Something by Chekhov or Alice Munro will help you navigate new social territory better than a potboiler by Danielle Steel. That is the conclusion of a study published Thursday in the journal Science. It found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone’s body language or gauge what they might be thinking.
For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Chekhov - NYTimes.com October 6, 2013
Why is it that the ritual serving of a glass of tasteless white wine has become so integral to the ceremonial protocols of these useless functions? The question may actually lead us back to the famous essay of Roland Barthes on the picture of a bottle of wine (later collected in his Mythologies, 1957) in which he argues that the visual transformation of the object into bourgeois sublimity of health and happiness is what the sign represents against the medicinal fact that it might actually be harmful to your health - as in fact in the US there is always a warning on any bottle of wine to that effect. The question as a result is not the bogus bifurcation between secular and lslamist distinction regarding the juridical inhibition of alcohol but between an abiding sign in the European ceremonial semiology and the evident disparity of fact from fantasy. To mend the world and the fragile fate of nations in it, whatever measure of legitimacy such international organisations as the UN may still carry will have to be liberated from such bogus bourgeois insignia as a bottle of cheap chardonnay and whatever it is made to mean and signify
President Rouhani, a glass of chardonnay, and the fate of a nation - Opinion - Al Jazeera English October 6, 2013
“Can you show me how to use this new coffee maker, Bev? I can’t seem to wake up, and I need a fresh cup to make it through the rest of the interview.”
Bev Stohl's Stata Confusion: Kindled Spirits October 2, 2013
“That’s because you’re jet lagged, Noam.”
“Never!” he said, this pronouncement causing a brief coughing fit. “I just haven’t gotten enough sleep lately.” “Right, they call that jet lag,” I said half to myself, handing him his mug and adding, “Would you like me to get you in with Dr. Kettyle today?”
He turned his back on me and shook both hands in the air, a clear ‘No!’ in Noam language, and walked back to his office, still weaving slightly, the coffee sloshing precariously toward the lip of the cup with every step.
How your amygdala, the brain's anxiety trigger, will respond can be predicted by where you live, found researchers at the University of Heidelberg. Rural types had very little amygdala activity; they seemed immune to stress. In small-town residents, the amygdala was moderately active. But in urban dwellers, it was frenzied. One interpretation is that the city wires us for performance anxiety (and neuroses). More optimistically, that jumpy amygdala might help us deal better -- or faster -- in complex social situations. It's the part of the brain that picks up on facial expressions and nuances -- judging, for instance, who's trustworthy or dangerous -- and that's helpful when you regularly encounter hundreds of strangers. In other words, the social stress can be good stress -- it leads to street savvy.
6 Surprising Ways City Life Affects You October 2, 2013
Back in 1977, in a famously troubling experiment, researchers asked 6- to 10-year-olds to approach strangers and say, "I'm lost. Can you call my house?" In small towns, 72 percent of the adults said yes; in cities, just 46 percent. ("So what's your problem, kid? I'm lost too," said a passerby.) One explanation is that urban types tend to believe that the authorities, not individuals, should handle social problems. The other is "information overload" -- we shut down when our senses are overstimulated.
6 Surprising Ways City Life Affects You October 2, 2013
When someone says women earn 84 cents on the dollar compared to men in New York or 70 cents on the dollar compared to men in Utah, they're comparing all female workers and all male workers at once. As a result, you sort of end up comparing apples and oranges, or in this case, software engineers and elementary school teachers. As a rule, women tend to work in lower-paying careers. They also tend to work fewer hours, thanks largely to family obligations, and often take breaks in their career to take care of children, both of which bring down their pay. When you compare women and men who work in the same kinds of jobs for similar hours and similar years, most (though not all) of the gap disappears. So the graph up above isn't really showing us the states where women face the most discrimination, in the sense of not being paid equally for equal work.
