Via Hotels.com. Infographics to put you in the mood. Permalink | Leave a comment »
Selected by smange
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Most Topular Stories
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Romance survey [infographic]
Holy Kaw!9 Feb 2012 | 12:02 pm -
Stash Bag for iPad from STM (Video Review)
Insanely Great Mac9 Feb 2012 | 6:48 amThe Stash is a satchel style bag for iPads and other devices up to 10 inches. The bag features numerous zipper pockets for accessories and items to take with you for the day. It has a high density foam compartment to protector your device and also is lined with a micro fiber material. The bag has two hand straps that tuck away if not needed and also a detachable shoulder strap. The Stash is available in black and red has a retail price of about $55. -
The Weird interview
Seth's Blog9 Feb 2012 | 12:06 pmTo celebrate the launch of Squidoo's new UpMarket magazine, we got permission to post an audio interview I recently did with Darren Hardy of Success. You can find it here. Thanks for listening. -
Hacker News vs. Google+
Scobleizer5 Feb 2012 | 10:20 amI might as well have titled this “Hacker News vs Marketers.” Or “Hacker News vs Bloggers.” Or “jerks vs nice people.” But I never participate in Hacker News for a few reasons and I just was faced with these reasons again when I read the responses there to my blog post yesterday. 1. Programmers often have an attitude of “I can code, you can’t, so I am defacto better than you.” This often comes out in Hacker News comments. 2. Programmers love to bash people anonymously and then, in real life, they will come begging for PR for their companies… -
Throw Away the Maps
chrisbrogan.com6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The…
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Holy Kaw!
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Romance survey [infographic]
9 Feb 2012 | 12:02 pmVia Hotels.com. Infographics to put you in the mood. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Do aliens go invisible by 'going green'?
9 Feb 2012 | 11:24 amAs we discover more and more planets around other stars, the Fermi Paradox is becoming, well, more paradoxical. The Fermi Paradox simply asks the question "where are they?" Our Milky Way galaxy is so big and so old -- and we are estimated to be accompanied by at least 100 billion planets -- that aliens should have visited us by now. Instead, when we peruse the heavens, we are faced with the Great Silence, which is one of the biggest challenges to modern astronomy. Full story at Discovery News. More news from Discovery Communications. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink | Leave a… -
Mysterious sounds reported around the world
9 Feb 2012 | 11:23 amPeople around the world have reported hearing strange sounds from the skies over the past month. Sometimes they describe it as a hum or low rumble; other times it’s a whine, thump, or even a melody. Often the sounds have been recorded and posted online, fueling rumors and conspiracy theories. One blogger wrote, "either the world is ending, aliens are landing or everyone is getting hoaxed. Or, possibly, there’s an actual scientific explanation for the mass amount of YouTube videos capturing bizarre sounds that are being heard around the globe. Are we witnessing the beginning of a… -
Costa Concordia: an ecological time bomb
9 Feb 2012 | 11:21 amAs workers begin to extract the half-million gallons of fuel in the shipwrecked cruise liner, locals are worried that their pristine waters are in danger. Reporting by Rossella Lorenzi. Written and produced by Rossella Lorenzi and Martin Berman. Full story at Discovery News. More news from Discovery Communications. Permalink | Leave a comment » -
Inside Syria's capitol: nervously normal
9 Feb 2012 | 11:18 amAs the violence in Syria continues to escalate, Syrian citizens are arming themselves to resist their oppressive regime. For days, Homs, the third-largest city in Syria, has endured shelling, tanks and attacks by heavy weaponry. Syrian protestors react with more violence against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, resulting in all-out war zones in some residential neighborhoods. Full story at Discovery News. More news from Discovery Communications. Permalink | Leave a comment »
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Insanely Great Mac
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Stash Bag for iPad from STM (Video Review)
9 Feb 2012 | 6:48 amThe Stash is a satchel style bag for iPads and other devices up to 10 inches. The bag features numerous zipper pockets for accessories and items to take with you for the day. It has a high density foam compartment to protector your device and also is lined with a micro fiber material. The bag has two hand straps that tuck away if not needed and also a detachable shoulder strap. The Stash is available in black and red has a retail price of about $55. -
