Coca-Cola »
The controversy over China’s hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games is well documented, so I’ll spare you the details. These legitimate apprehensions are leading many to question why world leaders and sponsors alike are still affiliating themselves with China’s Olympics.
Coca-Cola has been supporting the Olympics for more than 75 years. The BBC World Service’s Business Daily program for July 8, 2008 focused on Coke’s continued sponsorship. Neville Isdell, the company’s current chairman, says that the “broader context of what the Olympics brings to every country it takes place in,” is what draws Coca-Cola to continue its support. While he acknowledges that the Games themselves do not necessarily bring about change, they play a role in creating an environment suitable for moving forward. Valid enough.
Lesley Curwen does a fantastic job later in the interview of prodding Isdell about his company’s ethics in general. She asks about the possible hypocrisy of a company that sells sugary, high-calorie beverages promoting physical activity; Isdell’s response was inadvertently comical and completely off-base. “We are a hydration company, and our products are about hydration,” he said, adding that “calorie intake has not increased…the level of physical activity has decreased.” In fact, soda accounts for the majority of calories consumed by U.S. adults. He goes on to discuss some other exaggerations, such as claiming world sugar prices are not rising (hint: they are), corn price increases don’t affect Coke since they sweeten with sugar (yes, sugar from corn), and that Coca-Cola tastes exactly the same in every country of the world.
Give the program a listen while it’s still available on BBC, or subscribe to their podcast.
» I hate the bloggers. - Love you too, John.
Genesis Solar Wind Collector
»an array of low-density wafers made of gold, diamond, sapphire, and silicon used to catch solar wind particles.
» Predicting Earthquakes using 'Rock Batteries' - Dr. Minoru Freund, a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center, has discovered a curious and important possible determinant for predicting earthquakes. Apparently when rocks are subjected to stress from tectonic activity, they become charged and act as "batteries" which then affect their surroundings up into the ionosphere. These disturbances could be picked up by satellites and used to better forecast seismic activity.
Everybody thinks that you have to bang your head against the wall, but it's silly when you really think about it. I mean, here you have fantastic scientists working on ways to prolong human living, and then you have other people who take it for granted that you have to beat your head against the wall in order to be happy. You can't take everything you don't like as a personal insult. I guess you should go where your wants are bare, where you're invisible and not needed.Bob Dylan, 1966
I got tired of being yellow. Hello, again.
Your Room »
If you were to die today—unexpectedly—what would your friends and family learn about you when they cleaned out your bedroom (or apartment, or house, etc.)? What aspects of your life that they might not know, or only those closest to you know, that could be discovered by looking at your personal space as it was? Not just secret habits, but personal rituals. Do you have a favorite drink on your nightstand? Clothes from your childhood in the back of your closet? A CD from a band no one knew you liked in your stereo?
» On the Office Set - blogger visits the set of The Office. Detailed photos of all the characters' desks.
via BLDGBLOG - Shipbreaking
»Container ships, dismantled by hand in breaking yards. I need to get a copy of The Outlaw Sea.
» Manufactured Landscapes - interesting-looking film. Don't miss the trailer at the bottom of the page.
» Candy Collective - super-high-quality online magazine about design, photography, etc. Love.
» Is Me Really Monster? Me know. Me have problem.
Elevators »
The "door close" button in most elevators doesn't actually close the doors. It's just there to reinforce the illusion of your control. A little psychological ploy to make your brain have its undetectable hey-I-can-control-this-machine-if-need-be-so-I'll-be-safe moment.
» Suspending Life - on the probable cause of a near-total extinction 250 million years ago, the mechanism of survival for species who didn't die, and the possible medical implications today.
» I Hate Drake - an animation based on an child's diary entry, read by the author some years later as an adult.
» Toxic Garbage Island - It's easy to find articles referring to a floating island of trash in the North Pacific Gyre. Pictures, video, or detailed accounts are hard to come by, which has led to some skepticism and misunderstanding. A group from VBS.tv sailed out into the patch to get a first hand account. The resulting documentary is eye-opening and tragic. Make sure to watch the whole series as new episodes are available over the next weeks.
Expelled »
I have not seen Ben Stein's recent film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, so this information is secondhand until/unless I see the movie. And I doubt I'd pay money to view it.
Apparently, the film tries to find a tenuous link between evolutionary biology and the Holocaust. Scientific American has a great and coherent review of the film. Such a comparison, which reminds me of PETA's infamous Holocaust campaign, is offensive. It should be especially offensive to a well-educated man like Stein—a Jew himself who probably had relatives die because of the Holocaust—who should know better than to use such blatant emotional exploitation as the basis of an arugment.
Seitan »
The girlfriend and I decided to try a locally-famous vegetarian restaurant yesterday. I ordered a sandwich based around seitan which I had never heard of before, but our waiter raved about. Turns out it's concentrated wheat gluten, and it tore my stomach up with a fierce vengeance.
The lady had "low country barbeque tofu" which was really just pulverized tofu mixed into marinara sauce. In a tortilla. Covered in mustard. Also no good.
Jester Jokes »
Jester is a project of the University of California, Berkeley that uses the Eigentaste algorithm to recommend jokes you may like.
After playing around with it for a while, the system consistently displays jokes which I find at least somewhat funny. Interestingly, their database showed me the supposed funniest joke in the world, which is very un-funny compared to other jokes it showed.
I also learned of an anecdote former President Jimmy Carter told on the David Letterman show. Allegedly, while Carter was opening a speech with a joke in Japan, the translator quickly relayed the joke--which Carter found only mildly amusing--to the audience who burst out in an uproar of laughter. Confused, Carter asked the translator how he told the joke to the audience. The translator said something to the effect of "I said 'the President just told a very funny joke, please laugh now'."
I could not find a definitive answer to the validity of this story, but it is echoed on the Carter Center website and tentatively researched by this mailing list poster.
Domesticating Foxes »
Dmitri Belyaev, a Russian scientist, was curious about the mechanism(s) that changed wild wolves into our domestic dogs. In a short 20 years of selectively breeding silver foxes for tameness, he was able to "evolve" his wild silver foxes into surprisingly dog-like creatures. They showed affection to their human caretakers, their ears lowered to resemble border collies, their coats became fluffy and grew in black and white spots, and their breeding cycles became year-round rather than seasonal.
Tests confirmed lower adrenaline and higher serotonin levels in the brains of the selectively-bred animals. In 20 years. The experiment has continued for nearly 50 years with the same results.
More information from this American Scientist article.
» Down. Up. - montage of immersion baptisms. Mesmerizing. Found two days after a discussion with my girlfriend on how awkward and borderline disturbing the practice is.
