Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:27:56 GMT

Information is Good, But It Can Also Steal Your Soul

Seth Godin had a blog post a week or so ago about data - and how everyone wants more data, so they can prove their point.

We live in the Information Age now. There's a common misconception that we entered the Informatin Age as a byproduct of computers. But we had an infatuation with data before computers were very common. It makes me think of the McNamara Fallacy, named for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. At a time when computers where not all that common, McNamara had a four-step process for reaching conclusions by exzamining the data:

• The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured.


• The second step is to disregard that which can't easily be measured.


• The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important.


• The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist.

Of course, step one is okay (for what it's worth). But the second step is misleading, the third step is blindness and the fourth step is suicide (or insanity).

McNamara left office in 1967.

Information is a marvelous thing. But given enough of it (and enough time) you can prove almost anything with it. And, as Seth says, "The problem is this: no spreadsheet, no bibliography and no list of resources is sufficient proof to someone who chooses not to believe. The skeptic will always find a reason, even if it's one the rest of us don't think is a good one."

Know what you beleive. The data comes after that.... Posted by: Steve      Read more     Source

February 12, 2010, 6:11 PM CT

Getting the Best Prices on Cheap Flights: Book In Advance to Save Money Says Southall Travel

Most people nowadays plan and book their entire vacation online. It is a much easier process that does not involve a middleman like a travel agent and the whole procedure is within your control. You can actually book a vacation even a year in advance and get good deals on the same. Most of the online travel websites even offer a combination package that has both airfare deals as well as cheap hotel deals. You have an option of booking a vacation with your desired time, location, and even budget with the help of Internet.

However you must also do a little bit of research to understand how you can actually grab a good deal. Recently Southall Travel reported how most UK travelers are missing out on cheap flights due to poor booking habits. This is happening since people are booking flights at a shorter notice while you can actually save a lot of money if you book tickets in advance. This is true in case of all flight tickets and also for all destinations. So if you keep this in mind when booking tickets online, you can automatically save a lot of money. Airlines also offer a wide range of offers to their regular customers and usually have loyalty programs for them. If you are a corporate flier, even then you are liable to get a wide range of benefits and discounts. When looking for good deals you can visit the travel websites which will show you the offers from all major airlines and this will make it easier for you to take a decision and buy tickets. ........ Posted by: Edwin      Read more         Source

February 7, 2010, 10:18 PM CT

Tips to Make Your Custom Made Shirts Perfect

custom made shirts are very poplar since they fit your body perfectly. Individuals prefer such shirts largely as they have full control over the size of their shirt. There are other factors like uniqueness in design and fabric that leads people to choose custom made shirts. Recently, Tony Nicolson, reviewer of Store Trooper has declared that designs goose neck and long arms have made him go for custom made shirts greatly. The garment dealers of this line of clothing are always coming up with better designs at affordable prices.

When an individual is purchasing a custom made shirt, there are several issues that he should judge to ensure a best buy. The following guidelines can enable a man to make a shirt that fits his personality.

• Your fabric is the chief material in making a dress. Hence, you should take proper care in buying that. You should choose the color and style that suits your personality and your skin. There are several synthetic fabrics that look attractive and are available at affordable prices. It is better not to go for them. Always try to find cotton fabrics since they provide immense strength and durability to your dress.
• Once your fabric has been selected, it is time to find a proper design. Generally, a good tailoring company offers attractive designs in shirts. Check for all the designs present in their catalogue before you place the final orders.
........


Posted by: Edwin      Read more         Source

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:17:22 GMT

Jennifer Lopez Helps Haiti

Jennifer Lopez makes an appearance on a special two hour addition of the Larry King Live show called "Haiti: How You Can Help" in Hollywood on Monday (January 18).

The 40-year-old singer joins other celebrities like Paula Abdul, Christian Slater, Jared Leto, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden where they chatted online, answered phones, and tweeted to help raise funds to help survivors of the Haiti earthquake.

In other news, J.Lo is reportedly in discussion to make an appearance on Glee.

According to E!, Glee executive producer Brad Flachuk confirmed that Jennifer is being considered to play a cafeteria worker. Posted by: Melissa      Read more     Source

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:09:04 GMT

Egg Shape Mobile Living Space

This unit, the blob VB3, is mainly made by polyester, and holds all necessary items one could possibly need as bathroom, kitchen, lighting, sleeping space and several niches for storage.

