2021-03-07

Cool

When IBM Was The Center of Gravity - The Diff

Hollerith's punched-card tabulators were more exciting than they looked, especially for an organization that specialized in sales. The machines themselves had unimpressive margins, but making stacks of perforated cardboard and selling them to a captive market was a very high-margin business indeed. And this sticky, high-margin revenue source grew with usage, not just the unit volume of tabulators. If IBM could embed its salespeople in companies, and have them relentlessly THINK about ways to replace clerks with cards (or about new functions that could be economically performed by cards but that wouldn't be worth an employee's time), they could continuously grow sales.
Even Petty Little People Need Free Speech

Glow-in-the-dark sharks found off New Zealand coast
ISO on why they refuse to make ISO standards publicly available

For this reason, considering the value of standards, their economic and social importance, the costs of their development and maintenance, we and all ISO Members have the interest to protect the value of ISO Publications and National Adoptions, not making them publicly available.
Peter Turchin The dark side of "eating lower on the food chain" - Peter Turchin

After my switch to Paleo diet, I noticed, with surprise, that my cognitive abilities improved. My thinking became clearer and, most strikingly, my social intelligence became more acute. This is, of course, completely “anecdotal” as we say in science. But it turns out that there is a sound scientific basis for this. Several controlled experiments conducted in juvenile prisons (for example) discovered that inmates whose diet was supplemented with Omega-3 were much more socially adequate than those in the control condition. Of course, the best source of Omega-3 is grass-fed ruminants. Or seafood, but we have sadly polluted the world ocean with heavy metals, so eating too much fish can result in arsenic poisoning.
Propranolol-induced inhibition of unconditioned stimulus-reactivated fear memory prevents the return of fear in humans | Translational Psychiatry
‘Welcome Back ’: Movie Theaters Reopen in New York City

Police officers injured breaking up mask free gathering in Colorado
Insulting a police officer could become a crime in Kentucky
A SWAT Team Destroyed This Innocent Woman’s House While Chasing a Fugitive. The City Refuses To Pay for Damages. – Reason.com
He Got $300k from Credit-Card Rewards. The IRS Said It Was Taxable Income
The Race to Patent Psychedelics Is Just Getting Started
Psychological 'Signature' for the Extremist Mind Uncovered - Neuroscience News

Summary: Researchers conclude the mind of an extremist is marked by a mixture of conservative and dogmatic psychological signatures. Extremists tend to be cognitively cautious, slower at perceptual processing, and have weaker working memory. This is compounded by impulsive personality traits that seek sensation and risky experiences.

It is the latest in a series of studies by Zmigrod investigating the relationship between ideology and cognition. She has previously published findings on links between cognitive “inflexibility” and religious extremism, willingness to self-sacrifice for a cause, and a vote for Brexit.

US Pipeline Caused Biggest Spill in Decades, We’re Just Hearing About It

Unless you’re living in Huntersville, North Carolina, you may be blissfully unaware that the U.S.’s biggest gasoline spill since 1997 happened this past summer. ... The company now says nearly 1.2 million gallons have been leaked; that number could still rise as more assessments are done.

emphasis mine (facts are clearly optional):

Margolis said that gasoline’s physical composition—it sinks to the bottom of bodies of water, unlike oil, which stays slick on top—could make spills like this harder to gauge.
Humans control majority of freshwater ebb and flow on Earth, study finds | Brown University

“Of all the volume changes in freshwater bodies around the planet — all the floods, droughts and snowmelt that push lake levels up and down — humans have commandeered almost 60% of that variability,” Smith said. “That’s a tremendous influence on the water cycle. In terms of human impact on the planet, this is right up there with impacts on land cover and atmospheric chemistry.”