Tweetbot 2.0 hits iPhone, new iPad version
9 Feb 2012 | 6:33 amOut of the gate, Tweetbot was one of the better alternatives to the official Twitter app on the iPhone. Version 2.0 adds some new features and changes some little annoyances. Gone is the need to double tap links to open. Also there users can open image thumbnails right in the timeline. Additionally Readability has been added for text-heavy pages loaded into the built-in browser. Version 2.0 is a free update to existing users and otherwise $2.99. Tapbots also released an iPad version of the Twitter client. The app is not a universal app and has some different features as a 1.0 version. Users… -
Speck CandyShell Satin case for iPhone 4/4S (Video Review)
8 Feb 2012 | 8:35 amThe CandyShell has seen several iterations of the popular iPhone case. The original has a dual material rubber interior and hard plastic exterior shell. This version substitutes out the glossy plastic shell for a matte finish. The result is a different look, but also offers more scratch resistant appearance. The case overall feels like it may be a bit lighter too. Also new since we last saw the CandyShell is the updated extra large camera cutout. The CandyShell Satin is available for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S in Black/Gray, White/Red, and Purple/Blue. It has a list price of $34.95. -
HoverBar from Twelve South attaches iPad to Macs
7 Feb 2012 | 8:46 amThose looking to integrate an iPad into their workstation may find the HoverBar interesting. The iPad stand is designed to attach the tablet device to a iMac, Apple display, or seems like pretty much any edge up to 1-inch thick. This includes counters, desks, and cabinets. Described as the "ultimate sidecar," the HoverBar attaches with a secure clip. Twelve South says the clip is a secure mount and won't blemish the surface of your Mac. The flexible arm allows the iPad to be positioned as desired. By attaching to an iMac or display directly, the iPad is basically pointing the same direction… -
Canon announces PIXMA printers with AirPrint support
7 Feb 2012 | 8:35 amAirPrint allows iOS devices to wirelessly print to supported printers. Originally HP had the only compatible devices on the market, but slowly other manufacturers are coming on line. Today Canon announced the PIXMA line of wireless printers. The line consists of the PIXMA MG8220, MG6220, and MG5320. Suggested retail pricing on the three models are about $300, $200, and $150. Each are all-in-one photo printers and with up to 9600x2400 dpi to print up to 8.5x11 pages. AirPrint is compatible with Apple devices running iOS 4.2 or later.
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Seth's Blog
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The Weird interview
9 Feb 2012 | 12:06 pmTo celebrate the launch of Squidoo's new UpMarket magazine, we got permission to post an audio interview I recently did with Darren Hardy of Success. You can find it here. Thanks for listening. -
Inaccurate labels and why we need them (and need to improve them)
9 Feb 2012 | 2:46 amIf I tell you, "I'm going to the baseball game," it seems as though you're likely to understand what I mean. Of course, you won't. When George Will goes to a baseball game, it's a religious experience. Me, I don't even like baseball. Or maybe it's my nephew's ball game (the playoffs), or maybe going to the game causes me to miss an important event, and on and on. We label the experience with just two words, and two words can't possibly capture the emotions and circumstance surrounding an event. The same thing is true with brands. If I tell you that a new business was funded by USV, that might… -
How do they know you're not a flake?
8 Feb 2012 | 2:43 amBefore your link gets clicked or your proposal gets read, a busy person is going to triage it to find out if it's even worth glancing at. Since everyone is now connected, the new permeability has created a deluge of noise, and just about everyone worth contacting is taking defensive measures. Do I know this person? Did someone I trust send them over? Where does she work? (Ideo? the FDA? The New York Times?) Has she won an award? Is she famous? Are there typos and is the design sloppy? Are they pestering me? Do I already follow this person online? Does music play when I visit the website? Will… -
Horizontal marketing isn't a new idea
7 Feb 2012 | 2:09 amBut it is the new reality for just about every organization. Vertical marketing means the marketer (the one with money) is in charge. Vertical marketing starts at the top and involves running ads, sending out direct mail and pushing hype through the media. Your money, your plans, your control. It might not work, but generally the worst outcome is that you will be ignored and need to spend more money. Horizonal marketing, on the other hand, means creating a remarkable product and story and setting it up to spread from person to person. It's out of your control, because all the interactions are… -
Who is your customer?
