Crazy On Tap - Weight Training for confidence building

Crazy On Tap - Weight Training for confidence building: "Social niche selection begins in adolescence. Is she going to be the smart one? The pretty one? The polite one? The wild one? The jockette? The nurturing one? The arty one? The socialite? etc. Each of these has its advantages and drawbacks. Yet deciding as early as possible has its advantage too - it reduces analysis paralysis and the cost of keeping your options open.

That's the plan for most people. Polymaths can delay a few extra years. Geniuses into their middle age. But most folks look around (not-consciously, of course) and see where their resources are best spent and focus and specialize (thanks, Adam Smith). Focus is everything, motivaional speakers tell us. Imagine if our brains do it without asking us for permission.

Basically just restating sharkfish's 'Body confidence and nerd confidence are very different things.'

If she get all her confidence from her body at age 12, she will depend on her body for her confidence when she's grown up, too. That can be tricky."

Crazy On Tap - I hate this

Crazy On Tap - I hate this: "I think there's a special brand of sofabed called the Adult Children's Special. It has a bar especially engineered to become uncomfortable after a few days so that they don't stay /too/ long."

Crazy On Tap - Another noble sport ruined by panty-twisters

Crazy On Tap - Another noble sport ruined by panty-twisters: "If there was nothing for people to get morally indignant about, they'd have to invent something."

Crazy On Tap - The Economy Trends Explained

Crazy On Tap - The Economy Trends Explained: "I think inflation is psychologically necessary. Employers can reduce their employees' real wages (which is an economic necessity) without the psychological pain of actually reducing their nominal wages (or firing them)."

Why some men are more aggressive than others - Men's Health - MSNBC.com

Why some men are more aggressive than others - Men's Health - MSNBC.com: "This form of the MAOA gene, referred to as “low activity,” was associated with aggressive behavior only in men who were cynical and hostile toward others and among those with poorly educated fathers. In contrast, men with the low activity MAOA gene who were not cynical or hostile or whose fathers had at least graduated from high school were no more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior than those with the high-activity form of the gene, study findings indicate.

In other findings, differences in the serotonin 2A receptor, another serotonin gene, were also associated with a higher level of aggressiveness in men. Again, increased aggression was only apparent among men whose fathers had not completed high school. The subjects’ educational level did not appear to be related to their behavior."

How to write a hit article. By Jack Shafer

How to write a hit article. By Jack Shafer: "The Shamu story establishes once and for all that men are the new women. You can now use the New York Times to write the most dehumanizing and insulting shit about them and everybody will laugh in recognition."

Paris Hilton, Anti-Hero - She finds a niche in a crowded field of divas. By Jody Rosen

Paris Hilton, Anti-Hero - She finds a niche in a crowded field of divas. By Jody Rosen: "These days, the emotional range of a male performer is radically circumscribed: Rappers are slick trash-talkers and brutes, emo rockers are sensitive and aggrieved, R&B singers are lotharios. But pop's female superstars recognize no limits, playing all these roles and a dozen others, often in the course of a single torrid love song, all the while executing tricky dance steps with bared midriffs glistening beneath whirling strobe lights."

Crazy On Tap - If the housing bubble bursts...

Crazy On Tap - If the housing bubble bursts...: "Look around the 'hood. The less diverse the work base (be it energy in Dubai, IT in Bangalore, manufacture in Tiangin, finance in London), the larger the volatility (and the larger the risk of significant decline).

Just like any other capital portfolio.
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July 18th, 2006 1:04pm
I guess a libertarian would snicker that government is the only exception to the above rule - DC's market keeps rising because the government industry is artificially insulated from boom/bust cycles."

Crazy On Tap - If the housing bubble bursts...

Crazy On Tap - If the housing bubble bursts...: "Yes, most housing stock flatlines (sometimes for many, many years) rather than falls. There's a psychological barrier to sell something below the nominal price one bought it at. This is even more pronounced for investments which are perceived as 'real' rather than 'investment' vehicles (as single family homes are).

The exceptions pretty much prove the rule - they occur in towns which are over-reliant on one or two industries and their boom/bust cycles - finance in NYC and San Fran (late 80's), energy in Houston, New Orleans and Denver (60's and 80's again), and vacation homes in beach communites everywhere."

