1. The Illuminati is a selection of photos by photographer Evan Baden that show young people seemingly mesmerized by the glow of their electronic devices. Baden explains his project:
In Westernized cultures today, there is a generation that is growing up without the knowledge of what it is to be disconnected. The world in which we are growing up is always on. We are continuously plugged in, and linked up. We take this technology for granted. Not because we are ungrateful, but because we simply don't know a world without it.
From our earliest memories, there has always been a way to connect with others, whether it is Myspace, Facebook, cell phones, e-mail, or instant messenger. And now, with the Internet, instant messaging, and e-mail in our pocket, right there with our phones, we can always feel as if we are part of a greater whole. These devices grace us with the ability to instantly connect to others, and at the same time, they isolate us from those with whom we are connected. They allow for great freedom, yet so often, we are chained to them. They have become part of who we are and how we identify ourselves. These devices ordain us with a wealth of knowledge and communication that would have been unbelievable a generation ago. More and more, we are bathed in a silent, soft, and heavenly blue glow. It is as if we carry divinity in our pockets and purses.
(HT: Ypulse)
2. How the Ideas and Events of 1993 Created the World We Live in Today
Oh, what a year! 1993 contains the seeds of a new world - the military nails down GPS, awareness of climate change dawns, a bunch of kids in Illinois code the first useful browser for the web, Sears discontinues its paper catalog, the X-Files debuts and Wired magazine is born.
3. Tim Hartford on the (not-so) secret tax on teenager:
Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, did something rather strange recently to baffling applause from his own supporters and cries of "bribery" from the opposition: He announced a tax on teenagers.
Darling's plan is to cut income taxes temporarily for all but the most prosperous taxpayers. The apparent windfall is £120 each--almost $230. If that sounds familiar, it isn't surprising: A similar plan is already in motion in the United States, where a temporary "tax rebate" began to arrive in the bank accounts of a grateful nation about a month ago. The motivations are different in the British case. While the U.S. plan is billed as an economic stimulus, the British plan is marketed as compensation for those who lost out when taxes on some low earners were recently raised. No matter, because the practical impact of both plans is just the same: Teenagers are getting it in the shorts.
4. The Wittenburg Door list The 10 Worst Movies About Jesus
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
Some of the world's most astute film critics and historians have lauded Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini's retelling of the Gospel of Matthew with glowing words that will never be used to describe directors like Ed Wood, Uwe Boll and the guy who made the Rollerball remake. But anyone who's ever had to sit through it in film class, struggling with the idea of a Marxist Jesus with a homosexual subtext, will realize why Pasolini boasted about his lack of research. He basically turns the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ into a kung-fu flick starring George Takei as Judas. Oh my.
(HT: TallSkinnyKiwi)
5. Study: Golf prolongs life
Golf can be a good investment for the health, according to a new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet. The death rate for golfers is 40 per cent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status, which correspond to a 5 year increase in life expectancy. Golfers with a low handicap are the safest....
The study, which is published in Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, is based on data from 300,000 Swedish golfers and shows that golf has beneficial health effects. The death rate amongst golfers is 40 per cent lower than the rest of the population, which equates to an increased life expectancy of five years.
6. Quote of the Week: "Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month." -- Wernher von Braun, rocket scientist (1912 - 1977) (HT: Neatoramau)
7. Grabb.it TV has collected videos for the 20 most popular songs of every week from the day MTV launched in 1981 to the day Napster shut down in 2001. (HT: Waxy.org)
8. The New York Times Rent or Buy Calculator compares the cost of renting versus buying your home to determine which is a better money move in the long run. Give it your monthly rent, the projected price of buying a house, mortgage rate, and property tax, and it'll determine after how many years buying is better than renting. (HT: Lifehacker)
9. The Florida Sun-Sentinel's list of Worst Album Covers Ever (HT: Very Short List)
10. Hunter Baker on Pope Benedict and Christian higher education:
As an evangelical Christian in the academy, I find myself grateful for Pope Benedict's leadership in higher education. There is a continuing question echoing through the halls of our buildings: "What's a Christian college for?" The old view that education is a commodity and that a school maintains its faith by having a Christian president or by hosting devotional exercises on campus has plainly failed to resist the secularizing trend. The Pope clearly recognizes the core of the problem when he asks, "Are we ready to commit our entire self--intellect and will, mind and heart--God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools?"