6 Feb 2012 | 2:26 amRule one: You can build a business on the foundation of great customer service. Rule two: The only way to do great customer service is to treat different customers differently. The question: Who is your customer? It's not obvious. Zappos is a classic customer service company, and their customer is the person who buys the shoes. Nike, on the other hand, doesn't care very much at all about the people who buy the shoes, or even the retailers. They care about the athletes (often famous) that wear the shoes, sometimes for money. They name buildings after these athletes, court them, erect…
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Scobleizer
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Hacker News vs. Google+
5 Feb 2012 | 10:20 amI might as well have titled this “Hacker News vs Marketers.” Or “Hacker News vs Bloggers.” Or “jerks vs nice people.” But I never participate in Hacker News for a few reasons and I just was faced with these reasons again when I read the responses there to my blog post yesterday. 1. Programmers often have an attitude of “I can code, you can’t, so I am defacto better than you.” This often comes out in Hacker News comments. 2. Programmers love to bash people anonymously and then, in real life, they will come begging for PR for their companies… -
It’s too late for Dave Winer and John Battelle to save the common web
4 Feb 2012 | 5:02 pmThe date was January 3, 2008. Facebook had kicked me off for running a script to try to save the common web. See, I worked with Plaxo to run a simple script. One that would have taken my contacts out of Facebook and put them back into the common web. The script did some very simple things: 1. It grabbed all my friends names. 2. It grabbed all their phone numbers. 3. It grabbed all their email addresses. 4. It gave me a simple CSV file with all that data so I could bring them back to Google, or Microsoft, or anywhere else I wanted to put them. Facebook’s answer was predictable. They shut… -
HTML 5 pushback in San Francisco? Best mobile app designers say yes
1 Feb 2012 | 3:39 pmThe new Path? The one that won a Crunchie last night for great design? It’s not done in HTML 5. This morning I saw something new coming soon from Storify. Not done in HTML 5. This morning I visited Foodspotting, which just shipped hot new apps on iOS, Android, and Blackberry. Not done in HTML 5. More and more I’m hearing that designers and developers are ignoring HTML 5, especially for the high end of apps. Why? Well, Path’s founders told me it just isn’t possible to build a great user interface, the way they did it in HTML 5. Storify’s founder told me it… -
Why Facebook will be worth a half trillion by 2015: the mobile and open graph revenue it’s leaving on the table
1 Feb 2012 | 2:48 pmLots of people think Facebook is overvalued, at about $100 billion (it just released their S1, announcing its IPO). But in talking with developers, like I did with Foodspotting’s founder, Alexa Andrzejewski, and in reading the S1 I see that Facebook has left most of the potential revenue on the table. That makes me think that the folks crying “overvalued” are nuts. Check that interview out, Foodspotting is one of the hottest San Francisco startups, aimed at people who are looking for better places to eat. Here it is from just this morning: See, Mark Zuckerberg is sandbagging… -
2012 brings a pause in the disruption
31 Jan 2012 | 4:58 pmOK, I’ve been talking with hundreds of geeks from around the world this year at three conferences, CES, DLD, and World Economic Forum. I’m seeing a trend that is worth talking about. What is it? We’re seeing the end of one of the most disruptive ages in human history. I believe that we’re seeing a pause in the disruption. More on that a little later. Just think about all the changes humans have been asked to adopt in the past eight years. Most of us, back then, didn’t carry mobile computers in our pockets. If we did use tablets, like I did, they were expensive,…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Throw Away the Maps
6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The… -
The Next Social Networks
5 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amThe rage in social networks right now is Pinterest, partly because it’s probably the first social network that has a much higher adoption rate by females than males, and partly because it’s an interesting concept: somewhere between visual social bookmarking and scrapbooking. What also might not be immediately obvious is that it’s just “easier” to interact there. In that way, Pinterest has something in common with Instagram, which is community around photos. What I’m interested in, though, is Gentlemint, which I keep calling “Pinterest for… -
Learn From Adele – Build Your Platform
3 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amJacq and I just watched Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall (amazon affiliate link), and though every song was just wonderfully done, I found myself fascinated by what Adele was doing in between each song. Because even though most people would be interested in hearing her belt out her amazing repertoire of hits, what I took away from the performance was Adele’s real magical ability: the ability to resonate with her audience. What Adele Could Teach You About Impact I’m writing something about this right now for my upcoming book with Julien Smith, but I had to share some of the… -
Rob Gokee is a Musical Wizard
2 Feb 2012 | 8:05 amI had such a great experience working with award winning musical composer Rob Gokee. We did some musical work together, and the process was so amazing. Rob helped me create my theme song for Shhh! The Secret Show. So anyhow, he and I sat down to do an interview, and it’s a bit long, but it’s totally worth it. We talk about what collaboration feels like at a distance, what it takes to get music like this made for your own show, and a lot more. Rob’s a hero to me, and has been part of the community for a while. I was so fortunate to have worked with him. Can’t see the… -
Build Your Platform – Start
30 Jan 2012 | 1:30 amThe following is part ONE of a series called Build Your Platform. If you find it interesting, please consider subscribing for free to get the rest of the series. This post is long. You might want to bookmark it for later. The age of social media oversaturation is upon us. People are declaring Twitter bankruptcy to go along with their email bankruptcy. They cite not wanting to start on yet another social network as their reason for not getting more involved with Google+. And just as soon as you start getting into Pinterest, you hear about Path, but wait: there’s Gentlemint, which is…