Language Log: Compounding the insults

Language Log: Compounding the insults: "The great rhetorical achievement of the right, as I argue in the book, is to have reformulated distinctions of class as bogus differences in consumer culture. So it makes sense that conservatives should seize on the object+participle construction, whose function to turn activities into attributes -- politically speaking, that is, you are what you do (or more accurately, what you drive, drink, or otherwise consume). Whereas when people on the left are of a mind to make sweeping generalizations, they tend to draw the distinction characterologically rather than culturally, which is why they favor extended bahuvrihi compounds like narrow-minded, hard-hearted, and mean-spirited."

Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist

Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist: "'Is it essential to women's progress that women be indistinguishable from men?' Pinker asked. 'It confuses the issue of fairness with sameness. Let's say the data shows sex differences. Does it become okay to discriminate against women? The moral issue of treating individuals fairly should be kept separate from the empirical issues.'"

Crazy On Tap - Is it okay to retaliate nowadays?

Crazy On Tap - Is it okay to retaliate nowadays?: "Here's the thing. The strategy both Israelis and Palestinians were playing was Tit-for-Tat: do whatever the other guy does. If the other guy kills, then you kill. If the other guy plays nice, you play nice.

This is the game every two countries (and even individuals) play.

Unfortunately the functor or callback for the Israeli-Palestinian game was 'kill the other guy.' Then the Israelis pulled out of S Lebanon and last summer out of Gaza strip.

Some may see this breaking of the Tit-for-Tat cycle, as an unnatural or spiritual or 'God-inspired' act. But I think the Israelis made an exception because they were just too tired. Killing is not good for the killer - it wears you down (something suicide bombers don't have to worry about).

But here's the key ... this was a one time change of strategy. Israel is still playing by the Tit-for-Tat game. But by doing something unilaterally 'nice' it expected Hamas and Hezbollah to CONTINUE playing Tit-for-Tat too, that is, to repeat Israel's last action, that is, to play nice.

Instead Hamas and Hezbollah didn't repeat Israel's last action - they didn't renounce violence, they didn't stop shooting rockets into Israel, they didn't play nice.

Is it because it takes more than one act to re-polarize a game? Is it because human memory isn't so easily erased, but is an exponentially weighted sum of the past (one nice act doesn't outweigh the sins of 50 years)? Is it because Palestinian passion is being stoked by Arab (and Iranian and Pakistani) leaders as an excuse for local problems? Is it that Hamas and Hezbollah are addicted to the pity and the international attention - like some wife-beating victims?

With its current military actions, Israel is showing that it's still playing the Tit-for-Tat strategy. This is a good thing!

Because the other two strategies - be unconditionally aggressive, or be unconditionally passive - are instantiations of one absolutist and highly unstable strategy. Untethered to real world conditions, it doesn't take much to switch from total passivity to total aggression."

'Black Swan Green,' by David Mitchell - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'Black Swan Green,' by David Mitchell - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "Even Mitchell, who takes greater formal and intellectual risks than most of his contemporaries, has said, 'Ideas are well and good, but without characters to hang them on, fiction falls limp.' It's true that you don't care about a book like 'Cloud Atlas' chiefly because it manages to analyze a century and a half of exploitation in societies from Europe to the South Pacific. But as a reader, I don't want to be without the verbal play and inventiveness of the generation that came before Mitchell's. There has got to be a way to write fiction that pays attention to people at the same time that it represents the breadth and complexity of the kinds of societies we live in now."

Where Have All the Strivers Gone? - New York Times

Where Have All the Strivers Gone? - New York Times: "It's that literary fiction is defined, in part, by its distance from popular fiction. And a crucial aspect of our whole high-low cultural system is that high culture mustn't be created for worldly gain. Which is an especially touchy subject when it comes to the novel."

Where Have All the Strivers Gone? - New York Times

Where Have All the Strivers Gone? - New York Times: "One conjecture I've heard is that modern literary fiction is just following a course set earlier by Romanticism in poetry. Subjectivity moves to the foreground; conflict becomes interior. You're not striving to best your rivals in the big wide world; you're struggling to come to terms with the ghosts of your past or the discord of the authentic self. According to this theory, nobody writes literary novels about worldly advancement any longer for more or less the same reason that nobody writes poetry about charging brigades, light or otherwise."

