They might be getting attention from prominent schools, but how might companies like Coursera that are developing massive open online courses actually make money?
"Many Chinese women will spend far more of their income than their Western counterparts on these magazines and the products featured inside them. ... Lena Yang, general manager of Hearst Magazines China, who oversees nine publications including Elle and Marie Claire, says that the typical reader of Hearst Magazines in China is a 29.5-year-old woman who is more likely to be single than married. She has an average income of about $1,431 a month and spends $938 a season on luxury watches, $982 on handbags and shoes and $1,066 on clothes. Ms. Yang says these women often live at home and turn to their parents and grandparents to pay for them. The study also showed that many readers in their 20s saved little." Prepare for the Chinese implosion as those parents and grandparents paying her bills get older, become somewhat more dependant on her and then eventually pass away (Via: MR)
"recent use of the Bonnet Carré spillway showed that by choosing the right place to build a diversion in the Mississippi and opening it at the right time, planners could build up a substantial amount of sediment in the delta." This doesn't really get into one negative impact from hydrodams, keeping sediment from making it's way downstream (often useful for improving agricultural land though per this article here it's mainly sand).
"The blink response to this case is only the latest example of a troubling increase in the speed of our reactions. Fortunately, there is an antidote: the conscious pause. Scientists have found that although we are prone to snap overreactions, if we take a moment and think about how we are likely to react, we can reduce or even eliminate the negative effects of our quick, hard-wired responses."
A few mins of video ... the tour. What it's like living there. Apparently the guy in question has been living there for 5 years or so at this point. I wonder what he pays in rent...
"Tax evasion rates as high as 100 per cent were recorded in resorts on the islands of Zakynthos and Lefkada, in Rethymno on Crete and in Kastoria. Other areas on Crete also recorded very high rates of tax evasion, reaching 87 percent in Hania and 78 percent in Iraklio, followed by Santorini (83%), Corfu (75%), Naxos (73%) and Mykonos (68.5%). (AMNA)"
"Belief in hell keeps down criminal activity, but belief in heaven actually boosts it, according to a pair of researchers at the universities of Oregon and Kansas. ... The researchers tested the pattern across geographic and cultural boundaries and found the same outcome in Africa, South and Central America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and Canada. The relationship also persists across nearly all major religious faiths including Roman Catholic, non-Catholic Christian, Hinduism, Shintoism and syncretic religions that blend two or more belief systems. The only place where the pattern could not be found was in predominantly Muslim countries in Asia, where a nearly equal belief in heaven and hell produced little variance."