The States Where Women Make the Most (and Least) Compared to Men - Jordan Weissmann - The Atlantic October 1, 2013
Women earned about 77 cents for every dollar that men earned last year, the Census Bureau reported last week, a figure that’s stayed roughly the same since 2007, before the economic downturn. A combination of reasons is likely to blame for why female workers’ earnings aren’t catching up to mens’ more quickly, Hartmann said. First of all, the fact that wage growth has been slow for the nation’s bottom earners affects women more than men because they’re more likely to be concentrated in low-paying sectors. In addition, America’s lack of family-friendly medical leave and child care policies has pushed women out of the workforce, further decreasing their earning potential. Still, it’s hard to say what exactly is keeping women’s wages from going up relative to men’s, Hartmann said
Gender Pay Gap Likely Won't Go Away Until After You Retire: Study September 25, 2013
Apple’s iPhone 5 is 2.5 times faster at responding to touches than Google Android devices, according to a benchmark test by game and app streaming firm Agawi. The results confirm what users believe about the devices, and they highlight a feature that is usually left out of technical comparisons. In its first TouchMarks benchmark test, the iPhone 5 responded to touches at an average time of 55 milliseconds, compared to 85 milliseconds for the iPhone 4. The closest Android device was the Samsung Galaxy S4 at 114 milliseconds.
Apple’s iPhone 5 touchscreen is 2.5 times faster than Android devices | VentureBeat September 23, 2013
First you need some kind of colored powder or superglue to lift the fingerprint. Then you have to scan the fingerprint, invert it and print it with a resolution of 1200dpi or more onto a transparent sheet. After that, you build your fake finger by smearing pink latex milk or white wood glue into the pattern that the toner created onto the transparent sheet and wait for it to set. Finally, the CCC writes, “the thin latex sheet is lifted from the sheet, breathed on to make it a tiny bit moist and then placed onto the sensor to unlock the phone.” This method should work for virtually every fingerprint scanner on the market today.
Hackers Bypass Apple’s Touch ID With Lifted Fingerprint | TechCrunch September 23, 2013
9. "In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts." 10. "We've done price elasticity studies, and the answer is always that we should raise prices. We don't do that, because we believe -- and we have to take this as an article of faith -- that by keeping our prices very, very low, we earn trust with customers over time, and that that actually does maximize free cash flow over the long term."
The 20 Smartest Things Jeff Bezos Has Ever Said (AMZN) September 17, 2013
A quick blanch before blending softens the basil, creating a more supple sauce. There are two reasons why I blanch my basil before puréeing it. One of them, admittedly, is purely cosmetic: a brighter green color that holds for several days. More important, however, is the texture. Blanched basil emulsifies more easily to produce a smoother yet full-bodied sauce. Blanching will slightly reduce the potency of the fresh basil flavor, but because a good bunch of basil starts out so incredibly fragrant, the reduction is minimal. Just be sure to dip the leaves only briefly in the boiling water and then quickly plunge them in ice water to keep them from overcooking.
The Trick to Smooth, Creamy Pesto September 17, 2013
فیلمفارسی اصطلاحی است که اولین بار توسط دکتر هوشنگ کاووسی درمجلهٔ فردوسی برای سینمای عامهپسند ایران به کار برده شد و مثال معروف آن فیلم گنج قارون است. این اصطلاح به معنای محصولی سینمایی است که مولفههایی همچون داستانپردازی عجولانه، قهرمان سازی، رقص و آواز کابارهای بدون ارتباط به داستان، نبود روابط علت و معلولی، عشقهای غیرواقعی، حادثه پردازی و غیره. این فیلمها عموما با گرته برداری از سینمای هالیوود و هند و در فضایی ایرانیزه ساخته میشدند.
فیلمفارسی - ویکیپدیا September 16, 2013
God is the stickiest answer we have ever given to the existential nightmare of our existence: our disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless and absurd world. We intuit God from the personal experience of being raised by parents. Hence God is always 'Father' (or occasionally 'Mother').
