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Two Fewer Almonds: That’s All You Need To Prevent Weight Gain

Posted by on Jan 24, 2025 in Psychology | Comments Off on Two Fewer Almonds: That’s All You Need To Prevent Weight Gain

When people see labels or menus listing the calories in their food, it doesn't change their consumption in any way beyond what experts call "statistical wobble." About two fewer almonds worth of calories per meal. But two almonds over time can add up to a lot.

That's the conclusion in the data of a systematic review by The Cochrane Collaboration. The team of academics reviewed 25 papers which discussed the impact of calorie labeling on consumption and found a minute reduction in the foods selected - about 11 calories.

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Brits Associate Accents With Crime But Trust Scottish Accents Most

Posted by on Jan 23, 2025 in Psychology | Comments Off on Brits Associate Accents With Crime But Trust Scottish Accents Most

With Burns Night this weekend,  Scotland will celebrate its heritage. In the First Among Equals country to the south that controls them, Scottish accents used to mean trouble. Now, it is the sound of safety for both English men and women.

A new study finds that the English, even some Welsh and Scottish, associate a "working-class" accent with criminal behavior. In a jury trial, that could have serious ramifications, but it likely also matters before that. Arrests and voice identification, for example. You're more likely to be one of The Usual Suspects(1) if your accent is criminal.

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The Toxic Masculinity Of Disney Movies

Posted by on Nov 19, 2024 in Anthropology | Comments Off on The Toxic Masculinity Of Disney Movies

Once upon a time, stories were just stories. They were fantasies that took people to a new world. 

In the 21st century, cultural pundits insisted that books, films, video games and television shape our personalities. It began in the 1980s when Democrats wanted to censor lyrics in music, and then video games in the 1990s, and then smoking and guns out of films, and now they ban books by everyone from Hemingway to Chaucer to protect us from being poisoned by content not institutionally controlled.(1)

First they came for the Disney princesses, and I said nothing, because I am not a girl...

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AI And The Poetry Problem

Posted by on Nov 18, 2024 in Technology | Comments Off on AI And The Poetry Problem

Artificial Intelligence is artificial, but it is not intelligence. That could change some day but it isn't happening soon, Large Language Models are fine for a few things but limited in most. That is why Ben Affleck can talk in a hurry and assure fellow film creatives that their jobs are safe. LLMs can't write a great script.


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Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela – The Secret History Of Organized Crime In 1343

Posted by on Nov 12, 2024 in Science History | Comments Off on Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela – The Secret History Of Organized Crime In 1343

Italy as we know it today had not been such since the days of the Roman Empire. You can see that last remnant today in the existence of The Vatican smack in the middle of Rome but at one point they held a substantial amount of territory. 

Like Americans, Italians are inherently rebellious. If you are on a plane flight and a flight attendant complains about someone smoking a cigarette, savvy travelers know it's an Italian in the bathroom. It is part of the reason Americans love Italian people. Unlike Americans, Italians had to fight not only each other for over a thousand years, they had to fend off French and Germans and even Africans.

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Thanksgiving Science: Did COVID-19 Revive Family Dinners?

Posted by on Nov 1, 2024 in Psychology | Comments Off on Thanksgiving Science: Did COVID-19 Revive Family Dinners?

If cultural pundits can invent an Anthropocene Epoch then a Digital Epoch makes even more sense. In 2000, only in Japan did you see people on trains four inches from other humans chatting other humans on other trains, most of whom they'd never meet. Now that is everyone in the developed world.

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Halloween Horror Science: Are Chickens That Learn A Bigger Threat To Us Than AI?

Posted by on Oct 30, 2024 in Psychology | Comments Off on Halloween Horror Science: Are Chickens That Learn A Bigger Threat To Us Than AI?

Halloween Horror Science: Are Chickens That Learn A Bigger Threat To Us Than AI?
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) vegetarian advocacy group has a paper out arguing that common broiler chickens not only learn more than the obvious, like which bowl has food, they get happier learning. 

Their marketing of the paper suggests they know who their key demographic is; middle-aged wealthy white women. And if you want them, you invoke "The Gilmore Girls", a show about a genius single mother with an equally intelligent daughter and they are best friends and talk really fast and use a lot of Proust references.


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Ignore Critics, Gen Z, We Weren’t Smarter In 1984

Posted by on Oct 18, 2024 in Random Thoughts | Comments Off on Ignore Critics, Gen Z, We Weren’t Smarter In 1984

It's commonplace for older generations to criticize the young. In my early career, an older fellow told me he wouldn't hire anyone who didn't know how to use a slide rule. Another only a decade older than me said he only wanted to work with people who had built their own crystal radio or some equivalent.

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Taking The Book Of The Dead To Heart

Posted by on Oct 16, 2024 in Public Health | Comments Off on Taking The Book Of The Dead To Heart

In ancient Egypt, the heart was the key to a happy afterlife. It lived on after death, they believed, and in the Duat, the Netherworld, it revealed a truth man's words could not hide.

The 42 gathered gods would measure the heart and if it weighed more than the Feather of Truth which adorned the head of Maat, their Goddess of Justice, Order, and Truth, it was consumed by the Goddess Ammit, Devourer of the Dead, who had the body of a crocodile, a lion, and a hippopotamus, and you were gone from existence forever.

People had a lot of ways to get heavy hearts. Theft, anger, even eavesdropping added weight

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American CO2 Is Below War War II Levels But We Keep Emissions High In Poor Countries

Posted by on Oct 16, 2024 in Energy | Comments Off on American CO2 Is Below War War II Levels But We Keep Emissions High In Poor Countries

In politics, one way to make your belief in alternative energy seem feasible is to make its competitors expensive. President Obama did that when he began to subsidize the domestic solar energy industry at unprecedented levels.(1) He brought in Dr. Stephen Chu, who had advocated $9-a-gallon gasoline, from inside his high-paying job in academia to be in charge of energy policy for Democrats. He was right in his agenda, solar could be feasible if its conventional energy competitors were forced to be 300% more expensive.

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