Moreover, the nose can be opened automatically and functions as a porch. While being closed, it blends into a complete smooth blob. Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:02:28 GMT

Yale Admissions Video

In some ways, you gotta admire Yale for going out on a limb and producing an entire musical admissions video with which to promote the finer elements of their storied institution. On the other hand, you also have to laugh. And laugh. And laugh. Granted, this video still can"t touch the pure brilliance of Appalachia State University"s recruiting efforts (the benchmark for all catchy collegiate tunes), but really, who can?

Nevertheless, this video, titled "That"s Why I Chose Yale," plays sort of like a forgotten number from Enchanted. I half expected Amy Adams to come swirling into frame, crooning "How doooo yoooooou knoooowwww???????" But alas, the best we get is Brian Williams, who thankfully refuses to sing his two cameo lines. As for the rest, well, it"s mainly just a bunch of effete guys with very high voices exalting the many splendors of residential colleges and varied course offerings.

Personally, I like the Dartmouth"s recruiting videos more, which are both conveniently located after the jump.... Posted by: B-Side      Read more     Source

January 22, 2010, 8:09 AM CT

Satisfied and Well-informed Consumers

Expert consumers like to be surprised by unusual product presentation, while novices crave familiarity, so claims a new Pitt/USC study titled "Smart Subcategories: How Assortment Formats Influence Consumer Learning and Satisfaction," to be reported in the recent issue of "Journal of Consumer Research".

"How can retailers help consumers become more informed about the products they use while also making them happy?" write authors Cait Poynor, Pitt assistant professor of business administration in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, and Stacy Wood, University of South Carolina professor of marketing. The answer seems to be in organizing products tailored to customers' knowledge levels. Their research indicates that simply organizing a store's existing stock in different ways can improve consumers' learning and their degree of satisfaction.

What works for one consumer may not work for another, however. The authors observed that highly knowledgeable consumers liked being surprised by product formats; conversely, novice consumers had an easier time when familiar with product groupings.

The data was collected from 123 undergraduate students who completed a two-part study as part of their course work. Both parts were carried out online where the presentation of information could be manipulated. The benefit of an online environment is the infinite number of ways Web sites can be organized, says Poynor......... Posted by: Edwin      Read more         Source

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:56:55 GMT

Things to Do if You Get Sick on Vacation

© Leonid Mamchenkov


Fodor's has some useful tips availabel for what to do if you get sick on a trip.Getting a cold or the flu is bad enough, but when it strikes less than 24 hours before getting on the plane-or worse, while you're flying-panicking won't speed up your recovery. Rather than succumbing to a sneezy fate, take immediate action by following these top five tips en route.Top number one? Check your carry-on along with the rest of your bags so that you don't have to haul around any extra weight. You don't need the stress. Read the other tips here.
Posted by: Lisa      Read more     Source

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:14:57 GMT

Historical Medical Videos from Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Trust has a Youtube channel on which they feature videos from the 20th century including films about surgeries, medical issues and the everyday lives of doctors.

A new digital collection of moving images on 20th-century healthcare and medicine is now online. Over 450 titles – 100 hours of film and video – have been transferred and are freely available under Creative Commons licences.

Here are a few examples:

Cruel Kindness: a 1967 UK educational film about childhood obesity



Acute appendicitis from 1931:



Caesarean section from 1930:



(Hat tip: BoingBoing) Posted by: Bertalan      Read more     Source

January 15, 2010, 8:12 AM CT

Lifestyle Traits and Foreclosure Rates

A homeowner's station in life and personal spending beliefs and habits are important indicators of the borrower's potential for home-mortgage default, say scientists in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Business.

"Our research has shown that a borrower's personal traits and behaviors have considerable influence on their willingness and ability to repay a mortgage loan and avoid foreclosure," says Stephanie Rauterkus, Ph.D., UAB assistant professor of finance.

"Traditionally, the industry has focused on default pressures like income, credit scores or loan-to-home-value ratios, but our research has shown that borrowers who may look identical by these traditional measures could have very different default probabilities based on their behavioral characteristics," she says.

The study, Behavioral Determinants of Mortgage Default, was authored by Rauterkus, her husband Andreas Rauterkus, Ph.D., UAB assistant professor of finance, and Grant Thrall, Ph.D., professor of geography at the University of Florida.

The scientists considered a sample of 7,000 mortgages from public records in Jefferson County, Ala. Borrowers were classified into one of 12 so called LifeMode groups, which were based on classifications established by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)......... Posted by: Edwin      Read more         Source

January 14, 2010, 8:06 AM CT

Judges' rulings are being swayed by campaign contributions

A pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling could aggravate the influence of corporate campaign spending that already has skewed justice in some of the nation's courts, a University of Illinois labor law expert warns.

