Archive for October 31st, 2013

Go Pods!

Thursday, October 31st, 2013

I was looking at my “Squid” tag the other day (no, really, I am not making this up) and thinking “I don’t use this tag nearly enough”.

Well, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI for short) has their own YouTube channel. And they have a tradition of posting themed videos for Halloween.

This year’s video is “Spooky Eyes”, and it is chock-full of squidly goodness. (There are also some non-squid creatures in it.)

I also kind of like the music in this video. It sounds a little like a toy piano or maybe a child’s keyboard. The title of the piece is “Halloween Sputnik” by Richard Desilets, in case it catches your ear as well.

There’s a playlist of MBARI’s other Halloween themed videos, including “Big Teeth” and “Predators and Scavengers”.

And if you don’t want to watch the video, the LAT has a slideshow based on it.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Squid | 2 Comments »

Texas flood.

Thursday, October 31st, 2013

It rained pretty hard last night. The Lower Colorado River Authority actually opened floodgates on Tom Miller Dam, which caused Lady Bird Lake to rise like excessively yeasted bread dough.

Reagan Hackleman, who used to work for KXAN and is a freelance photographer, went out and got some photos.

His gallery is here. I won’t even hotlink; just go over and look at the photos, especially that first one.

Posted in Clippings, Photography | 2 Comments »

Bad Idea Jeans.

Thursday, October 31st, 2013

Scentee, a Japanese tech brand, has created a product that attaches to your smartphone and releases a scent. The plug-in accessory fits into the headphone socket of a smartphone (iPhone and Android). The device works with a companion app that tells it to spray a burst of fragrance into the air when you receive a message.

Available scents are claimed to include:

…rose, mint, curry, jasmine, cinnamon roll, lavender, apple, strawberry, ylang-ylang (a fragrant flower), coconut, and if you remember the fried corn soup fritters at KFC Japan from earlier this year, the corn soup scent should come as no surprise. There’s also a limited-edition Korean BBQ collection with two meat scents and baked potato. A bacon scent is in the works.

Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it in action. But even if this does turn out to be real, and not a hoax, I still think it is a damn stupid idea. (Anyone remember the iSmell?)

Also:

Almost as cool as making the theme song to “The Wire” (the Season 5 version) your ringtone … almost.

Oh, bullshit. Everyone knows the Season 1 version (with the Blind Boys of Alabama) is the best version.

Edited to add: I have been challenged to provide support for the above statement.

Here’s a handy page that contains YouTube versions of the theme song from all five seasons.

Posted in Android, Apple, Clippings, Geek, Stupid | Comments Closed

Big dismal science.

Thursday, October 31st, 2013

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Dean Karlan lives in New Haven, Connecticut. He gets a lot of trick-or-treaters in his neighborhood: “Residents say the area’s popularity is because the houses are so close together, minimizing the door-to-door travel time for trick-or-treaters.”

Dr. Karlan is also a behavioral economist. So why not combine the two and do science experiments on children?

Last year’s study found that 38% of kids 9 and older who saw a poster of First Lady Michelle Obama chose fruit instead of candy — twice as many as those who made that choice after seeing Ann Romney, wife of 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The study indicated that the first lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign, promoting healthy living for children, appeared to be reaching its target audience.

In other experiments, Karlan has found that the more generic the costume is, the more likely it is that the child will choose a see-through bag with candy in it over a non-transparent bag. Karlan has also found that…

…older children would change their stated political party loyalty if it meant getting a little more candy. Younger children, however, could not be bribed, and remained steadfast.

I’d like to see a follow-up to this experiment where children get equal amounts of candy, but those who identify as Democrats have more of their candy confiscated by the researchers.

This year, the study aims to test whether some children are inherently planners — whether they planned their costume ahead of time or procrastinated until the last minute, and whether they have a plan for how they will eat their candy. They’ll weigh their answers against whether kids choose fruit or give into the easy temptation of candy.

One more thing I’d like to know: why isn’t Dubner interviewing Karlan, instead of doing a re-run this week? With all due respect, guys, it seems like you’ve been doing a lot of re-runs recently, and that doesn’t really motivate me to give you money.

(This also reminds me that my youngest niece has gotten to the age where I can start doing science experiments on with her. She’s still a little young for the economics based ones, though.)

Posted in Clippings, Economics, Geek, Sarcasm | Comments Closed