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PsyBlog
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Multiple-Choice Tests: Why Sticking With Your First Answer is (Probably) Wrong
7 Feb 2012 | 6:34 amWhat's the best strategy for taking a multiple-choice test? The standard advice for multiple-choice tests is: if in doubt, stick with your first answer. College students believe it: about 75% agree that changing your first choice will lower your score overall (Kruger et al., 2005). Instructors believe it as well: in one study 55% believed it would lower students' scores while only 16% believed it would improve them. And yet this is wrong. One survey of 33 different studies conducted over 70 years found that, on average, people who change their answers do better than those who don't (Benjamin… -
Duck/Rabbit Illusion Provides a Simple Test of Creativity
31 Jan 2012 | 10:06 amAre you creative? Try this simple test... The well-known known illusion above can be seen in two ways: as both a duck and a rabbit. Which do you see first? And if you see one, can you also see the other? Most people see the duck first and can flip between the two representations, but the question is: how easy is it for you to flip between them? Does it require real mental strain, or can you do it at will? Wiseman et al. (2011) had a hunch that the ability to flip between representations is related to creativity. To test this participants were given a simple test of creativity which involves… -
Powerful People Feel Taller Than They Really Are
24 Jan 2012 | 9:05 amExperiment demonstrates how a powerful feeling feeds back into self-perception of height. Language can reveal all kinds of truths about our psychology. Take these expressions: He's the big man on this project. We look up to her. Lady Gaga is huge. He puts her on a pedestal. It's not hard to see the strong association here between size and power that's embedded in the way we talk about the relations between people. The reason why is almost too obvious to bother stating: larger people quite often do have more power. As children our parents, teachers and all our authority figures are taller than… -
Why Stories Sell: Transportation Leads to Persuasion
18 Jan 2012 | 10:10 amPsychological research on persuasion suggests that stories which transport people are more likely to be persuasive. Marketers have known for years that stories are a powerful tool for persuading people. That's partly because stories (unlike statistics) are easy to understand. That's why politicians try to persuade us by telling stories about their vision of the world. They do spout statistics as well, but normally only in support of some kind of grand narrative. We instinctively understand that people resist being told what to do, but will respond to the moral of a story. So we try to… -
The Amazing Power of Regret to Shape Our Future
12 Jan 2012 | 8:41 amWhy people are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets, but will happily exchange pens. Regret might not make a list of the most powerful emotions. It would probably include things like anger, happiness, jealousy, sadness and especially for us English, embarrassment. We tend to think of regret as essentially a backward-looking emotion. We regret things in the past, like not trying hard enough in school, how we treated a friend or the things we said to our partner in the heat of an argument. In this sense you might argue that it's useless: why regret something you can't change? But regret isn't…
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media/anthropology
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An intriguing image of the 127 Twitterers I follow
6 Feb 2012 | 6:57 amThe Oxford Internet Institute MSc. student Alexander Furnas (@alexanderfurnas) has just sent me this striking image of the 127 people I currently follow on Twitter. As my knowledge of social network analysis (SNA) is very limited, I am hoping Alexander and other blog readers will be able to explain its significance through the comments section below. Also, I wouldn’t mind finding out more about the tools Alexander used to create this SNA graph. Over to you, SNA experts! -
Researching digital media and social change: A theory of practice approach
26 Jan 2012 | 3:49 amMilan presentation notes, IULM University, 26 January 2012 Introduction Many thanks to Alessandra Micalizzi for the kind invitation. First attempt for me at connecting practice theory with media and social change. The story behind both – until now separate – interests: EASA Media Anthropology Network, first media and practice theory (Bräuchler and Postill 2010), more recently media and social change – Paris meeting 2012 to be co-convened with Tenhunen and Ardevol. See both websites. Digital media and social change All digital media scholars study social change- yet surprisingly… -
Best of media/anthropology 2011
31 Dec 2011 | 4:38 amAs readers of this blog will know, I use this site as a notebook where I occasionally gather thoughts, drafts and other work in progress. I suspect I am the main beneficiary of this archival work. Nevertheless, as today is the last day of 2011, below are some of the posts that may be of wider interest: January. Activism in the age of viral reality. This is an article proposal that I wrote before the 15-M aka Indignados movement took off in Spain in May 2011. I am now about to submit a revised article that develops some of these ideas in the context of 15-M. February. Egypt’s uprising:… -
Democracy in the age of viral reality (and 5)
16 Dec 2011 | 2:05 amContinued from Democracy in the age of viral reality (4) Conclusion In his anthropological study of the free software movement, Chris Kelty (2008) concludes that this movement signals a global reconfiguration of power/knowledge relations that goes well beyond the field of software design. This shift rests on the C21 idea of knowledge as living and in flux rather than final or static, and on the technical ease with which changes to a text can now be made and shared ‘in real time’ (2008: 280). However, adds Kelty, the diffusion and ‘modulation’ of free software principles and practices… -
Democracy in the age of viral reality (4)
15 Nov 2011 | 12:05 pmContinued from Democracy in the age of viral reality (3) Distributed democracy What are the implications for the future of representative democracy of the 15-M movement – and indeed of indignados and occupy movements in other countries? For the social movements scholar Donatella della Porta (2011) the answer lies with the deliberative (or consensus) democracy experiments currently being conducted by Spain’s protesters: This conception of democracy is prefigured by the very same indignados that occupy city squares, transforming them into public spheres made up of ‘normal citizens’. It…
