even Devanagari, the script in which Hindi is written.

I actually hate these faux exotic typefaces. They strike me as too cutesy, an ersatz fetishization that bastardizes the true beauty and diversity of the world's writing systems.

But I noticed a very interesting use of these faux exotic typefaces on the posters for the recent Hindi film Umrao Jaan. The film takes place amidst the Muslim elite of mid-19th century Lucknow, a golden age of Urdu culture and literature. Urdu is written in an adapted version of the Persian script, which is itself an adaptation of the Arabic script. So it is no surprise that on posters that display the film's name in Roman script, an Arabic-styled Roman typeface is used:

Indeed, during the film's title sequence (and on its official website), these words are animated to appear letter-by-letter on the screen from right to left, as if they are being written by an Urdu scribe.

What is particularly cool, though, is that posters that display the film's name in Devanagari also use an Arabic-styled typeface, this time an Arabic-styled Devanagari typeface!

Compare this to the film's name written in plain, unstylized Devanagari: उमराव जान. In the poster's Urdu-ized version, the upper line that joins the letters (called the "rekha," line) has been removed. That line is a very strong distinguishing feature of Devanagari (and its siblings) - indeed, the rekha is what gives the "namaskar" sample above its distinctly Indic feel. Yet in the poster, it has been removed, and the immediate effect is Devanagari that looks a lot less like Devanagari. The addition of the curving extensions of the lower strokes on some of the letterforms, as well as the meaningless dots beneath some of the letters, completes the Urdu-ization of the typeface.

(Although Devanagari has a rekha-less sister script, Gujarati, given the centrality of Urdu to the setting of Umrao Jaan, it is clear that the intent of the poster is clearly Urdu-ization rather than Gujju-ization. Just for fun, though, here's "Umrao Jaan" in Gujarati: ઉમરાવ જાન)

Even though I dislike these pseudo-exotic typefaces, it is fascinating to see the exoticization process play out between two scripts, neither of which is Roman.