More random links
- Credit card users could soon face higher costs for paying with plastic
- Following a recent case, it seems as though US companies can now impose a credit card surcharge to customers using such things. Will the same happen in Canada? In Canada fees range "from 1.5 to 3.0 per cent of the value of customer purchases — ... about twice the rate credit card firms charge merchants in Australia, New Zealand and many parts of Europe, but slightly below the U.S. average." Apparently fees paid by merchant are up 30% in the past two years due to premium credit cards.
- Julia’s mother: Why a single mom is better off with a $29,000 job and welfare than taking a $69,000 job
- "Let’s take the example of a single mom with two kids, 1 and 4. She has a $29,000 a year job, putting the kids in daycare during the day while she works. As the [chart on the page] – via Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania’s secretary of Public Welfare — shows, the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income and benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income & benefits of $57,045."
- Five Men Agree To Stand Directly Under An Exploding Nuclear Bomb
- From 1957. Strange... of course there's video. "This footage ... was shot by the U.S. Air Force ... to demonstrate the relative safety of a low-grade nuclear exchange in the atmosphere. Two colonels, two majors and a fifth officer agreed to stand right below the blast."
- Based on IQ tests, women are now officially smarter than men
- Can't be too surprised to see this - as the Star article notes "Before women feel too self-satisfied, it must be noted that IQ tests aren’t without controversy. These tests measure and reward the kind of intelligence valued by university-attending types in developed nations, and neglect cultural intelligence that might be equally prized in different settings." I've mentioned before that IQ-related gender differences differ between countries. The article notes that "Among high school students, females with an IQ of 100 scored As and Bs, whereas males with the same IQ received Bs and Cs. Perhaps girls are more conscientious, or boys simply have trouble adapting to formal education, Flynn suggested." Could be a few other things as well - the feminization of education, girls being somewhat more submissive, or greater natural levels of energy / aggression amongst boys.