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Mind Hacks
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goCognitive 2.0
4 Feb 2012 | 5:30 amWe’ve reported before on the Univeristy of Idaho’s goCognitive project. It’s a enticing collection of videos and demonstrations, including many guest spots by the glitterati of cognitive neuroscience. The site has more free video content in cognitive neuroscience than before – and it is more easily accessible as well. Check it out -
Dressing psychologists as wizards in court
4 Feb 2012 | 1:53 amFrom overlawyered.com we hear that in 1995, New Mexico state senator Duncan Scott introduced a legislative ammendment providing that When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant’s competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than two feet tall. The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts. Additionally, a psychologist or psychiatrist shall be required to don a white beard that is not less than 18 inches in length, and shall punctuate crucial elements of his testimony by stabbing the air… -
A treasure hunt for the mysteries of mind and brain
21 Jan 2012 | 6:22 amI’ve published a couple of free ebooks recently: Explore your blind spot shows you how to reveal the gap we all have in our visual experience of the world, and discusses what it means about consciousness that this gap is kept hidden from us most of the time. Control Your Dreams, co-written with Cathryn Bardsley and illustrated beautifully by Harriet Cameron, tells you how to have lucid dreams, those dreams where you realise you are dreaming and can take control over reality. Both books are written as treasure hunts – travel guides, but for exploring inner space. When you start… -
The peak experiences of Abraham Maslow
19 Jan 2012 | 4:48 pmThe New Atlantis has an in-depth biographical article on psychologist Abraham Maslow – one of the founders of humanistic psychology and famous for his ‘hierarchy of needs’. Maslow is stereotypically associated with a kind of fluffy ‘love yourself’ psychology although the man himself was quite a skeptic of the mumbo jumbo that got associated with his work. The association is not so much because of Maslow’s focus on self-actualization, a goal where we use our psychological potential to its fullest, but because of his association with the ‘human… -
Gimme Shelter
16 Jan 2012 | 5:44 pmThe Rolling Stones launched their career in a social therapeutic club, designed to help troubled youth with communication skills. The club became legendary in rock ‘n roll history but its therapeutic roots have almost been forgotten. Eel Pie Island is a small patch on the River Thames famous for the underground club that earned a place in 60′s history for hosting the cream of jazz bands and rock n’ roll outfits. Less well known, is the story of how the club was created as a therapeutic environment to help troubled youth. Its place in music history has been recounted many…
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Wired: Wired Science
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Origami Robots Run Only on Air
9 Feb 2012 | 11:38 amPowered by nothing more than puffs of air, robots molded from paper and silicone rubber can bend, twist, grip and even lift more than 100 times their weight. The pneumatic prototypes aren’t as advanced as their metallic brothers, and the “soft” robots contain no electronics yet. But their creators, funded by Darpa, imagine applications where a soft-bot might be the best tool. “If you want to go through a winding tube or rubble or some other tough environment that’s difficult to reach, you need to be flexible,” said chemist Xin Chen of Boston University,… -
Black Hole Eats Asteroids, Burps Out X-Rays
8 Feb 2012 | 2:31 pmThe supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy may be constantly snacking on asteroids. A new study finds that asteroids at least 12 miles wide falling into the black hole would account for the regular bright x-ray flares seen through telescopes. Though nothing, including light, can escape a black hole, most are ringed by a disk of gas and dust. As it falls in, this material heats up to incredible temperatures, generating energy. For several years, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has spotted daily fluctuations in the emissions coming from the Milky Way’s central black… -
European Cave Spiders Produce Super-Stretchy Silk
8 Feb 2012 | 2:00 pmScientists have discovered some of the most stretchable spider silk ever, which can elongate up to 7.5 times its initial length. European cave spiders produce the silk to build egg sacs that protect their developing young. Spider silk is a remarkable material known for its strength and toughness. Most species secrete seven or eight types of silk for different purposes. Dragline silk, for instance, anchors spiders to a surface and is used as the backbone of most webs while other silks are used for web scaffolding or to wrap captured prey. Female European cave spiders (Meta menardi), which live… -
Asia and Americas on Course for Arctic Collision
8 Feb 2012 | 1:06 pmIt’ll be a geological showdown for the ages, with North America, South America, Europe and Asia colliding head-on over the North Pole to create a supercontinent called Amasia. Unfortunately, nobody we know will be around to watch the collision, which won’t happen for another 50 million years or more. But it’s still fun to imagine. “The snapshot that is the present is smack-dab in the middle of what we call the supercontinent cycles,” said geologist Ross Mitchell of Yale University, lead author of a Feb. 8 Nature prediction of supercontinental trajectories. -
The Unusual Physics of Floating Pyramids
8 Feb 2012 | 11:00 amBy Kate McAlpine, ScienceNOW Think floating pyramids are more metaphysics than physics? Think again. Results just in from an experiment that levitated open-bottomed paper pyramids on gusts of air reveal a curious phenomenon: When it comes to drifting through the air, top-heavy designs are more stable than bottom-heavy ones. The finding may lead to robots that fly not like insects or birds but like jellyfish. Physicist Jun Zhang and his colleagues at New York University wanted to better understand how flying bugs control the orientations of their bodies. Do they have to work at it, or are they…
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HowStuffWorks Daily Feed
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What’s the future of virtual sex?
