Random links
- How Advertisers Convinced Americans They Smelled Bad
- "A schoolgirl and a former traveling Bible salesman helped turn deodorants and antiperspirants from niche toiletries into an $18 billion industry"
- The Facebook Fallacy
- From MIT's Technology Review. The byline: "For all its valuation, the social network is just another ad-supported site. Without an earth-changing idea, it will collapse and take down the Web."
- Power-grid experiment could confuse electric clocks
- "A yearlong experiment with America's electric grid could mess up traffic lights, security systems and some computers — and make plug-in clocks and appliances like programmable coffeemakers run up to 20 minutes fast." It's a result of clocks often using power-grid frequency to track time. Why would people want to make this less reliable? "Officials say they want to try this to make the power supply more reliable, save money and reduce what may be needless efforts." Note that the effects are likely to vary based on location: "East Coast clocks may run as much as 20 minutes fast over a year, but West Coast clocks are only likely to be off by 8 minutes. In Texas, it's only an expected speedup of 2 minutes." This article is timestamped last June. Wonder if they managed to get this started.
- How Headphones Changed the World
- "Up to half of younger workers listen to music on their headphones, and the vast majority thinks it makes us better at our jobs. In survey after survey, we report with confidence that music makes us happier, better at concentrating, and more productive. Science says we're full of it. Listening to music hurts our ability to recall other stimuli, and any pop song -- loud or soft -- reduces overall performance for both extraverts and introverts. ... With 70 percent of office workers in cubicles or open work spaces, it's more important to create one's own cocoon of sound. That brings us to a psychological answer: There is evidence that music relaxes our muscles, improves our mood, and can even moderately reduce blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety. What music steals in acute concentration, it returns to us in the form of good vibes." And, of course, it adds that modicum of privacy to public spaces, not only allowing you a private experience but also as those around you "assume that people wearing them are busy or oblivious, so now people wear them to appear busy or oblivious -- even without music. "