I've been accumulating "in other news" items all weekend and only just now had the time to post them all. Enjoy!
- Scientific American covers the stereotype threat (discussed on CogDaily last week).
- Is "reform" math responsible for declining math performance? This is more convincing than the last video, but someone should tell this guy to stop reading his talk directly from his PowerPoint slides.
- A guaranteed way to destroy public education.
- Doctors may have discovered a way to teach patients about probability. But can they teach long division? (For more on patients and probability, see here)
- How the incest taboo may have evolved.
- Jonah Lehrer comments.
- Addicts underestimate how much they crave their drug of choice.
- But criminals aren't as irrational as you might think.
- "Bionic eye" could be ready for prime time in just two years.
- But self-driving cars may still be 25 years off.
- But see this.
- Color's influence on the taste of a drink. Was this why Crystal Pepsi flopped?
- Is father's influence key to girls' risk-averse behavior?
- Formula for ensuring everyone's eyes are open in a group photo: Divide the number of group members by 3 -- that's how many shots you need to take.
- The vow taken by all psychologists. Heh.
More like this
Using robotics, laser rangefinders, GPS and smart feedback tools, Dennis Hong is building a car for drivers who are blind.
Atrios describes one of the hidden, but very important costs of parking, especially in cities--parking:
By Festival Founder Larry Bock
It's strange but true: some of the most prodigious innovations in technology are often not born in the corridors of rational thought and reality, but on the wings of fantasy.
Interesting. Will the "vow" come up later in grad school? haha
The probabilities in that article on blinking in group photos aren't right. Using their numbers, the probability of anyone blinking at any one time is 250ms/10000ms, or .025. If you need them not to blink during the time the shutter is open, add that time to the smaller interval. Subtract from 1 and exponentiate by the number of people. The real formulas for a 95% chance of not getting a blink suggest you divide the number of people by 5 if you're using a flash (1ms exposure), or by 2 or 3 if you're taking photos in relatively dim light. The take-home is the same, but the way they calculated it was bizarre.