'Chances Are . . . Adventures in Probability,' by Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan - The New York Times - Book Review - New York Times

'Chances Are . . . Adventures in Probability,' by Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan - The New York Times - Book Review - New York Times: "In the 17th century, governments took advantage of the average citizen's inability to assess probability by selling annuities, a type of insurance policy in which the buyer, in essence, bets that he will live longer than most other people. As with all casino bets, the house held an edge. The government possessed mortality statistics, regarded as state secrets, and used them to rig the odds. It also relied on basic psychology, 'the instinctive belief that everyone dies at an average age — except me.'"

'Earthly Powers,' by Michael Burleigh - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'Earthly Powers,' by Michael Burleigh - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "While 19th-century Protestant America was searching for God by immersing itself in the Bible, experiencing one Great Awakening after another, Europe entered an age of anxiety over the prospect of living in a disenchanted cosmos. Was modern man progressively recovering the powers he once projected onto gods, building for himself a fully human world?"

'Earthly Powers,' by Michael Burleigh - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'Earthly Powers,' by Michael Burleigh - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "contemporary Europe is the closest thing to a godless civilization the world has ever known. Does this place it in the vanguard of world history? That is what many Europeans think, which is why they have been caught off guard by the challenge of radical Islam even in their own backyard. They find it hard to believe that people can still take God seriously and want to shape society according to his dictates."

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What if...

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What if...: "The philosophical puzzle is this: Why is it acceptable to sacrifice the one person in The Runaway Trolley Car but not in The Fat Man case? Can it ever be morally acceptable to kill an innocent person if that is the only way to save many? Should some actions - such as deliberately killing innocent people against their wishes - never be done?"

'High Lonesome: New & Selected Stories 1966-2006,' by Joyce Carol Oates - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'High Lonesome: New & Selected Stories 1966-2006,' by Joyce Carol Oates - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "For those of us who have stood before bookstore shelves lined with Joyce Carol Oates volumes, paralyzed with awe, wondering which of her more than 100 books we should open first, 'High Lonesome,' a new collection of 36 stories written between 1966 and 2006, is a welcome addition."

'No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality,' by Judith Rich Harris - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality,' by Judith Rich Harris - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "the evolutionary logic that makes us different from one another will gradually make us different from ourselves, context by context. Personality — behavior that is 'consistent across time and place,' as one textbook puts it — will fade."

'No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality,' by Judith Rich Harris - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality,' by Judith Rich Harris - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "From this evolutionary logic, Harris builds a theory of personality based on three systems in our brains. The socialization system absorbs language, customs and skills, making us more alike. Mommy and Grandma wear dresses; you're a girl, so you want a dress too. The relationship system distinguishes people so we can deal with each one appropriately. Crying gets milk from Mommy but not Grandma; Billy is gentle, but Bobby hits people. Even random differences are important: Anne helped you with your homework, but her twin sister owes you a dollar. You find ways to tell people apart because you have to."

Your socialization system figures out how to conform to your group. Your relationship system figures out how to get along with each person. Your status system figures out how to compete. It monitors people's reactions, gathering information about how smart, pretty, weak or talented they think you are. It looks for virtues, activities and occupations at which you're most likely to best your peers. It notices tiny differences between the way people regard you and the way they regard others in your peer group, or even your twin. By choosing pursuits based on these differences, it magnifies them. It drives you to be different.

'No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality,' by Judith Rich Harris - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality,' by Judith Rich Harris - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "When parents have an accent but most of the neighborhood doesn't, their children lose the accent. The village, not the family, prevails.

Why? Because that's what makes evolutionary sense. If your parents raise you poorly, Harris argues, you're better off diluting the damage. If they dote on you, you're better off adjusting to the tougher social world in which you'll have to find your way. Throughout most of human evolution, parents had little time for children old enough to run around. They learned from one another and from watching adults."

'No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality,' by Judith Rich Harris - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality,' by Judith Rich Harris - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "Does home environment — parenting style, marital harmony, the use or rejection of day care — shape a child's personality, making her more agreeable, less aggressive or more extroverted? Nope. Research shows that twins don't turn out more alike if they're raised together than if they're raised apart. Nor do adoptive siblings. And when you compare apples to apples — making sure that each parent-child unit in a study is as genetically related as any other — being raised in one home rather than another, on average, makes no difference."

'Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker,' by David Remnick - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker,' by David Remnick - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire,"

'Fair Trade for All,' by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'Fair Trade for All,' by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "When markets in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere are opened, people often can't move easily to new industries where the nation has a comparative advantage. Transportation systems that might get them there are often primitive, housing is inadequate and job training is scarce. They're vulnerable in the meantime because safety nets are weak or nonexistent. Most people lack access to credit or insurance because financial institutions are frail, so they're unable to start their own businesses or otherwise take advantage of new opportunities that trade might bring. Many poor countries are already plagued by high unemployment, and job losses in the newly traded sector might just add to it.

Hence, the authors argue, the pace at which poorer nations open their markets to trade should coincide with the development of new institutions — roads, schools, banks and the like — that make such transitions easier and generate real opportunities. Since many poor nations can't afford the investments required to build these institutions, rich nations have a responsibility to help."

'The Possibility of an Island,' by Michel Houellebecq - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'The Possibility of an Island,' by Michel Houellebecq - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "In the English lad novel, the raffish cad learns to accept normal human limitations and eventually grows up. In the French lad novel, he not only refuses to grow up, he begets an entire anticivilization."

The Chick-Lit Pandemic - New York Times

The Chick-Lit Pandemic - New York Times: "In the new order — where both feminism and social consciousness are considered a relic of Communism — the line between independence and self-centeredness can be blurry."

'The White Man's Burden,' by William Easterly - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'The White Man's Burden,' by William Easterly - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "He contrasts the traditional 'Planner' approach of most aid projects with the 'Searcher' approach that works so well in the markets and democracies of the West. Searchers treat problem-solving as an incremental discovery process, relying on competition and feedback to figure out what works.

'A Planner thinks he already knows the answers,' Easterly writes. 'A Searcher admits he doesn't know the answers in advance; he believes that poverty is a complicated tangle of political, social, historical, institutional and technological factors.' Planners trust outside experts. Searchers emphasize homegrown solutions."

'The White Man's Burden,' by William Easterly - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'The White Man's Burden,' by William Easterly - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "The second, he says, 'is the tragedy in which the West spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last five decades and still had not managed to get 12-cent medicines to children to prevent half of all malaria deaths. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $4 bed nets to poor families. The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $3 to each new mother to prevent five million child deaths.' The West is not stingy. It is ineffective."

'The White Man's Burden,' by William Easterly - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

'The White Man's Burden,' by William Easterly - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times: "The program, Easterly reports, has 'increased the nationwide average of children under 5 sleeping under nets from 8 percent in 2000 to 55 percent in 2004. . . . A follow-up survey found nearly universal use of the nets by those who paid for them.' By contrast, when a Zambian program handed out free nets, '70 percent of the recipients didn't use' them. Charging for nets may sound hardhearted, but prices provide vital information about commitment."

Are We Having a Conversation Yet? An Art Form Evolves - New York Times

Are We Having a Conversation Yet? An Art Form Evolves - New York Times: "Cicero gave advice about conversation (It ought 'to be gentle and without a trace of intransigence; it should also be witty'). Montaigne hailed its pleasures ('I find the practice of it the most delightful activity in our lives'). Henry Fielding praised it ('This grand Business of our Lives, the Foundation of every Thing, either useful or pleasant'). Adam Smith prescribed it (calling it one of 'the most powerful remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquillity').

There were also those who opposed it, or at least strongly declared other preferences. Rousseau sneered at the chatter in French salons. Wordsworth preferred nature and solitude. The writers of Romanticism shifted the emphasis, preferring to share feelings and perceptions rather than honor conversation for its own sake. Conversation became confessional — which in many ways, it still is. 'Modern writers,' Mr. Miller suggests, 'tend to dwell on the emotional rewards that come from conversation.'"

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Crazy On Tap - Dating lowers my self-esteem: "I just got out of a relationship where my girlfriend was constantly accusing me of cheating on her, and bring up times when we were ACTUALLY TOGETHER."

Flesh Trade - New York Times

Flesh Trade - New York Times: "Alvin Roth, a Harvard economist who studies the design of markets, has done a lot of thinking about repugnance. On some issues, he notes, repugnance will recede, as with life insurance — or, even more momentously, the practice of charging interest on loans. In other cases, the reverse happens: a once-accepted behavior like slaveholding comes to be seen as repugnant."

