I think it is totally defensible that a lot of people need or is at least is happy with the notion of feeling special. I think this is one of the reasons that cults proliferate in our world (People who know me may actually call me out in with an irony), that conspiracy theories do not only abound but it seems it to be the default among polite company.
I don’t know maybe my need to feel special is driving me towards solitude. I just have this default action when I don’t like the game I do not play. I can’t understand why it seems to me that most things belong to the walk away from category.
I do not think I am special, What I believe is that we are special by striving for something, trying to find what paolo coelho terms as our personal legend. It is about finding our place in this world, the things that we we’re meant to do.
This post was prompted by this, ty to Chris Blattman for the pointer
Wanted: A More Walkable City:Why New Yorkers Last Longer — New York Magazine
The urban health penalty, they decided, had inverted itself. The new reality was that living in the suburbs and the country was the killer. In January 2005, Vlahov and his colleagues penned a manifesto they cleverly called “The Urban Health ‘Advantage,’ ” and published it in the Journal of Urban Health. Cities, they posited, were now the healthiest places of all, because their environment conferred subtle advantages—and guided its citizens, often quite unconsciously, to adopt healthier behaviors.
via Why New Yorkers Last Longer — New York Magazine.
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Learned Today : College Kids All Racist In Their Own Special Ways – Race – Gawker
College Kids All Racist In Their Own Special Ways
By Hamilton Nolan, 12:12 PM on Wed Jul 8 2009, 30,144 views (Edit, to draft, un-top, Slurp)
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College: where drunk kids are guinea pigs for social science. The funnest college-kid studies involve race, because they make everyone uncomfortable! Now comes a new study of interracial college roommates that proves we’re all terrible. A racial breakdown:
If You Are White:
* Your black roommate makes you uncomfortable.
* You make your black roommate uncomfortable.
* You are far more likely to “break up” with your roommate if they’re not white.
* You will not be affected academically by your roommate’s race, because you care only about your own kind.
If You Are Black:
* You will do better academically if you have a white roommate, maybe in an effort to overcome your inferiority complex.
* Or maybe because you just don’t like them and can get some work done.
* If you have a white roommate, your own “positive emotions” will decline.
If You Are Asian:
* Not only are you more racist than any other group, you also make those around you more racist. Scientific fact!
If You Are of a Race Other Than These:
* You are not as interesting to social scientists.
Jerks, every last one of us!
via College Kids All Racist In Their Own Special Ways – Race – Gawker.
rePost::Dear Pixar: Stop Making Me Cry Like A Bitch – Balls Deep – Deadspin
Seriously, get fucked Pixar. Next time, I’m taking my kid to that fucking Ice Age movie. It’ll suck. But that’ll be the only reason I cry. STOP MAKING ME WANT TO HOLD MY KIDS TIGHT AND TELL THEM HOW MUCH I LOVE THEM.
via Dear Pixar: Stop Making Me Cry Like A Bitch – Balls Deep – Deadspin.
Why Are We Doing This To Ourselves? ::wronging rights: Things That Suck: The Manila City Ban
I’m starting to be really irked at this moralist types. Here’s a thought FUCK YOU!
Things That Suck: The Manila City Ban
I’m pretty good about keeping tabs on viciously stupid domestic policies all-time favorites include the anti-prostitution pledge and the merciless application of the material support bar to asylum but I rely on experts in the field to keep me apprised of other countries’ bullshit legislation and executive orders. Recently, via a tip from the very wonderful Payal Shah at the Center for Reproductive Rights, former Mayor of Manila Jose “Lito” Atienza‘s Executive Order 003 made it onto the list.
EO 003, which was issued in 2000 and remains in force, deprives women in Manila of access to contraception and family planning information. Although the order did not impose an outright ban, its call to “promot[e] the culture of life” by “discouraging the use of artificial methods of contraception” has resulted in an effective prohibition. Since its issuance, city clinics and hospitals have not provided contraception.
via wronging rights: Things That Suck: The Manila City Ban.
Praise To Commitment::48 Minutes of Hell » Blog Archive » In Appreciation of Peter Holt
Brave Peter Holt! This is why San Antonio has been a model franchise for mre than a decade! The Right people doing the right things!
Peter Holt took a serious financial hit yesterday and he did so for the good of the franchise you love.
It’s hard to feel sympathy for a man whose net worth is counted not just in millions but in tens of millions, but compare Holt’s situation to Mark Cuban’s, whose net worth is presumed to be north of $2 billion, and you begin to recognize the commitment Holt is making to the franchise. When the Mavericks head into the luxury tax, Cuban hardly feels the prick of a pin. Holt and the rest of the Spurs ownership group commit a significant fraction of the franchise’s net worth to the team’s success.
Mr. Holt’s financial commitment to the team is significant to no one more than the 3 individuals we adore most: Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker. Whether by only requesting reasonable contracts or restructuring their contracts to allow the team to acquire the necessary supporting cast, over the last several years the big three have done their part to ensure the Spurs are in a position to compete for championships. By allowing the front office to take the steps they took today, Holt has kept up his end of the bargain.
via 48 Minutes of Hell » Blog Archive » In Appreciation of Peter Holt.
Paradox Of Choice Experiment::Is less always more? : Cognitive Daily
Such a simple but illuminating experiment, click through to find their results!
But is less always more? Most of the studies on number of choices have either given participants a very small or a very large number of options. Does this mean just one choice is the best? Or is there some larger number of choices that is optimal?
To find out, Avni Shah and George Wolford set up a table in a busy corridor at Dartmouth University and asked passersby to help their department select the best pen to order for its supply closet. They varied the number of pens sampled from 2 to 20. Each pen was similarly priced at around $2, and while each pen was different, all were “roller-ball” style pens with black ink.
via Is less always more? : Cognitive Daily.
Elink Picture::The Office manga style
The Women's Right To Be Unhappy::Stumbling and Mumbling: Real freedom & unhappiness
This is puzzling, because there can be no doubt that since the 70s women’s real freedom has increased hugely. They have more and better educational and job opportunities, better control over their fertility, are more able to flee bad partnerships and – thanks to technical progress – can spend less time on household chores.
Greater freedom, though, has not brought greater happiness.
via Stumbling and Mumbling: Real freedom & unhappiness.
Singularity Watch:Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"
Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year.
“By contrast,” Hawking says, “there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA.”
via Stephen Hawking: “Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution”.