(42) Alia Caldwell's answer to God: What is God? - Quora September 16, 2013
God is the reflection of superself, your own reflection when you stare into a puddle, all blemishes erased. A god sometimes gets to resemble an elephant (Ganesha) or a Jackal (Anubus), but never in the leading role. God is always shaped like a human in monolithic monotheisms.
God is clarity. The more confusing the world is for you, the more you need God because He comes with a rule book that explains everything in simple terms. His churches are powerful structures filled with serious, authoritative people you can believe.
What's the point of ponying up roughly $150k - 200k to go to a school such as MIT, just to get a job that pays only $100k/yr without much room to expand -- say $250k/yr max? It seems like the same could be accomplished by going to a state school on a full scholarship and saving the money for a nice car.
Doesn't Exist: Pointless September 16, 2013
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.
You think English is easy? : funny September 16, 2013
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth?
You think English is easy? : funny September 16, 2013
According to students, the members are mostly male and mostly international students from South America, the Middle East and Asia. They organize “the real parties, the parties where it’s a really limited list, the extravagant vacations — I mean really extravagant,” she said. (No students interviewed admitted to being members of the group, though some said they had attended its parties.) “More than once I heard that ‘the only middle-class students here are the Americans,'” another recent graduate said. Even though Section X is hard to pin down — some students said they did not believe it existed at all — it causes enormous resentment on campus, starting with its name.
Class Is Seen Dividing Harvard Business School - NYTimes.com September 16, 2013
In this country, women now earn close to 60 percent of bachelor’s degrees overall, but only 20 percent of the degrees in computer science, 20 percent of those in physics and 18 percent of those in engineering. Women constitute half the nation’s work force but just a quarter of its scientific corps, and women with science degrees are less likely than their male counterparts to work in a scientific occupation. Instead, many end up in health care or education. Those fields may be vital and heroic, but nobility comes at a price. Women in nonscience jobs earn just three-quarters the salary accorded those in higher-tech fields, and the paucity of female scientists helps explain the overall wage gap between women and men.
Mystery of the Missing Women in Science - NYTimes.com September 15, 2013
Over-communicate and over-deliver. So, at Fog Creek, it’s sort of assumed that everyone’s working steadily and diligently. In the absence of new information, the assumption is that you’re producing. When you step outside the HQ work environment, you should flip that burden of proof. The burden is on you to show that you’re being productive. Is that because we don’t trust you? No. It’s because a few normal ways of staying involved (face time, informal chats, lunch) have been removed. You still have stuff like chat, commit messages, code reviews, cases, Trello boards, etc. Be a little paranoid for this time about showing your work. It will help you feel good about your time, and us feel good about granting it.
Fog Creek’s Remote Work Policy - Fog Creek Blog September 15, 2013
In fairness to news editors, we do know how much time readers spend on an article: We know that less than 60 percent will read more than half of an article, and a significant slice won’t read anything at all. “I’m going to keep this brief, because you’re not going to stick around for long. I’ve already lost a bunch of you,” joked tech columnist Farhad Manjoo, in a cathartic post for Slate that was aptly titled “You Won’t Finish This Article: Why People Online Don’t Read To The End.”
Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams Lays Out His Plan For The Future Of Media | TechCrunch September 15, 2013
The simplified Hartle-Hawking model gives one possible scenario for the universe tocome about naturally. In this picture, another universe existed prior to ours that tunneledthrough the unphysical region around t= 0 to become our universe. Critics will argue thatwe have no way of observing such an earlier universe, and so this is not very scientific.
