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POPSAnimal Mimics: More Than Just Camouflage A study in the journal Science finds that animals that use mimicry--for example, an insect closely resembling a twig--are indeed seen and ignored by predators, not merely missed by them as a camouflaged insect would be.
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POPSPostcard from a Tipping Planet During the current review, we are doing to our Clipmarks Clipbase under the headings of Energy and Climate, I found this item clipped in June 2008. It was very freaky then. It is even more so now after Nohopeinhagan. All we can do is love nature and each other in the time there is left ... which is what we should have been doing all along! Surely, it is better to be aware of the risks, than to ignore them. The 2008 IPCC projections which this cartoon is based were much more optimistic than current estimates because the rate of acceleration of both emissions and climate heating was underestimated (and probably still is).
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POPSWe Still Have To Be Afraid, Heck of A Job, Barry Even before a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet headed to Detroit, travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe. We seemed to still be behind the curve and reactive, patting down grannies and 5-year-olds, confiscating snow globes and lip glosses. Instead of modernity, we have airports where security is so retro that taking away pillows and blankies and bathroom breaks counts as a great leap forward. If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?
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POPS25 Awesome Homeless Guy Signs Now days, being homeless is more competitive than ever. Only the most clever and creative signs are going to get people to let go of their precious spare change. This makes for some pretty awesome homeless dude signage.
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POPSA Pen Everyone Needs in the Digital Age Was just suggested to me last week that turning on a recording feature in my laptop would assist with product orders when onsite with my customers. I think this pen sounds like a good idea too.
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POPS Thomas Sowell: Random Thoughts Stepping beyond your competence can be like stepping off a cliff. Too many people with brilliance and talent within some field do not realize how ignorant– or, worse yet, misinformed– they are when talking like philosopher-kings about other things. Government pressures on mortgage lenders to accept less than the full amount they are owed may win votes for politicians, since there are far more borrowers than lenders. But how much future lending can be expected when the lenders know that politicians are ready to intervene at any time to prevent them from getting their money back? People who are urging us to do things to win the approval of other countries seem to put an excessive value on other country’s approval, as distinguished from their respect that we can lose by such bowing to “world opinion.” Do the world champion New York Yankees try to curry favor with teams that are also-rans?
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POPSTwitter Community does it again: a workaround to share conversations with EVERYONE. I'm continually amazed at the resourcefulness of the Twitter community. They are determined to use the service the way they want, not just the way the tweet gods say they should. This is one of the more recent, always clever examples of the community taking matters into their own hands. This idea fills a need as the blogger notes: "it’s equally important to engage with new connections from by a trusted personal network of people handpicked by you."
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POPSAre you clever? Are your rational? The human being is supposed to be an animal capable of rational thinking, however this kind of thinking seems more rare than a priori expected. That's why people with high IQs may act foolishly. IQ tests may measure the brain capacity of thought, but not the use of it people do. The key is not how much can you think, but how rational are your thoughts, how much are you getting from your brain. This is highly related with fallacies and so many things that I'm not going to enumerate them all but let you draw your own conclusions. I can foresee I will be referring to this article for years in debates.
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POPSKing And Nonviolence Yes it's true that September 11th changed a lot of things and reminded us how vulnerable we are. It made us realize we face a dangerous and diabolically clever enemy. It strengthened our resolve and triggered important steps to prevent future attacks, actions that made us more secure as a nation. But 9/11 did not and could not change the basic ground rules: War or incitement to violence is justified only when it's in response to a deliberate attack and only when it's undertaken as a last resort. And even during wartime, nations must observe the highest moral standards. It's so easy to incite violence. And it's so wrong.
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POPSGoogle Chrome Syncs Bookmarks Almost Instantly While the new bookmark sync feature is welcome, it’s only part of the puzzle. Cookies, passwords, and more is what users will expect. Browser and search history are likely desirable bits of data too, but Google offers the option to provide the search history, regardless of browser. chrome-bookmark-syncI’d expect most of these additional sync points to be worked out in time for the Chrome OS " the platform is meant to power companion computers, and what better devices would benefit from an immersive browser sync experience?
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POPSHistory-Making Edits, Before Photoshop While some people enjoy adding individuals to their images, others prefer to edit them out – as in the cases of these photographs of Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini respectively. In each of the first three photos there was a political compatriot who, after falling from favor, was removed entirely from the scene and thus erased from a part of history. In the final image, a horse handler was edited out to convey a greater sense of grandeur. Perhaps it is simply selective and subjective, but it seems strangely fitting in some way that most of the edits of of American heroes are additive while those of other infamous world leaders are subtractive – but who knows what other manipulations we have yet to catch.
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POPSDown Under Bigotry At first I thought this must be a parody piece but then I read that it was written by the vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University. A simple substitution of just about any minority in the place of atheists reveals the blatant prejudice and bigotry shown by this fine Christian.
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