Unless we agree with the Pope, we find ourselves wondering why we as Christians--Catholic or Protestant--should continue to maintain private schools in competition with state-subsidized counterparts. If we provide the same old cake with a different colored frosting, then our entire project comes into question. The challenging reality is that we not only must re-dedicate ourselves to understanding what it means to be a Christian university offering a Christian education, but we must also find a way to better fund our universities.
We should be able to educate more students and have more scholarship dollars to bridge the gap in price with state schools. Our professors should have lighter teaching loads so they can participate in the worldwide scholarly conversation through research and publication. And--dare I say it?--we should be in the business of doctoral education much more ambitiously than we have to date. Christians who have spent five years pursuing a doctorate without benefit of supportive mentors often have little idea of what it means to integrate faith and scholarship.
11. Graph of the Week
more graph humor and song chart memes
12. Will Smith on marriage and divorce:
Divorce just can't be an option. It's really that simple - if you just remove the option. Because if you have the option, one day that person's going to make you want a divorce. You absolutely get to the point that you're done, and the only thing that keeps you continuing is that there's no other option.
13. The Economist on Order in the jungle
"AM I the only economist guilty of using the term [rule of law] without having a good fix on what it really means?" asks Dani Rodrik of Harvard University. "Well, maybe the first one to confess to it."
The rule of law is usually thought of as a political or legal matter. The world's newest country, Kosovo, says its priority is to improve the rule of law in order to reduce corruption and build up the state. But in the past ten years the rule of law has become important in economics too. Indeed, it has become the motherhood and apple pie of development economics--which makes Mr Rodrik's confession the more striking. The rule of law is held to be not only good in itself, because it embodies and encourages a just society, but also a cause of other good things, notably growth. "No other single political ideal has ever achieved global endorsement," says Brian Tamanaha, a legal scholar at St John's University, New York.
14. 12 Things You May Not Know About the Nobel Prizes (HT: The Presurfer)
15. The New Yorker's John Lanchester on the difficulty of describing taste:
The language of taste has, therefore, reached something of an impasse. On the one hand, we have the Romantic route, in which you are free to compare a taste to the last unicorn or the sensation you had when you were told that you failed your driving test--and others are free to have no idea what you are talking about.
(HT: kottke.org)
16. Paul Graham on lies we tell to to kids
One of the most remarkable things about the way we lie to kids is how broad the conspiracy is. All adults know what their culture lies to kids about: they're the questions you answer "Ask your parents." If a kid asked you who won the World Series in 1982 or what the atomic weight of carbon was, you could just tell him. But if a kid asks you "Is there a God?" or "What's a prostitute?" you'll probably say "Ask your parents."
(HT: Overcoming Bias)
17. Timewaster of the Week: Robokill (HT: Waxy.org)
18. What the CIA Learned From Get Smart
19. James Poulos on adultery and politicians:
What I'm angling for here is simple: a basic public consensus that if you sleep around on your spouse you are a bad person, and to hell with your future in politics, because we still have enough talent in America to replace you with someone who isn't a bad person and is nonetheless capable of being a 'gifted' and 'dedicated' public servant.
And my bottom line concern is that there now too many Americans who think there are now too many adulterers for us to successfully entitle ourselves to that concept of nobility.
(HT: The American Scene)
20. 10 best cities for recent college graduates
21. The Art of Manliness on The Perfect Hat For Your Ugly Mug:
What we find attractive is largely based on symmetry. The more symmetrical a face is, the more appealing it appears to others. But there's not much we can do, short of surgery, to change the symmetry of our faces. There are ways to mitigate our asymmetries, however. You may have heard a woman in your life talk about getting a haircut that flatters her particular face shape. While dude haircuts don't come in enough varieties to have the same effect, there is another way guys can balance out their faces: hats. All hats make a man look more dapper. But picking a hat that is right for your face shape will increase your attractiveness and give you an ever sharper appearance. If you've been inspired to bring back the hat, but weren't sure what kind of hat to get, this guide will help you pick the right hat for your ugly mug.
