Wasting your time
choofnagle | November 5, 2007Cynthia Crossen writes in today's Journal about subliminal advertising:
At a New York press conference 50 years ago, a market researcher, James Vicary, announced he had invented a way to make people buy things whether they wanted them or not. It was called subliminal advertising.
He had tested the process at a New Jersey movie theater, he said, where he had flashed the words "Eat Popcorn" or "Coca-Cola" on the screen every five seconds as the films played. The words came and went so fast -- in three-thousandths of a second -- that the audience didn't know they'd seen them. Yet sales of…
choofnagle | October 31, 2007
Denialism blog has failed you. We totally missed Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. Would anyone like to share how they recognized this event?
choofnagle | October 26, 2007In today's Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Levitz and Kelly Greene report on lead generation firms (also known as list brokers), companies that sell databases of consumer information to businesses for marketing purposes:
Older Americans around the country are getting duped by a seemingly innocuous tactic that can expose them to hard-sell pitches from the insurance industry.
The technique is centered on a marketing tool called the lead card, and it became popular after the federal government created its Do Not Call Registry in 2003 to shield consumers from unwanted solicitors. Sent through the…
denialism | October 26, 2007In honor of Phenomenon and the fun of talking about magic tricks check out Ramana, aka Wouter Bijdendijk who has been doing the levitation trick shown below, only he's doing it in front of the Whitehouse.
Here he is doing a similar piece standing on the side of a building - more performance art really.
I think the only one who can't figure this one out is the current White House resident. It's clearly a terrorist attempt to bring the executive to a standstill as he tries to puzzle it out.
Spoiler below.
This, is of course, very simple. The two clues are that you never see him actually…
choofnagle | October 24, 2007In today's Journal, Jane J. Kim writes very clearly about the different tools that are now available to consumers to protect themselves against identity theft. The article explains the advantages and disadvantages to each approach. Great reporting!
denialism | October 24, 2007Sorry for the absence. Between travel, catching up from travel, and preparing manuscripts, I've been slow to blog. I'm back now, but still busy.
Meanwhile, I've been enjoying cectic's comics immensely. I can no longer figure out who in my RSS feed linked these strips, but they are awesome!
Case in point, anyone want to venture a guess who this refers to?
Ha!
choofnagle | October 18, 2007While Mark is in Begas, attempting to use his big brain to make money, you people are at my mercy!!1! Let us begin!
Check out today's Times for a book review of A. J. Jacob's The Year of Living Biblically, One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, the story of a secular Jew who attempts to incorporate rules from the good book into modern life:
..."If I wanted to understand my forefathers, this year would let me live like they did, but with less leprosy," he writes, sounding like Woody Allen on a bad day. So he made a list of scriptural strictures, the more peculiar…
denialism | October 18, 2007Today I'll be leaving for Las Vegas until Sunday so I'll leave it to my brother to post the next couple of days.
Until then, have fun, and don't let the cranks run wild in the comments.
denialism | October 17, 2007Archbishop apologizes for giving Communion to Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
And what a great article too! PZ would love this group.
On Oct. 7, Archbishop George Niederauer delivered the Eucharist to members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - an activist group whose motto is "go forth and sin some more" - prompting cries of outrage from conservatives across the country and Catholics in San Francisco.
...
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, founded in San Francisco in 1979, are known for their white face paint, outrageous costumes, theatrics and support of the gay community. They…
choofnagle | October 16, 2007I'm doing the TRUST Seminar at Berkeley this week. Here's the info and abstract.
Date: Thursday, October 18, 2007
Time: 1:00 PM (lunch will be served)
Location: 540 A/B Cory Hall
ABSTRACT: In synthetic identity theft cases, an impostor creates a new identity using some information from a victim that is enhanced with fabricated personal information. For instance, the impostor may use a real Social Security number, but a falsified name and address. Since this synthetic identity is based on some real information, and sometimes supplemented with artfully created credit…
denialism | October 12, 2007Watching 30 Rock and the Office tonight I kept on seeing this commercial for a new show called "Phenomenon". The story goes:
The search for the impossible begins...there are those who claim special powers, but only one can be called the greatest. Now, the mind of Uri Geller, and the mastery of Chris Angel will test them all before the world, and everything you see will be live.
I was cracking up because when they show Geller he's got this sign that bends behind him. I can't believe it, he still tries to milk this idea that he can bend metal like he's some kind of spoon-bending genius.
I'd…
choofnagle | October 3, 2007Maybe Americans' bad taste can be reformed! Gary McWilliams reports:
The Wal-Mart Era, the retailer's time of overwhelming business and social influence in America, is drawing to a close.
[...]
Rival retailers lured Americans away from Wal-Mart's low-price promise by offering greater convenience, more selection, higher quality, or better service. Amid the country's growing affluence, Wal-Mart has struggled to overhaul its down-market, politically incorrect image while other discounters pitched themselves as more upscale and more palatable alternatives. The Internet has changed shoppers'…
denialism | October 3, 2007I'm loving the Non Sequiturs about Danae setting up her think tank.
I think Wiley must be reading the blog. Stop lurking and show yourself!
denialism | October 1, 2007I'd just comment like nuts if I were eligible for the 500,000th comment contest.
Call this an open thread. Go nuts! I'm too busy writing to blog anyway.
choofnagle | October 1, 2007The Journal's Cynthia Crossen gives an overview of political battles surrounding billboard advertising today. An interesting read, in part because billboard advertising lobbyists have been pretty shameless in their political advocacy. I remember that when I lived in Georgia, they wanted to lop off the tops of trees so that billboards could be better seen. In order to get around regulations that distanced billboards from the roads, the industry created megabillboards that were huge. And they argued that billboards actually improved roadway safety because it gave drivers an interruption…
choofnagle | September 29, 2007Ah, the joys of reading the relatively new weekend edition of the Journal...There's always news you can really use. For instance, if you happen to be in Atlanta and are hungry, the Journal will tell you exactly where you should sitting at Rathbun's, depending on whether you are an A, an A+, or A++.
Floorplan Key: Red=A ++ List; Yellow=A+ LIST; Blue=A LIST
And when you're done analyzing your status based on where the restaurant seats you, you can read about how to deal with your pesky, environmentally-conscience children! Ellen Gamerman reports:
In households across the country, kids are…
denialism | September 26, 2007Here's what I'm reading this morning.
An Orangutan stole a womans pants in Malaysia. That's got to be embarrassing, but at the very least, you'd have a story to tell people for the rest of your life that is sure to entertain.
Congress, having solved all other problems is looking into the language of hip-hop. Someone needs to find the youtube of this testimony.
But rapper and record producer Levell Crump, known as David Banner, was defiant as lawmakers pressed him on his use of offensive language. ''I'm like Stephen King: horror music is what I do,'' he said in testimony laced with swear…
choofnagle | September 17, 2007The Journal's James Hookway informs us that a trial court judge in Manila, Judge Floro, has an interesting set of consultants: three elves, only visible to the judge himself! Belief in this trio has caused the country's supreme court to intervene and fire the judge.
...Mr. Floro, 54 years old, has become a media celebrity. He is now wielding his new clout to campaign for the return of his job -- and exact vengeance on the Supreme Court.
Helping him, he says, are his three invisible companions. "Angel" is the neutral force, he says. "Armand" is a benign influence. "Luis," whom Mr. Floro…