Human Interest

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Behavioral Game Design / How you get addicted to games

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

This article is a general primer on how to get players to continuously play your game, which in the world of the MMPORG is a very important element, using a behavioural model.

Gamasutra – Features – Behavioral Game Design.

This article is a bit more cynical and compares the above techniques to addiction creation and illustrates the theory with specific examples from World of Warcraft.

Cracked – 5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted

IDUMP4U – dump your girl/boy friend

Monday, March 8th, 2010

This guy will dump your girlfriend or boyfriend for a small fee  by phone. He records the call and then puts it on YouTube for the world to hear.

IDUMP4U the website where we do all the dirty work for you!.

Be lucky – it’s an easy skill to learn

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

I wondered whether these four principles could be used to increase the amount of good luck that people encounter in their lives. To find out I created a “luck school” – a simple experiment that examined whether people s luck can be enhanced by getting them to think and behave like a lucky person.

I asked a group of lucky and unlucky volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities listen to their intuition expect to be lucky and be more resilient to bad luck.

One month later the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic 80 per cent of people were now happier more satisfied with their lives and perhaps most important of all luckier. While lucky people became luckier the unlucky had become lucky. Take Carolyn whom I introduced at the start of this article. After graduating from “luck school” she has passed her driving test after three years of trying was no longer accident-prone and became more confident.

via Be lucky – it’s an easy skill to learn – Telegraph.

WWF finds vegetarianism is bad for the environment

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Aside from vegetarians killing more animals than meat eaters (sounds strange? Consider how much random killing a combine harvester does), they are also worse for the environment as they require more arable land and the processing of  the foods creates way more greenhouse gasses.

Being vegetarian does more harm to the environment than eating meat | Mail Online.

How to brag

Monday, January 18th, 2010

It turns out that it is ok to brag, but only if the subject you are bragging about is brought up by another party in the conversation.

BPS RESEARCH DIGEST: How to brag.

British Airwars treats men like paedophiles

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

BA has implemented a policy whereby children are not allowed to sit next to men they don’t know. Flight attendants patrol the aisles and if they find a strange man they start shouting if he doesn’t want to change places. Not only is it sexist, it’s also extremely rude and embarrasing for the passenger.

Mirko Fischer had this happen to him when he was sitting next to his pregnant wife and has had enough, so he’s suing BA.

Bizarrely, BA can’t see the idiocy in their policy and won’t issue statements.

Businessman Mirko Fischer sues British Airwars ‘for treating men like perverts’ | Mail Online.

Dutch online court

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

This court is legal and runs entirely through the internet, meaning it’s cheaper, fixed price and can dispense justice a whole lot faster than the regular courts.

e-Court – De Eerste Nederlandse Online Rechtbank.

El Dorado Found

Monday, January 11th, 2010

It turns out that you can use Google Earth to find whole civilisations in places that people have always thought could never be inhabited by large groups of people. The City of Z or El Dorado has been found this way, it will take archaologists decades to clear it and view it all.

Google Earth helps find El Dorado – Times Online.

Smacked children more successful later in life

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

But only if you lightly smack them, and you really should stop smacking them after the age of 6 – 11.

Smacked children more successful later in life, study finds – Telegraph.

Women can’t park

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

A female scientist was fed up of hearing comments on the parking abilities of women and found that not only do they take 20 seconds longer on average to park, they’re 5% worse at it than men.

Men really ARE better at parking… and that’s a woman professor talking | Mail Online.

Thought control: now with letters

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

Using ECoG (electrocorticography) and overlaying electrodes directly on the surface of the brain, scientists can record reactions when letters are flashed on a screen and then play back the letters when that thought pattern is brought up. It’s around 8 letters per minute, but it’s something.

There’s also a piece where they translate thought patterns into music. An interesting article.

By Thought Alone: Mind Over Keyboard | h+ Magazine.

Insurgent Attacks Follow Mathematical Pattern

Monday, December 21st, 2009

It turns out that there is a universal human method for doing insurgency, when it comes down to the number of casualties and the timing of events. This pattern is distinct and is based on an approximate power law.

Slashdot Science Story | Insurgent Attacks Follow Mathematical Pattern.

US goes mind control crazy

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

First this story: a guy has been sentenced to probation, where the officer gets to spend the next three years deciding if and who he’s allowed to date

Wis. teen will need legal permission to date girls – wtop.com.