Michael LeRoy says he found evidence that judges' rulings are being swayed by campaign contributions from businesses, based on a newly released study of more than 200 state court cases. The study will appear in the Iowa Law Review.

He predicts justice would tip even more out of balance if the Supreme Court strikes down limits on election spending in a high-stakes challenge to the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reforms Act of 2002, usually known as the McCain-Feingold bill.

The high court's ruling, expected as early as this week, could give corporations, unions and activist groups virtual free rein to run election-time ads for and against candidates, legal analysts say, and lay the groundwork for direct donations to political campaigns.

"It would open up the spigot for judicial contributions and greatly aggravate the problem, further politicizing and polarizing some of these state courts," said LeRoy, a professor of labor and of law.

Debate over the looming court ruling in the case - Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission - has centered largely on how the flood of money would affect presidential and congressional elections. LeRoy says the impact on judicial campaigns is just as worrisome......... Posted by: Edwin      Read more         Source

January 13, 2010, 7:43 AM CT

Inmates comfortable with diversity

'Ethnicity, Identity and Social Relations in Prison', carried out by Dr. Coretta Philips of the London School of Economics, explored how prisoners' ethnic identities helped them cope with prison life, and whether such identities informed a social pecking order and the formation of gangs. More specifically, it explored the influence of prison practices on prisoner and group identities.

In January 2009 British broadsheets voiced fears of a flourishing gang culture in UK top-security prisons following an inspection report on Long Lartin jail in Worcestershire. By contrast, the LSE research - comprising ethnographic studies conducted in Kent over eight months each at a young offenders' institution and an adult male prison - observed that, superficially at least, there was an acceptance of diversity amongst prisoners, with some welcoming it.

There were no gangs in either institution, and no religious or ethnic pecking order. However, prisoners tended towards same-ethnicity friendships, and formed groups providing physical protection, for sharing, and for access to items such as mobile phones and drugs. Muslim groups encompassing a range of ethnicities were both envied by non-Muslims for their potential for seeking concessions on religious grounds, and disparaged for their solidarity......... Posted by: Edwin      Read more         Source

January 11, 2010, 8:18 AM CT

In search of speed

You couldn't have asked for a better day for a competition. It's minus five degrees, the sun's shining and there's not a breath of wind. The snow's perfect and the biathlete's in top form. He's one of the best he can win the race. Often there's only a few thousandths of a second between the victor and the vanquished, so the gliding ability of his skis is very important. And this depends on several factors, not least whether the wax mixture he's applied suits the particular type of snow.

Anyone looking for optimal ski performance must first understand the laws of friction. That is why wax and ski coating manufacturers are counting on the expertise of scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg. The researchers have been studying the gliding ability of skis and know how to make ski athletes go like the wind. Prof. Dr. Matthias Scherge, Head of the new Microtrobilogy Center in Karlsruhe, says: The snow, the ski coating and the wax that is applied all unite to form a single entity. We can't alter the snow, but we can adapt both the wax and the coating to suit particular snow conditions. The scientists use a special technique to analyze the friction and gliding effects; they simulate the contact between a single snow crystal and the coating with the aid of a test rig, and then measure the coefficient of friction in relation to temperature. It's the first 10 to 15 nanometers of the coating surface that......... Posted by: Edwin      Read more         Source

January 11, 2010, 8:17 AM CT

Staying safe in snow

The inviting expanse of shimmering snow contrasts with the non-malignant blue sky above. The ski instructor briefly goes over the planned run, his first charge glides off into the distance and sets off a slab avalanche. The group all look on helplessly as their friend is buried under a wall of snow. Bernhard Budaker of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA knows this kind of scenario is all too common. But scientists at the Institute recently developed a new avalanche airbag system for ABS Peter Aschauer GmbH, in which an electronic unit ensures a ski instructor or friend of any similarly hapless individual can remotely trigger the airbag stowed in their backpack. The product went on sale in December 2009. Avalanche airbags have been in use for over a quarter of a century. A simple tug on the activation handle will inflate two airbags stowed in a backpack. The massive extra volume they create gives the body additional buoyancy the skier is no longer buried under the snow.

