Regularly scheduled cool-or-humorous-research blast

Interesting: Open plan offices are bad. I thought this debate was still open. Maybe the issue is that totally-open (as in the picture here) offices are bad, but the Microsoft room-with-door and the Google half-walled desks are both reasonable choices.

Lol: Fast cars actually do turn women on. I mean, seriously? It can’t be the “successful guy who brings home the bacon” circuit firing, because they were just playing clips of engine roar, not mentioning anything about the price.

Interesting: Oxytocin makes you better able to detect emotional states. I’d love to have a before-and-after test with some labeled faces to try it out. Also, could that lead to improved empathy- the ability to feel other people’s emotional states? And wouldn’t that be incredibly revolutionary?

Lol: wearing blurry glasses just in case you might accidentally catch a glimpse of an attractive woman. But why stop there? Why not just blind yourself? You’d have to deafen yourself too, and cut off your nose, because you wouldn’t want to catch a whiff of perfume. Technology tie-in: in the future, no doubt there’ll be a Google Glass app that will use computer vision to find the women and just blur them. (of course, you’d have to switch back to all-blurred non-electronic glasses on the Sabbath.) WEIRD.

Interesting: Working out a lot doesn’t make you sleep better. Thinking you worked out a lot makes you sleep better. That’s… um, surprising. Counter-arguments: one two three.

Cool: Runner’s high is real. Opioids!

Lol: I want to try a few days in a world where punishments are doled out in physical pain on the spot. You say something dumb at work, your boss punches you in the arm. You learn your lesson and it doesn’t embarrass you forever or haunt you. Interesting: I guess that’s Singapore?


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