February 2012
66 posts
“Neuroscientists are novices at deception. Magicians have done controlled testing...”
– Teller Reveals His Secrets | Smithsonian Magazine
Amazon's Hit Man →
And now this. Amazon could be an unstoppable competitor to big publishing houses. If history is any guide, Bezos, who declined to comment for this story, doesn’t care whether he loses money on books for the larger cause of stocking the Kindle with exclusive content unavailable in Barnes & Noble’s Nook or Apple’s iBookstores. He’s also got almost infinitely deep pockets for spending on...
I have a theory that the number one reason most doctors don’t email their patients is this: they can’t type well.
Caffeinated Gum
Why was I not previously informed that caffeinated gum exists?
“You will be fooled by a trick if it involves more time, money and practice than...”
– Teller Reveals His Secrets, Smithsonian Magazine
How to Sell Your Excess Stuff for Cash with... →
The name of the program is Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Although it is designed to let sellers with high inventory have sales, shipping, and customer support handled entirely by Amazon, you can use it too. The primary advantage of using the FBA program is convenience. You basically dump your crap in a box, tell Amazon what’s inside of that box, print out a shipping label, and schedule a pickup...
Who Can Profit from Selling 1-Cent Books on... →
What do you call a thriving marketplace of robots buying nonexistent books from other robots for millions of dollars?
Apparently, Amazon.com.
Google Reader’s “sort by magic” was an overlooked gem, but Flipboard’s “cover stories” is even better.
2 tags
“What is the correct style? Dark Side of the Force vs dark side of the Force vs...”
– @steverubel
ACC launches texting program to prevent and manage... →
imedicalapps.com
by Tim Bredrup The American College of Cardiology (ACC) recently launched CardioSmartTXT™, a free texting program to prevent and manage cardiovascular disease. CardioSmartTXT will provide support, information,…
Informal Curriculum: Lesson 2. – In White Ink →
When I first meet patients, my preamble goes something like this:
Hi. My name is Dr. Yang and I work as a psychiatrist. We have about 45 minutes together. I’ll be asking you a lot of questions, some of which might make you wonder, “Why is she asking me that?” If you find me interrupting you, I’m not trying to be rude; I just want to make sure I get the right information.
2 tags
“Bits Blog: Google to Sell Heads-Up Display Glasses by Year’s End...”
– @nytimestech
2 tags
“Currently I am the traveling dad holding his laptop to the window so his son...”
– @torrez
1 tag
Full Spectrum Reading List: 7 Great Books by TED... →
Anatomy of introversion, inside the brain’s optimism bias, and a blueprint for doomsday from PC Guy.
3 Ways to Visualize David Foster Wallace's... →
David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, a favorite book of many, is the kind of genre-bender that will thwart your mind with its convoluted narrative, plethora of allusions and cultural references, and multilateral connections between the characters. Navigating its maze of relationships and 400 footnotes could drive even the most seasoned literary disentanglers up the reading room wall.
Hypercritical: Pasta →
This may all sound crazy—warm bowls? really?—but trust me, it makes a difference. Putting hot, freshly sauced pasta into a massive, cold, ceramic dish will instantly suck the life out of it. Warm bowls. Seriously.
How Companies Learn Your Secrets →
About a year after Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry, according to an employee who participated in the conversation.
“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons...
2 tags
“In the middle of a play date, my 7yo goes on these unprovoked operatic extended...”
– @zeldman
How to optimize your caffeine intake →
Two doctors at Penn State University have developed Caffeine Zone, a free iOS app that tells you the perfect time to take a coffee break to maintain an optimal amount of caffeine in your blood — and, perhaps more importantly, it also tells you when to stop drinking tea and coffee, so that caffeine doesn’t interrupt your sleep.
The Truly Staggering Cost Of Inventing New Drugs →
During the Super Bowl, a representative of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly posted the on the company’s corporate blog that the average cost of bringing a new drug to market is $1.3 billion, a price that would buy 371 Super Bowl ads, 16 million official NFL footballs, two pro football stadiums, pay of almost all NFL football players, and every seat in every NFL stadium for six weeks in a...
CONSTANT SIEGE - William Shatner auctioned a... →
“I synthesized uric acid and calcium inside my bladder and turned it into a house for Habitat for Humanity. Who’s the warlock now?” - Shatner to Charlie Sheen
1 tag
Introducing Playfic →
East of the Garden is the Gazebo. Above is the Treehouse. A billiards table is in the Gazebo. On it is a trophy cup. A starting pistol is in the cup. In the Treehouse is a container called a cardboard box.
Type that into Playfic, and you end up with this simple game, ready to send to the world.
Mountain Lion →
daringfireball.net
“We’re starting to do some things differently,” Phil Schiller said to me. We were sitting in a comfortable hotel suite in Manhattan just over a week ago. I’d been summoned a few days earlier by Apple PR with the offer of a private…
Messages replaces iChat, public beta available... →
Dave Caolo, tuaw.com
Apple on Thursday released a public beta of Messages, its next-generation messaging app for the Mac that will be a part of Mac OS X Mountain Lion. It lets you send and receive iMessages, just like iOS devices running iOS 5. Now you can “te…
“Finally.”
2 tags
“Surprise! OS X Mountain Lion Roars Into Existence (For Developers Today,...”
– @parislemon
Lighting Tips →
As a general note, when I compose a scene I like to think of the potential photograph as a game: I attribute a plus, neutral or minus to various elements in a scene. My goal is to eliminate the minuses and accentuate the positives. The neutrals are just there because they have to be there. I use my shooting position, focal length and shooting angle as my variables to get all of the best pluses...