9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 amThe future is bright for virtual sexuality. After all, we're human beings. Think of any great artistic or technological achievement and chances are it winds up in the bedroom. Will it end up in yours? -
5 Tips for Getting Organized at Work
9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 amWhether you're fresh off the job hunt or a seasoned employee, a little organization can go a long way. Here are five tips for keeping the piles at bay. -
5 Tiny Countries With Big Space Dreams
9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 amDo you know what that spacecraft is? It's one of the old Soviet space shuttles, and it never would have gotten built without the help of one the tiny countries on our list. Can you guess which one? -
Costumes 101 Pictures
9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 amThey're at every sci-fi convention and Halloween party -- those people who always have the most amazing original costumes. Learn the basics of building a costume and find out what it takes to do well in costume competitions. -
How Airplanes Work
9 Feb 2012 | 6:15 amToday in 1969, the Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight. But it was more than 100 years ago that the Wright brothers made their historic first flight in Kitty Hawk, N.C. Even after all these years, their creation still boggles the mind: How can something so heavy take to the air?
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Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life
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5 Myths Haunting Your Healthy Foods
3 Feb 2012 | 8:03 amThese days, eating healthy has become a curiously difficult task. Despite the fact that the canons of healthy eating have not changed in centuries, the proliferation of health food products has continued unabated for years. It’s become a crisis of abundance.However, just because a product occupies shelf space in a boutique food store doesn’t mean it’s any better for you than its generic counterpart. Advertisers are very aware of the powers of “mood affiliation”, which is the tendency to associate familiar claims with one another. For example, consumers are very likely to believe a… -
Four Steps To Rescue Stray New Year Resolutions
2 Feb 2012 | 6:55 amLooks like it is that time of year when many New Year resolutions that people set have already strayed. Attempts to kick a smoking habit for example, might have seemed successful for a few weeks but once the realities and stresses of coming back from the holidays have resurfaced, some people may have caved into the nicotine again.Of course there is the usual health promises that get broken too. According to the fitness industry, a lot of gym memberships are sold from December to February but gym attendance significantly drops shortly afterwards when people realize that working out involves a… -
Finding the Courage to Stay the Course
30 Jan 2012 | 10:06 amAnytime you decide on the pursuit of an important goal, you’ll be faced with a series of challenges. Peaks, valleys and plateaus are par for the the course. But the thing that separates the people who make it from the ones that don’t is the courage to stay the course.At the start of any new endeavor most of us look forward to every single day with a child like excitement. We see infinite possibilities and the future appears bright. It seems as though there is absolutely nothing that can get in our way. We feel almost invincible and the possibility of failure doesn’t even occur to us. We… -
How to Deal with Difficult People and Have Constructive Conflict
28 Jan 2012 | 8:32 amLife and relationships aren't always perfect. Take a minute to think of some difficult people you have to deal with in your life? These may be people you work with, the in-laws that come to town throughout the year, or your neighbor who can’t seem to take a hint. For whatever reason, you're just not jiving with these people.Do you flee? Or, do you get flexible and learn to interact?When we encounter these extreme personalities it can feel like they are trying to make our life miserable, but more often than not, it’s simply learning about these peoples’ tendencies and how to interact in… -
7 Habits of Highly Excellent People
27 Jan 2012 | 2:16 amAre you driven in life? Do you love to excel? I believe all of us do. We are born to be the best we can be and to make the best out of our lives.When I was in high school, I wasn't exactly the kind of student teachers would like. I was truant, didn't do my homework and did badly on my examinations. I was lazy and unmotivated in school. However, after a while I realized that this wasn't who I wanted to be. This wasn't the life I saw myself leading. People around me were judging and negative, and I had enough of all of that crap. I had enough of being discriminated against and I decided to turn…
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ReadWriteWeb
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Hangout With the Scientists Looking for the God Particle