22. The Internet FAQ from 2085
23. How predictably irrational are you? (Part I) - From behavioral economist Dan Ariely:
Next time you hit the town in search of a date, take a friend who looks similar to you, but is slightly less attractive. We presented participants with two portraits - Mike and John - and asked them to choose whom they'd rather date. For half the participants we distorted the picture of Mike and added it to the set, so they had John, Mike and an ugly version of Mike to choose from. For the other half of the students, we distorted John, so they had Mike, John and an ugly John.
When the ugly version of Mike was presented, the attractive version of Mike became the most desirable date. And when the ugly version of John was presented, John's attractive version became the most desirable.
It is very hard for us to evaluate things in absolute terms. So, we evaluate products and people in relative terms, which makes us vulnerable to this kind of trap, called the asymmetric dominance effect.
24. How predictably irrational are you? (Part II) - Take this test to find out.
25. LOLCat of the Week
more cat pictures
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26. Study Finds Culture Influences Reaction To Reward, Rebuke
In the most sweeping global study yet of cooperation, a team of experimental economists tested university students in 15 countries to see how people contribute to joint ventures and what happens to them when they don't. The European research team discovered startling differences in how groups around the world react when punishment is handed out for antisocial behavior....
Among students in the U.S., Switzerland, China and the U.K., those identified as freeloaders most often took their punishment as a spur to contribute more generously. But in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Greece and Russia, the freeloaders more often struck back, retaliating against those who punished them, even against those who had given most to everyone's benefit. It was akin to rapping the knuckles of the helping hand.
27. Robin Hanson on the silliness of interstellar colonization:
On Monday I was interviewed on BBC Radio about what if any economic value we get out of NASA. I said the benefits were mostly like the pyramids - national prestige and being part of history. I was not told I would be debating a NASA fan, who said gave the tang/Teflon argument that all research is good, and also said we don't want to be like the Chinese who pulled their advanced ships back just before the Europeans took over the world. There was not time to respond.
Sigh. The US government spends more on space research than on NIH and NSF combined, which most scientists consider far out of proportion to its science value. Most any ambitious tech project, like floating cities, 3DTV, or robot mules, gives similar indirect tech spinoffs per dollar spent, and surely we can find other projects with larger direct payoffs. Sure the Chinese might have colonized the Americas, but we can see now there are no similarly lush gardens accessible in space - we'll colonize Antarctica and the Earth oceans long before, as these are far less harsh environments with plenty of the sunlight and materials which are mainly what space has to offer.
28. Study finds kids who use touch pad device are more likely to share critical info with doctor -- Texting, IM, email -- most kids are comfortable using computers to communicate. It's led to an innovative idea among doctors. Children are given a touch pad and asked a series of questions about topics like sexual activity and depression. Kids hesitate to talk openly to a doctor or in front of a parent, but the study shows they are honest with the computer. That gives doctors more chances to treat proactively and even save lives.
29. All bets are off: Office pools lead to unhappiness-- Office pools for the NCAA basketball tournament or Oscar contests are fun, right? Not according to the Journal of Consumer Research. A recent study suggests that betting on the outcome actually reduces people's enjoyment of the events. Authors Naomi Mandel and Stephen M. Nowlis (Arizona State University) explore this phenomenon, and why these contests are so common. "Nobody likes to be wrong. Once a person has committed to a predicted outcome, he's set himself up for the possibility of looking like a fool. In other words, the fear of losing [known as] 'anticipated regret' may actually feel worse than losing itself." Peoples' worry about losing the bet tends to spoil the event for them.
30. MIT develops a 'paper towel' for oil spills -- A mat of nanowires with the touch and feel of paper could be an important new tool in the cleanup of oil and other organic pollutants, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the May 30 online issue of Nature Nanotechnology. The scientists say they have created a membrane that can absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil, and can be recycled many times for future use. The oil itself can also be recovered. Some 200,000 tons of oil have already been spilled at sea since the start of the decade.
