Energy saving light bulbs can interfere with televisions causing them to randomly change channel and switch on and off, a leading manufacturer has admitted. [From Energy saving light bulbs can effect television sets]
I observed this myself fifteen years ago or so.
oDDmON oUT writes “MSNBC is reporting that a Columbia Business School study shows those who hold power over others make better liars. According to one of the study’s coauthors, ‘It just doesn’t hurt them as much to do it.’ For the average liar, she said, the act of lying elicits negative emotions, physiological stress and the fear of getting caught in a lie. As a result, she added, liars will often send out cues that they are lying by doing things like fidgeting in a chair or changing the rate of their speech. But for the powerful, the impact is very different: ‘Power, it seems, enhances the same emotional, cognitive, and physiological systems that lie-telling depletes. People with power enjoy positive emotions, increases in cognitive function, and physiological resilience such as lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Thus, holding power over others might make it easier for people to tell lies.'”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Or maybe liars are better at gaining positions of power. Fake degree on the wall and such.
Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds. [From Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ]
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.
Not exactly surprising.
Overnight Snow and slippery slush. Big wet lumps are pattering off the trees constantly.
Sci-fi blockbuster Avatar becomes the fastest movie ever to achieve $1bn (£625.6m) in world ticket sales. [From Avatar smashes box office record]
I plan to go see this in the next few days.
“For the eleventh time, Inkwell rings in the New Year with a visit from Bruce Sterling, to address the State of the World and Things Various and Sundry…” Always good fun. [From Bruce Sterling’s State Of The World 2010]
As usual we had family over for food and drink.
The dogs managed to grab a few sausage rolls and such as well.
Irish atheists defy a blasphemy law by publishing quotes it considers anti-religious, including by the Pope, on its website. [From Irish atheists challenge new law]
It seems likely the Irish Govt. will avoid this confrontation. Another case of selectively applied laws.
Finished watching season one of Six Feet Under yesterday. I’d managed to miss this show somehow so now I’m catching up with the complete box set which was on sale at Amazon. The first season was very good and I’m looking forward to the rest. It’s one of those shows that was made during the transition to widescreen so the first two seasons are in 4:3 aspect ratio and the last three are in 16:9.
Another show I never saw that I got the complete box set of is The Wire – a show that many critics deem the best TV drama show ever made. I’ll eventually get around to that. I still have to watch the last two seasons of The Shield first.
Powered by WordPress