9 Feb 2012 | 11:57 amWant to hang out with the people who run the CMS? No, not the content management system. The Compact Muon Solenoid. It's one of the two big detectors at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator in the world. CERN physicist Dr. Albert De Roeck is hosting a Google+ Hangout tomorrow from inside the cavern where the experiment takes place, about 100 meters underneath Cessy, France. He'll explain the CMS experiment and take questions about the crazy frontiers of particle physics. Sponsor The CMS is one of the two general-purpose LHC experiments searching… -
Fabled Google Drive Won't Be Another Dropbox
9 Feb 2012 | 11:00 amThe Wall Street Journal has revived rumors about Google launching a cloud storage service called Drive. The comparison everybody wants to make is to Dropbox. The thinking is that Google will challenge everyone's favorite start-up by releasing a native desktop and mobile Drive app with the same syncing features Dropbox users know and love. Google Drive rumors have been around for many years, and they've always conformed to the understanding of "The Cloud" that has prevailed at the time. If it's not like Apple's iCloud, which is integrated into Apple's devices, then it must be like Dropbox,… -
[STUDY] 61% of Social Media Users Feel So Close To You
9 Feb 2012 | 10:30 amSometimes little things like a sweet comment on Facebook or a Twitter friend calling your tweet a "favorite" can really make a social networker bee's day. A new study from Pew finds that for the most part, adults are kind to each other on social media sites. In fact, 85% of adults say that most of the people they come across on social media are rather kind; only 5% say that people are "mostly unkind," which would imply rude or mean. An additional 5% say that it's all situational. On the whole, adults have positive experiences on social networking sites. A total 68% of SNS users had an… -
[Infographic] Mapping the Tools in the Mobile Development Ecosystem
9 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amThe mobile development ecosystem is a large, complicated space. There are innovative startups making tools for native and mobile Web apps along with large enterprise-grade companies that offer solutions from cloud support to frameworks and developer environments. For a mobile developer, it can be confusing to know where to turn and what to use to make the best app possible. Mobile "backend-as-a-service" startup Kinvey created a map for ReadWriteMobile to help developers understand the ecosystem. Kinvey brackets the mobile ecosystem between two primary pillars: the service providers and the… -
Harry Reid Wants a Bigger, Badder Version of SOPA/PIPA
9 Feb 2012 | 9:30 amSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., still licking wounds from last week's defeat of the Protect IP Act and its House counterpart the Stop Online Piracy Act, is reportedly working on an even more sinister, Internet-regulating bill. Few details have been publicly disclosed about the latest push by legislative Democrats to expand executive-branch authority over the Internet, but the Daily Caller has pieced together publicly-available clues suggesting that Reid's newest bill is even broader than President Barack Obama's cybersecurity proposal. Sponsor Released last May, Obama's proposal…
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Mashable!
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Live LOLCats: Cheezburger Plans Grammy Awards Memes in Real Time
9 Feb 2012 | 12:35 pmI Can Has Cheezburger plans to turn the 54th Grammy Awards into a laughing matter by giving viewers an outlet to write funny captions for red carpet and ceremony photos. The “Live LOLing” event starts Sunday at 4 p.m. PT when Cheezburger’s ROFLrazzi site, Twitter profile and Facebook page will begin publishing Grammy images with humorous captions — in lolcat meme format. People can click “Recaption This” to plop their own witty text on the photos. Participants can then share their creations on their social networks. Cheezburger editor in chief Emily Huh… -
Popularity of an Article Can Be Predicted Before It’s Tweeted [VIDEO]
9 Feb 2012 | 12:24 pmHP Labs says it’s possible to know if your tweet will be a dud before you type the 140 characters. Researchers have developed a formula that predicts the number of times a news “article will be tweeted with surprising accuracy.” The researchers predicted tweet popularity with 84% accuracy based on ranking news articles by four criteria. In the new study called “The Pulse of News in Social Media: Forecasting Popularity, HP Labs used a statistical model to rate the popularity of 40,000 news articles published during nine days in August 2011. The statistical model… -
Yahoo’s New Visualization Beautifully Shows What’s Happening on the Web
9 Feb 2012 | 12:00 pmYahoo has launched a new webpage that visualizes what’s happening on the web in near real time — and it’s totally beautiful. The Content Optimization Relevance Engine (C.O.R.E.) HTML5 site hopes to show users the “behind the scenes” process Yahoo uses to match readers with content on their personalized homepage, using technology developed in a Yahoo research lab a few years ago. While Yahoo’s homepage used to be arranged by editors, it now uses an algorithm to match individual user preferences. “We can provide users with insights through the lens of… -