To date, however, the problem has always been that skiers have had to activate the airbag inflation system themselves. If skiers fail to notice in time that they've set off an avalanche, the airbag won't help them, says Budaker. But now the IPA group manager and his team have replaced ABS's manual activation unit with an electronic system, and fitted a new trigger: We've redesigned the activation handle to incorporate many electronic components, so airbag inflation can be initiated by other members of a skiing party as well. It will be perfectly easy to retrofit all the old-style backpacks with the new system. When the traditional activation handle is pulled, it creates a pressure wave in the tube, which punctures a gas cartridge and causes the airbags to inflate. In the new system, a pyrotechnic element is used to ignite the gas cartridge. As Budaker explains, the electronic solution offers the advantage of allowing all the airbags carried by a particular skiing party to be networked: We transmit on 868 and 915 Megahertz. The optical application programming interface permits specific groups to be defined. Group members simply need to touch all their handles together for them to become a unit. One option is for the ski instructor to be designated the master, his charges the slaves in this case, only the master can trigger the others' airbags. Alternatively, all members of the group can be designated masters and help each other in an emergency. The activation signal currently has a range of between 350 and 500 meters, but this distance can be extended, given that every group member effectively acts as a relay station as each trigger handle passes on the signal......... Posted by: Edwin      Read more         Source

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 04:38:19 GMT

Picnic by Juicy Couture

The speaker dimensions are 12"H x 13"W x 6"D. There"s no word on the wattage, so the sound quality is anyone"s guess. The kit is available for $248. Just like the tagline says it"s "everything you need to take your beau or bestie out for a picnic."

Via UberGizmo Posted by: Sarah      Read more     Source

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:11:14 GMT

When You Hand Out Pink Slips

© Mykl Roventine


BusinessWeek ran a good article this week on things not to say when the time comes to hand someone their pink slip.

People are getting laid off. Right and left, east and west, all over the place. And it"s not always because they deserve to be let go.Job cutting is never easy, but it often becomes progressively harder as we go deeper into an organization. At the beginning, employers may be able to lay off only weak employees they might have considered letting go anyway. While these weak performers are human beings worthy of dignity and respect, we can make ourselves feel okay about their terminations because they are based on merit.

The deeper we get, the less likely it is that we honestly can say that a job elimination is simply a matter of letting go those who should have been let go years ago. Now we are letting go of solid performers who would remain employed in a good economy.If you have to do the deed, there are some basic things you should avoid saying. You can think of it as being sensitive (why would you feel the need to say mean things to someone you"re not going to see anymore?) or you can think of it as reducing your corporate liability in the layoff. But it"s really just an issue of being smart about it.

The BusinessWeek article gives some good guidance on the topic.
Posted by: Sue      Read more     Source

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:47:53 GMT

I'M OFF TO SEE IMOGEN HEAP!

First Train Home official video Posted by: Popbytes      Read more     Source

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:33:52 GMT

La Roche Posay Xerand Hand Repair Cream

La Roche -Posay has a very loyal following both in France, and here in the United States, for their skin care products. After having the opportunity recently to try some of them, I can certainly see why!

One of the stars of their lineup is the La Roche-Posay Xerand - Hand Repair Cream. The texture of the cream is lightweight and smooth, with a slight watery feel. It"s this combination that made it such a pleasure to use. I would apply the cream in the morning, and generally, even through my first few hand washings of the day, my hands were still moisturized.

I loved how soft my hands felt after applying the cream, without any trace of greasiness or stickiness. It was also perfect for moisturizing my cuticles in the evening before bed. It"s concentrated, so a little goes a long way as well. Like most French skincare, it is scented with a floral fragrance that was plesant - but not intrusive or overwhelming. All in all, this is a wonderful little product that"s also perfect for plane travel and keeping at the office. - RLB Posted by: Palacinka Beauty      Read more     Source

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:30:01 GMT

Cafe World: Fastest Growing Social Game in History

One day my newsfeed in Facebook was perfectly normal. The next day it was covered up in stuff about some cafe - and people were wanting to hire my wife and me to work in their little restaurants. At least it seemed that way.

VentureBeat describes it this way:When Cafe World debuted on Facebook on Sept. 30, it lit up the social network immediately. The title, a simple simulation where you make food and run a restaurant, took off faster than any other social game in history.At the end of week one it had eight million users. After two weeks it had 15 million users.

Zynga, the company that created Cafe World, seems to have Facebook users figured out. Its other big game, FarmVille, has 56 million players (I just made level 32 there). Posted by: Nancy      Read more     Source

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:24:30 GMT

iLuv presents the kooky iMM183

iLuv appear to have created a product for a really oddly specific niche; couples who both own iPhones/iPod touches. The er, creatively named iMM183 features a dual dock system for charging and playing of your tunes, as well as being an alarm clock with the ability to set seperate alarms for either player. Er, it also tells you the weather? Some of the press pictures show it with a big ol "TORNADO WARNING" written on it. I don"t think I"d like to be woken up by a clock telling me I am set to be swept away. Posted by: Linda      Read more     Source