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.read...
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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...
read moreGet-out-the-vote campaigns matter, which is why U.S. political parties encourage those in their tribe to vote by mail long before any controversies can change their mind. Voting is so predictable that about six percent of voters actually decide the election.Passion motivates, and that is shown by a new survey result which claims that undecided voters are also less likely to vote at all. Either...
read moreAstrology is one of those things that makes no sense to literate people. The position of stars a billion light-years away determined your personality, but if you are in the eastern world that personality could be completely different than if you were born 2000 miles west? See: I was a Virgo this morning, now I am a Leo! I totally feel different.read...
read moreSuicide is the runaway leader in gun deaths in the United States and a new demography paper says more government control of the alcohol business might provide a solution for that, and homicides also.This was a statistical analysis, so only EXPLORATORY, but they correlate more restrictive alcohol laws with a reduction in specific states’ homicide rates. The authors at RAND used the Alcohol...
read moreThere is populist rhetoric about Buy Local but what few in the public realize is that the definition is subjective. Restaurants in Manhattan often claim they buy local, but in the fine print it reads 'when available', and they don't tell you when it was not locally available, and local to them may be up to 500 miles away.read...
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