And then we have this story where US soldiers are threatened with jail time if they impregnate or are impregnated.

WTF?

All men watch porn

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Prof Lajeunesse interviewed 20 heterosexual male university students who consumed pornography, and found on average, they first watched pornography when they were 10 years old.

Around 90 per cent of consumption was on the internet, while 10 per cent of material came from video stores.

Single men watched pornography for an average of 40 minutes, three times a week, while those in relationships watched it 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes.

The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.

Prof Lajeunesse said pornography did not have a negative effect on men’s sexuality.

“Not one subject had a pathological sexuality,” he said. “In fact, all of their sexual practices were quite conventional.

“Pornography hasn’t changed their perception of women or their relationship, which they all want to be as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,” he added.

via All men watch porn, scientists find – Telegraph.

Belle de Jour is a science nerd

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

After many years, book deals and a ITV series, Belle de Jour reveals her identity,

Her name is Dr Brooke Magnanti. Her specialist areas are developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology. She has a PhD in informatics, epidemiology and forensic science and is now working at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health. She is part of a team researching the effects of exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos on foetuses and infants.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6917495.ece

Freedom Leg: crutch alternative

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Finally an alternative for the crutch! The freedom leg (crummy name) offloads your weight onto its’ structure allowing you to walk vaguely like a normal human whilst not having to kill off the use of an arm.

Freedom Leg In Action.

Clean Smells Promote Moral Behavior

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

These guys put some people through some basic trust experiments and it turns out that people who are in a recently windex-ed room behave far more morally and are much less likely to exploit other people.

Clean Smells Promote Moral Behavior, Study Suggests.

Evolving swarm intelligence in robots

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

The Lausanne university in Switserland has moved from the software to the reality: they’ve managed to get robots to evolve and learn behaviours, as well as the behaviour to decieve and cooperate through communication (flashing lights) and movement. It’ s a very interesting experiment, showing that robots are getting smarter every day and are now showing some very very lifelike traits.

Darwin’s Robots | h+ Magazine.

Raise the speed limit!

Friday, October 9th, 2009

As an example, Peterson pointed to changes made along a section of Interstate 496 outside of Lansing, which accounted for 40 percent of reported incidents of aggressive driving in that area. When the speed limit was raised from 55 mph to 70 mph, incidents of aggressive driving dropped to zero.

“The low speed limit frustrated many drivers, so they drove over the speed limit. This caused problems for other drivers who were driving at the limit. The speed differential caused the tailgating, passing, and speeding that were reported as ‘aggressive’ driving,” Peterson said.

His data also showed accident rates in that area also fell when the speed limit was raised.

Surprisingly, the higher speed limit also improved traffic flow, nearly eliminating all symptoms of rush hour congestion along that stretch.

via Road rage’s causes and prevalence debatable | detnews.com | The Detroit News.

85% of Mac users own a PC

Friday, October 9th, 2009

Which goes to show – it’s the Ipod / Iphone which is floating the Apple. Nope, Macs just suck and their fanboy users are a teeny tiny minority. And the rest of the I-Have-A-Mac smug bastards are hypocrites. You wouldn’t need a PC if your Mac was so perfect, now would you, mister I’m a Mac.

85% of Mac users own a PC | News | PC Pro.

NATO’s Strategic Concept

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

NATO is looking towards the citizens of the alliance to contribute to a new understanding of NATO’s role and methodology. The new strategic concept is yet to be written and comments posted on their forum are fed to a panel of experts, who will have a hand in writing the new concept.

NATO’s Strategic Concept – Forum.

Parents lie to kids more often than they realize

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Yet another study showing how often and easily we lie, specifically to our kids.

Parents lie to kids more often than they realize – Behavior- msnbc.com.

Know about North

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

This is an interesting  article about someone who wore a North Paw (available as kit or with DIY instructions here for a while.

The North Paw is an ankle bracelet that continuously signals where North is by vibrating in that direction. Apparently this leads to some interesting results.

via My New Sense Organ | h+ Magazine.

Japan has train groping

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

As an organised activity: websites tell you which lines are particularly good for groping fellow passengers on.

Travellers warned of Tokyo train gropers | Travel News | News.com.au.

Natural breast enlargement

Monday, September 14th, 2009

This one is so obvious, it’s incredible it hasn’t been done before: take the fat from a woman’s arse and insert into tits. Voila! Completely natural bigger breasts!

The Press Association: Unwanted fat for breast enlargement.