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POPSYour self-understanding is probably even worse than you think A new psychology experiment uses techniques from popular magic to demonstrate that people misunderstand and misrepresent the reasons behind their own choices. Participants were asked to choose which of two alternatives they preferred, and subsequently to justify their choice. However, experimenters surreptitiously swapped the alternatives immediately after the participant had announced a choice, and most never noticed, in most cases even giving "reasons" for why they had "chosen" the option they were presented with (even though they had, in fact, picked the other option).
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POPSNot driving like a Christian? Watch yourself A whack-job pickup driver in San Antonio rear-ends a woman in a sedan because he believes God told him to "punish the car" for not "driving like a Christian." He was moving at a hundred miles per hour. No one was seriously hurt.
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POPSApollo 14 veteran claims aliens have visited Earth Edgar Mitchell, who walked on the moon with Alan Shepard, said in a radio interview that he is privy to secret information, covered up by NASA and other US government arms, regarding contacts between extraterrestrials and human beings.
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POPSA LifeStatus badge for your page will inform your visitors if you're dead This is frankly something it never occurred to me to think about. This is a badge that tracks your logins. If you fail to log in for a specified amount of time, the status changes: Alive, Possibly Alive, Probably Dead, etc. After a certain amount of time, it sends a "death notice" via email to the person or people you specify, informing them of, say, where your will is kept.
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POPSGarfield minus Garfield Jon Arbuckle sans Garfield. Yes, it's the Garfield strip with all the pictures of Garfield removed. Very weird and trippy.
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POPSPasona O2, Tokyo's underground farm In a vault underneath a major Tokyo office building, there is a 1000-sq.m. organic rice and vegetable farm, utilizing LED lighting, computer-controlled temperatures, and hydroponics. Intended to give jobless young people some agricultural experience.
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POPSBarack Obama added you as a friend! Randomly generates some text about all the great things Barack Obama did for you: wrote on your FunWall, gave you a puppy, loves your laugh, made you a mixtape, told me to tell you hello.
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POPSFrozen pickle pops. Wanna try? I have a hard time believing this is good, but on the other hand, I do love a good peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich, so maybe I'd like this too.
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POPSTravelling by bus in Sweden? Beware of dwarves One of the weirdest news stories I've read in some time. Apparently some criminal gangs are smuggling dwarves in duffel bags into the luggage compartment of long-haul buses, where they loot the other passengers' bags.
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POPSStuffed plush bedbug, only $9 This is one of the weirdest concepts in novelty gift items I've ever come across. They also have a flea, a louse, a "bookworm" (actually the larva of a common furniture beetle, a wood-boring beetle), and a very cute dust mite.
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POPSFlowerpot + ingenuity = stolen $221K Porsche What genius dreamed this up? A German thief jammed a flowerpot under the tire of a Porsche. When the driver got out to remove it, the thief jumped in the car and drove it away. You gotta admit, that's creative.
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POPSHip accessories for the Purity Ball set The image I wanted didn't clip. It was a sign that read: "NO TRESPASSING ON THIS PROPERTY. MY FATHER IS WATCHING." The "property" in question being a young girl's private parts, presumably. Anyone else find this kind of thing weird?
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POPSMosio: realtime mobile Q & A. Try it Text-message a question, get an answer from whoever happens to be browsing the site. Check the site out. It's fun in a weird way. People sort of race to give the best answers. Sometimes it's "where's the closest pool hall to this address," sometimes it's "when is Pirates of the Caribbean coming out on DVD," sometimes it's "what country is the largest exporter of rice."
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POPSU.S. public schools' problem: too much hugging? A few days ago, a 13-year-old middle school girl was punished with detention for hugging several friends. A few Google searches later, I find that bans on hugging (along with other restrictive policies about physical contact between students or on public displays of affection) are not that uncommon. Official justifications inuclude: the need to keep order (because prolonged or multi-person hugs clog traffic in hallways between classes); teachers' and administrators' inability to determine when hugs are unwanted by their recipients; and the belief that allowing any physical contact encourages a permissive attitude that will lead to disruption and fighting. Way to raise a generation of mentally healthy kids, folks.
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POPSDoes your seafood glow in the dark? Reports of glowing shrimp and fish from Seattle. An investigative reporter from the P-I finds that the most likely investigation is contamination by harmless photoluminescent bacteria.
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POPSPerformance artist Stelarc implants an ear into his arm Truly bizarre. Cyprus-born Australian resident Stelios Arcadious had a human ear grown in a lab and then implanted under the skin of his left arm. He intends to implant a microphone and transmitter as well so audiences can hear what his arm is listening to.
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POPS"Content-aware" image resizing: get images the size you want without losing detail A very sophisticated Flash application that uses a new algorithm called "seam carving" to figure out which areas of your image have the least detail and squeezes them out first. It's hard to describe, and it doesn't work perfectly, but it's kind of amazing. Try it in IE. Be patient -- it runs very slowly and jerkily sometimes, but it does produce some remarkable results. (http://rsizr.com)
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POPSBrad Hicks, "Forbidden knowledge": maternal infanticide is more common than you'd like to believe Inter alia: (1) as many as 75% of SIDS cases may be maternal infanticide; and (2) scientific findings about maternal infanticide's prevalence in both animal and human populations has been systematically suppressed as too shocking for public consumption. This was one of the top clips -- err, excuse me, posts -- on Reddit the other day. It's from April. I can't believe no one clipped it, and I also can't believe I've never seen this blog before. Fascinating, and creepy as hell.
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