The Bride Price - New York Times

The Bride Price - New York Times: "Rather than a willing union between a man and woman, marriage is frequently a transaction among families, and the younger the bride, the higher the price she may fetch. Girls are valuable workers in a land where survival is scratched from the grudging soil of a half-acre parcel. In her parents' home, a girl can till fields, tend livestock and cook meals. In her husband's home, she is more useful yet. She can have sex and bear children."

On Point : Sonya Kitchell - Sonya Kitchell

On Point : Sonya Kitchell - Sonya Kitchell: "Sonya Kitchell grew up absorbing the great folk and blues artists of her parents' generation. She's already recorded a first album, and developed her own soulful style of singing and writing that belie her youth."

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage - New York Times

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage - New York Times: "Rather than teach the cranes to stop landing on him, the trainer taught the birds something else, a behavior that would make the undesirable behavior impossible. The birds couldn't alight on the mats and his head simultaneously.

At home, I came up with incompatible behaviors for Scott to keep him from crowding me while I cooked. To lure him away from the stove, I piled up parsley for him to chop or cheese for him to grate at the other end of the kitchen island. Or I'd set out a bowl of chips and salsa across the room. Soon I'd done it: no more Scott hovering around me while I cooked.

I followed the students to SeaWorld San Diego, where a dolphin trainer introduced me to least reinforcing syndrome (L. R. S.). When a dolphin does something wrong, the trainer doesn't respond in any way. He stands still for a few beats, careful not to look at the dolphin, and then returns to work. The idea is that any response, positive or negative, fuels a behavior. If a behavior provokes no response, it typically dies away.

In the margins of my notes I wrote, 'Try on Scott!'

It was only a matter of time before he was again tearing around the house searching for his keys, at which point I said nothing and kept at what I was doing. It took a lot of discipline to maintain my calm, but results were immediate and stunning. His temper fell far shy of its usual pitch and then waned like a fast-moving storm. I felt as if I should throw him a mackerel."

At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust - New York Times

At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust - New York Times: "From the time they are young, boys are far more likely than girls to be suspended or expelled, or have a learning disability or emotional problem diagnosed. As teenagers, they are more likely to drop out of high school, commit suicide or be incarcerated. Such difficulties can have echoes even in college men."

When the Personality Disorder Wears Camouflage - New York Times

When the Personality Disorder Wears Camouflage - New York Times: "In this environment, people who have one diagnosis in particular — antisocial personality disorder — can often masquerade as bold, effective soldiers, psychiatrists argue. Antisocial behavior is characterized by reckless irresponsibility, habitual lying and an indifference to the suffering of others. In some reports Army officials have listed such a diagnosis as the reason for Mr. Green's discharge...

This is especially likely if they have a measure of charisma, of superficial charm, a glib talent for telling lies, criminologists say. These are hallmark traits of what some experts call psychopathy, a potent blend of antisocial instincts and grandiosity.."

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ricardo.htm

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ricardo.htm: "The secret to the popularity of certain mathematical modelers, I suspect, is that they are valued precisely because they seem to absolve intellectuals from the need to understand the models that underpin orthodox views. Hardly anyone tries to understand what the Santa Fe theorists are actually saying; it is the pose of opposition to received wisdom, together with the implication that in a complicated world you can't learn anything from simple models anyway, that is valued, because it seems to say that not knowing what's in the textbooks is OK."

Salon.com Life | Why am I obsessed with celebrity gossip?

Salon.com Life | Why am I obsessed with celebrity gossip?: "I would argue that gods and goddesses are only useful to us in our lives if they are not regarded consciously as gods and goddesses -- only if they are regarded as real. I would suggest that we cannot possibly regard the gods and goddesses of another age and culture the way members of that culture themselves regarded their gods and goddesses. I figure that the ancient Greeks and Romans regarded their gods and goddesses much as we regard our film stars. The minute we become conscious of worship, the worship dies. It loses its magical power. We become self-conscious."

New Scientist News - How cocaine hijacks the craving brain

New Scientist News - How cocaine hijacks the craving brain: "When 18 cocaine addicts watched a 40-minute movie that featured people buying and preparing a substance that looked like cocaine, brain scans showed they produced more dopamine in the dorsal striatum than when they viewed a nature film. The effect was more marked in the most strongly addicted people."