31. It's okay to keep those feelings inside, new study suggests -- Contrary to popular notions about what is normal or healthy, new research has found that it is okay not to express one's thoughts and feelings after experiencing a collective trauma, such as a school shooting or terrorist attack. In fact, people who choose not to express their feelings after such an event may be better off than those who do talk about their feelings, according to University at Buffalo psychologist Mark Seery, Ph.D., lead author of a study to appear in the June issue of Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
32. Bikini-clad Women Make Men Impatient -- Images of sexy women tend to whet men's sexual appetite. But stimulating new research in the Journal of Consumer Research says there's more than meets the eye. A recent study shows that men who watched sexy videos or handled lingerie sought immediate gratification--even when they were making decisions about money, soda, and candy.
33. The Largest Unknown Bookstore in the Country
CBS Sunday Morning's correspondent Bill Geist visits an unusual bookstore near Princeton, Wisconsin. The one-million volume bookstore is set on a farm, and the books take up 12 buildings--one of which was built from a manure tank.
(HT: The Tom Peters Weblog)
I don't see the image in #33
#19 from James Poulos's site:
There's gotta be a word to describe it when someone announces they consider something to be very important but then acts as if that value has no meaning at all. Here Poulos tells us that adultery is very important because it is a betrayal of intimacy. Fair enough but he tells us this because he is saying adultery needs to be attacked publically. But isn't the public the very opposite of the intimate?
This is not a trivial distinction. A wife who privately learns of her husband's adultery is free to use a host of tools at her disposal to address the attack on her marriage. One of them is to make the issue public by divorcing him, making her knowledge of the affair public or both.
What happens, though, when adultery is considered 'fair game' for political punditry? The wife is not empowered by learning of her husband's affair but blindsided. She does not have the option of dealing with her husband privately while avoiding public humuliation. In fact, she probably faces tremendous pressure to "stand by her husband" for the sake of her family. In a culture where adultery is not considered fair game for punditry the wife has the leverage to threaten the wayward husband with the possibility of a public divorce in order to motivate him to reform for the sake of his family.
Only after the wife is put through the humiliation of the public press conference can she quietly decide to divorce her husband. If she doesn't, though, he has in a sense won since his family has been 'saved' and he can now return to politics as a 'reformed man'. I'm not saying the husband enjoyed the public attention, and he very well may be 'reformed' by it, but it is the wife who bears the brunt of the insult and it is unjust since she is not at fault. After the dust settles, the wife has no real leverage besides pressing the 'self-destruct' button and filing for divorce. So what's been accomplished? You've basically ended up attacking the wife and afterwards telling her the only choice she has is remain in the marriage in a humuliating status of submission or destroy her marriage. This is done in the name of being 'pro-family' and 'pro-marriage'.
Poulos, like many evangelicals here, seems to suffer from the "we must destroy the village to save it" mentality. Being able to attack politicians who have affairs is just so appealing (and politically it always carries with it the hope that when the opposing party has someone who seems undefeatable there's always the long hope that the press will discover another woman on the side) that he is blind to the fact that he is actually advocating a state of affairs that is not healthy to marriage.
Good list. I especially liked #16 and #33.
From the link on #16 (Lies we tell to kids):
The conspiracy is so thorough that most kids who discover it do so only by discovering internal contradictions in what they're told. It can be traumatic for the ones who wake up during the operation. Here's what happened to Einstein:
"Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic freethinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies: it was a crushing impression."
I remember that feeling. By 15 I was convinced the world was corrupt from end to end. That's why movies like The Matrix have such resonance. Every kid grows up in a fake world. In a way it would be easier if the forces behind it were as clearly differentiated as a bunch of evil machines, and one could make a clean break just by taking a pill.
#26 -- rewards and rebukes, is perhaps crucial for understanding different cultures. (IS crucial if it's repeatedly true!)
See Michael Totten's MidEast Journal on Serbia as he travels to Kosovo (after GREAT posts when he was in Iraq).
On #27, priorities for spending (less for NASA), I mostly agree -- but HOPE has a huge value; DREAMS are not really priceless, but they rightfully deserve more support than a probablistic cost-benefit analysis would otherwise give them.
Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus is trying to promote "better than global warming" spending priorities, which is also excellent.
Finally, on #13, "rule of law" never mentions the word Enforcement.
Enforcement is at the heart of any true law -- and every group has 'law' which is enforced, from Mafia Omerta thru every gang and every religion.
I'm pretty sure Ginger and I are going to end up just like #33, except I'll be the hoarder and she'll be the one continually giving up space for the books.