Category: rePosts

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rePost :: Half-heartedly, 15 Love Rules for Single Women:

Read the whole list at the linked site.

15 Love Rules for Single Women:

from Half-heartedly

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  1. “Guys are like subway trains. Don’t run after them; another one is on its way.”
  2. “If he says he isn’t ready for a relationship, believe him.”
  3. “Marry someone you want to sit next to for the rest of your life.”
  4. “My grandfather had some gems: ‘Don’t be with a stupid man just to be with any man.’ ‘A real man always takes care of his family.’ ‘You don’t want to be walked over, and you don’t want a man you can walk over, either.’ And my favorite: ‘Don’t be a fool, Michelle. You can be anything you want, but don’t be a fool.’”
  5. “Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh.”
  6. “The guys who were nerdy in high school make the best husbands.”

via Half-heartedly, 15 Love Rules for Single Women:.

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Learned :: What Alcohol Does to Your Mind: Attentional Myopia | PsyBlog

Very interesting, very curious what effect alcohol would have on my actions.

Alcohol myopia

According to a growing body of evidence collected over the last three or more decades, people’s Jekyll and Hyde behaviour while drinking can be understood by a simple idea which has some intriguing ramifications.
The alcohol myopia model says that drink makes our attentional system short-sighted and the more we drink, the more short-sighted it becomes. With more alcohol our brains become less and less able to process peripheral cues and more focused on what is right in front of us. It’s this balance between what is right in front of us and what we don’t notice around the edges that determines how alcohol affects us in different situations.
Here are a few effects which imbibers will recognise immediately:

  • An ego boost: when people drink, they often feel better about themselves. This may be because the attentional short-sightedness induced by alcohol makes all our shortcomings float away and so we feel closer to our ideal selves. This is probably one of the reasons it is so potentially addictive, it is self-actualisation in bottle form.
  • Real worries can get worse: if we’ve had a bad day and we sit quietly with a drink, alcohol can make it worse because all the peripheral cues which are potential distractors are cut out and all we see are our problems.
  • Pleasure in the moment: the flip-side of this attentional focus is that if, while drinking, we are doing something enjoyable, we find it easier to ignore any nagging doubts or stray worries wandering through our minds. We can be totally in the moment listening to music, watching sports or talking with a good friend.
  • In the zone: it’s even possible that for some types of task it may increase performance as we let go of our insecurities. Perhaps that’s why so many writers wrote with a glass of whisky at their side.

via What Alcohol Does to Your Mind: Attentional Myopia | PsyBlog.

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rePost :: Rethinking Professionalism: The Meta-Expert

There are however some characteristics that will make a person thrive in this complex world. Perhaps a person that has obtained these characteristics, can be considered a new kind of expert. An expert that transcends conventional thinking and can escape the confines of expertise, the meta-expert.
This meta-expert:
* will constantly improve by using new knowledge and technologies
* will admit that a big part of his/her higher education has been unnecessary
* understands that economics go beyond monetary transactions and understands that it’s fundamentals lie in creating value
* can navigate the emotional storms of the short term, but can also drive a vision of the long-term with instinct and rationale
* will engage in both introverted and extraverted activities, as challenging as this might be
* has sought and will seek new horizons that lay beyond their comfort zone
* will strive to make big dreams possible, through passion and commitment
These are just several characteristics I could think off, but I’m sure YOU, THE READER, can think of some more. If you do so, please add them to the comments section and I will add them.
In my own information technology experience I know that some software developers outperform others many times over, but as technology and informationization starts impacting more domains, perhaps this will only increase. This ‘value generation inequality’ doesn’t have to be all that bad though. As systems and organizations get more complex, the ‘chance’ aspect becomes more important, One high return on a bet can overthrow all your previous losses. However, when you’re dealing with a small organization, like a startup, it is very important that your first hire will be one of those meta-experts that has the 10,000x-factor.
But at the end of the day, I’m not really an expert on this matter.
via Rethinking Professionalism: The Meta-Expert.

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rePost:: I Demand Better Vampires – Vampires – io9

I just wish there were any other plot. One vampire wants to be nice and only eat cows and every other vampire is harshing their squee. They want to be as much like a human as possible. Except vampires are humans now, except hot and immortal. Literally no other difference. But they’re acting out the same old plots like they’re Bela Lugosi. It’s way postmodern, if anyone noticed onscreen, which they don’t. Like 19 year olds acting out stories about their grandparents radical activities in the 60s when they in fact live in a world where all those issues are passe.
via I Demand Better Vampires – Vampires – io9.

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rePost :: Ezra Klein – Menu labeling coming next year

Great news. Why? see we have Goldilocks,Max’s Fried Chicken and of course Jollibee with North American operations. This means we can just look at the menus in the US to find this very important info!!!