Microsoft Word - OriginArXiv.doc - 0710.3137.pdf September 15, 2013
مطابق با تاریخ فقه و کلام اسلامی، لفظ «ملحد»، هم برای کسانی که معتقداتِ اسلامی خود را فرو نهاده و به یکی دیگر از ادیان ابراهیمی نظیر مسیحیت و یهودیت گرویده، هم برای کسانی که قائل به تلقی خاصی از مفهوم توحید بوده و از «خداباوریِ مستقل از ادیان»[۴] و یا خدایِ وحدت وجودی سخن به میان آورده؛ و هم برای کسانی که از خداباوری عبور کرده و پای در وادی خداناباوری نهاده،استعمال شده است. حلاج به سببِ شطحیات و «اناالحق» گفتن و پرده برگرفتن از خدای وحدت وجودی، چنانکه در احوال باطنی خویش تجربه کرده بود، جان باخت؛[۵] محمد زکریای رازی به سببِ انکار مفهوم نبوت و اختیار کردنِ خداباوریِ مستقل از ادیان، ملحد انگاشته شد. بوعلی سینا نیز از سوی غزالی تکفیر شد؛ چرا که به نزد غزالی، اوصاف خدای فلسفیِ ابن سینا، با خدای اسلام مغایرت داشت.
جنبش راه سبز - «خداناباوری» به جای «الحاد»؟ September 14, 2013
Burning Man, the surreal celebration of fleeting beauty, self-reliance, generosity, and elaborate self-expression held every year in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.
WATCH: Burning Man 2013, as captured by drones - The Week September 14, 2013
while walking, upon catching your look, strangers may smile at you.
(43) How Americans Are Different: What facts about the United States do foreigners not believe until they come to America? - Quora September 14, 2013
A lot of couples adopt children, sometimes in spite of having their own, and treat them exactly like their own. (To me, this alone is a marker of a great people)
(43) How Americans Are Different: What facts about the United States do foreigners not believe until they come to America? - Quora September 14, 2013
I get that Fox opposes the Syria peace plan because its modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless, irrational contrarianism to Barack Obama and all things Democratic to advance its ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust and discontent is the manna upon which it sustains its parasitic, succubus like existence, BUT... sorry, I blacked out for a second I was saying something?
Jon Stewart Destroys Fox News Over Syria Coverage: 'Who Cares HOW We Avoided A War...' (VIDEO) September 11, 2013
I had a particularly wonderful breakfast at a modest café where the owner, who was very old but still swiftly shuttling between his stove and tables, brought me a warm loaf of nan-e barbari, a seeded loaf similar to Turkish pide, from a neighboring bakery, along with a plate of fresh feta-like cheese and tea. I was the only woman there that morning; the rest of the clients were as old as the café owner, and they were all sipping their tea through sugar cubes, as is done throughout Iran, and wrapping their cheese with folds of that delicious bread.
Iran: The Land of Bread and Spice | SAVEUR September 7, 2013
When I returned last year, I was struck by how life in Tehran is one of paradoxes: gray and drab on the outside and fun and even glamorous away from the authorities' watchful eyes.
Iran: The Land of Bread and Spice | SAVEUR September 7, 2013
Iranian cooking is legendary in the realm of Middle Eastern food, and many dishes across that part of the world can trace their roots to Persian precedents: For example, take Morocco's fragrant tagines, relatives of Iran's khoresht stews, or the sweet-tart savory dishes whose distinctive flavor is achieved by cooking meat with fresh or dried fruit, which originated in Persia during ancient times. Persians brought their cuisine to the Indian subcontinent in the Middle Ages, and to this day the Persian and Hindi names for many dishes are nearly identical.
Iran: The Land of Bread and Spice | SAVEUR September 7, 2013
وی افزود: مدارس سمپاد یا استعدادهای درخشان در شرایطی در کشور ما توسعه یافته که بر اساس استاندارهای آموزشی دانش آموزان تیز هوش یک به ده هزار است و این توسعه مدارس با استانداردهای جهانی سازگاری ندارد. وی ادامه داد: امسال هیچ تغییری در بحث مدارس استعدادهای درخشان نخواهیم داشت اما به محز اعلام نتایج این پژوهش اصلاحات را انجام خواهیم داد از سوی دیگر با توسعه مدارس سمپاد فشار به مدارس غیردولتی وارد شد.
خبرگزاری مهر :: Mehr News Agency - تعطیلی پنج شنبه های مدارس پابرجاست/ کسری بودجه آموزش و پرورش میراث دولت قبلی September 7, 2013