Who Really Invented the Web? Texas Trial Questions Tim Berners-Lee [VIDEO]
9 Feb 2012 | 11:48 amTim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web, testified this week in a Texas courtroom against a company that claims it has a patent on the same technology. The man who claims to have the patent on the “interactive web” is Michael Doyle. His company, Eolas Technologies, has filed suit against many of the world’s biggest Internet companies — including Google and Yahoo — over the case. Doyle’s lawyers say the companies owe him millions in royalty payments for using such common functions as watching online video or search suggestions pop… -
Mass Effect 3 Gets iPad Version with Action-Packed ‘Infiltrator’ [PREVIEW]
9 Feb 2012 | 11:35 amMass Effect 3 is coming to an iPad near you in the form of Mass Effect Infiltrator, an iOS game aimed at expanding the game’s narrative and give players some mobile combat. Infiltrator isn’t a direct port of the latest Mass Effect game. Unlike its big brother, a sci-fi role-playing game known for its first-person shooter gameplay and massive, branching story-lines, Infiltrator is all about fighting. Mashable got a demo of the game played on an iPad and hooked up to a television at an EA showcase. The story follows a soldier called Randall Ezno as he travels the universe tracking…
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xkcd.com
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Car Problems
7 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm -
Wake Up Sheeple
5 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm -
Wrong Superhero
2 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm -
Baby Names
31 Jan 2012 | 9:00 pm
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Neil Gaiman's Journal
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America Will Eat you
7 Feb 2012 | 7:23 pmHullo everybodyI'm off in hiding, writing. It's good. I did a road trip to get here - I stopped in New Orleans and got an extreme haircut and a hot towel shave. Last time I went off into hiding to write a novel I let my hair and beard grow, and I didn't want to repeat myself. I look... odd, I think. But I feel like I'm in disguise, which is an excellent feeling for an author to have.I got to my hideout, which is the house where I started writing American Gods a dozen years ago, then drove three and half hours to see my cousin Helen and her husband Sidney. (Helen's mother and my… -
A speech I once gave: On Lewis, Tolkien and Chesterton
25 Jan 2012 | 11:23 pmI gave this speech in 2004, to the Mythopoeic Society. I thought it was already somewhere on this website, but it isn't, it's only up at the Mythopoeic Society website. I hope no-one there will mind if I put it up here (mostly for me, for ease of finding it later.) Mythcon 35 Guest of Honour SpeechBy Neil GaimanI thought I’d talk about authors, and about three authors in particular, and the circumstances in which I met them.There are authors with whom one has a personal relationship and authors with whom one does not. There are the ones who change your life and the ones… -
An Edgar and an Ill Wind
22 Jan 2012 | 5:18 pmIt's been a bugger of a week: I left my Macbook Air on a plane on Sunday night, and have spent most of the rest of the week doing things like being on the phone to the backup service, learning that the tracking software I'd thought was on there was on there, but hadn't been activated, buying a new computer, etc. I didn't get the thing I was meant to be writing written. I was grumpy.But, I spent the wasted week getting healthy and in shape and juicing things. And I now have an iPad, with which I am starting to fall in love. (Weirdly, I much prefer my Nexus Android to the iPhone. But never… -
An open letter to Washington from Artists and Creators
18 Jan 2012 | 11:48 amAn open letter to Washington from Artists and CreatorsWe, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the… -
Of Introductions and Viriconium
9 Jan 2012 | 3:24 pmAnother day of record high temperatures. I am mostly happy because it's astonishingly pleasant walking the dogs without protective clothing and facemasks and such. Also, it means I have a better chance of bringing all the beehives through this winter. Which reminds me,Hi, Neil,I thought you might enjoy this article on bee keeping:http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/01/beekeeping-and-the-ethical-vegan--will-curley/Best,Helana...and I really did. (For the record, I think it's absolutely right for ethical vegans to stop eating almonds, cucumbers, cranberries and other…
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The Daily Weird - A new weird picture every day
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Real-life Beavis & Butt-Head
8 Feb 2012 | 10:01 pm -
Muscles leggings
7 Feb 2012 | 9:54 pmvia (Black Milk Clothing) -
Part dog, part woman
6 Feb 2012 | 10:30 pm -
Goat legged spider
5 Feb 2012 | 11:05 pm -
Alien motorcycle
4 Feb 2012 | 9:04 pm