Menu labeling coming next year
The prevention proposals in the health-care bill haven't gotten enough attention, including from me. But Marion Nestle makes a good catch here: One of the bill's provisions is a menu labeling proposal for chain restaurants with more than 20 locations. The proposal requires chains to post the caloric content of each item (and the total calories of combo meals) next to its listing on the menu, the menu board, and even the drive-through menu kiosk. This goes into effect next year, and will be one of the most visible effects of the health-care bill. You can read the provision here (pdf).
via Ezra Klein – Menu labeling coming next year.

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rePost :: Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Obvious and Non-Obvious Reasons For and Against Casual Sex

Read the other half at the linked site.

Obvious and Non-Obvious Reasons For and Against Casual Sex
1. Obvious reason to have casual sex: Feels good, instant gratification, etc.
2. Non-obvious reason to: The boost in self-confidence that comes from knowing that another person was attracted to you physically. Casual sex is about physicality. People need validation that they are beautiful. People who think they are beautiful are more self-confident in life. Self-confidence is good.
via Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Obvious and Non-Obvious Reasons For and Against Casual Sex.

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Great Advice::Book – Ignore Everybody | gapingvoid

Read the rest of the tips at the linked site!

IGNORE EVERYBODY

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years.]

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
via Book – Ignore Everybody | gapingvoid.

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ROTD::Fast food logos unconsciously trigger fast behaviour : Not Exactly Rocket Science

Fast food logos unconsciously trigger fast behaviour

Category: Consciousness • Psychology
Posted on: March 22, 2010 8:30 AM, by Ed Yong

Like it or not, the golden arches of McDonalds are one of the most easily recognised icons of the modern world. The culture they represent is one of instant gratification and saved time, of ready-made food that can be bought cheaply and eaten immediately. Many studies have looked at the effects of these foods on our waistlines, but their symbols and brands are such a pervasive part of our lives that you’d expect them to influence the way we think too.

And so they do – Chen-Bo Zhong and Sanford DeVoe have found that fast food can actually induce haste and impatience, in ways that have nothing to do with eating. They showed that subliminal exposure to fast food symbols, such as McDonalds’ golden arches, can actually increase people’s reading speed. Just thinking about these foods can boost our preferences for time-saving goods and even nudge us towards financial decisions that value immediate gains over future returns. Fast food, it seems, is very appropriately named.

via Fast food logos unconsciously trigger fast behaviour : Not Exactly Rocket Science.

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rePost :: Michael Lewis’s ‘The Big Short’? Read the Harvard Thesis Instead! – Deal Journal – WSJ

When you are cute your questions tend to get answered.  Read the whole thing!

While unsure if we can stomach yet another book on the crisis, a killer thesis on the topic? Now that piqued our curiosity. We tracked down Barnett-Hart, a 24-year-old financial analyst at a large New York investment bank. She met us for coffee last week to discuss her thesis, “The Story of the CDO Market Meltdown: An Empirical Analysis.” Handed in a year ago this week at the depths of the market collapse, the paper was awarded summa cum laude and won virtually every thesis honor, including the Harvard Hoopes Prize for outstanding scholarly work.
Last October, Barnett-Hart, already pulling all-nighters at the bank (we agreed to not name her employer), received a call from Lewis, who had heard about her thesis from a Harvard doctoral student. Lewis was blown away.
“It was a classic example of the innocent going to Wall Street and asking the right questions,” said Mr. Lewis, who in his 20s wrote “Liar’s Poker,” considered a defining book on Wall Street culture. “Her thesis shows there were ways to discover things that everyone should have wanted to know. That it took a 22-year-old Harvard student to find them out is just outrageous.”
via Michael Lewis’s ‘The Big Short’? Read the Harvard Thesis Instead! – Deal Journal – WSJ.

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ROTD Research Of The Day :: Patterns of Prostitution Captured in Social Network :: Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog:

No Comment. hehehe.

The community they look at is a public online forum with free registration, financed by advertisements, in which men grade and categorise their sexual encounters with female escorts. The community appears large with over 10,000 buyers and more than 6000 sellers all of whom use anonymous nicknames. The study covers a period of 6 years from when the community was set up in 2002 until 2008.
The study throws up both expected and unexpected results. Among the expected results is the discovery that the geographical connections between buyers and sellers vary as an inverse square law rather than a power law as in many other internet mediated networks. That’s not so hard to explain given that buyers or sellers have to travel to each other.
Another discovery is that a high rating for a particular sex worker is a good predictor of high ratings in the future. That’s the kind of rich get richer effect that is seen in many internet phenomena (also known as the Matthew effect). However, average or poor ratings don’t seem to affect future ratings either way.
via Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Patterns of Prostitution Captured in Social Network.