The Vanishing of Sombrero Man - Robert Isenberg Before he disappeared, Sombrero Man was legend. Now, he lives only in the mind. He was an old man. A flabby man. And he wore a vast black sombrero. He was Sombrero Man. Was he homeless? Then, sometime in 2004, he disappeared. Some say he moved to “warmer climates.” The stories are endless. Oakland is a panhandler’s paradise – if there can be such a thing – and there are plenty of other characters to substitute for him. Not to mention Bill Dorsey, the blind gospel singer who sits on a crate, rocks back and forth, and blasts the Lord’s Song from his organ-like vocal chords. But nobody could replace Sombrero Man. For that special generation of Oaklanders, Sombrero Man still comes up in conversation. Says one former student: “I still sing his song to myself sometimes. “I had forgotten all about him,” says Susan Hicks, a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology at British Columbia University. Hicks remembers him being “kind of surly.” The memories are clear yet conflicting.
How K-Cups Might Damage Your Metabolism, Reproductive Health, and Cause Cancer | The Mommy Illuminati Brew a fresh, steaming cup of plastic This subject has been a big ol’ bee in my bonnet for a long time, especially since the Keurig style coffee systems are now ubiquitous. Much focus in recent years has revolved around the studies of potential dangers of BPA, or bisphenol A, but what about the myriad of other chemicals commonly used in plastics, demonstrated to also have damaging effects in the body? Here is an interesting NPR article and audio concerning how estrogenic chemicals are found in the majority of plastic items found in food and beverage packaging. The short story is this- plastics are very much a part of modern life, and some have been designated safe for use in food and beverage packaging. (for more more details about types of plastics, references for how they leach into beverages and foods, and tips for safe selection and use- you can check out one of my previous articles: Plastic Water Bottles: How Safe Are They?) -02/18/14 Update- In Canada? . Author: Dr. Like this:
35 Things Everyone Should Do In Austin, Texas, Before They Die Ramin Shokrizade's Blog - The Top F2P Monetization Tricks The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. [UPDATE: Alex Dale, the CMO of King.com, has graciously taken his time to clarify a few points related to CCS, and I have edited this paper in a few places using italics to show the updates] Coercive Monetization A coercive monetization model depends on the ability to “trick” a person into making a purchase with incomplete information, or by hiding that information such that while it is technically available, the brain of the consumer does not access that information. Hiding a purchase can be as simple as disguising the relationship between the action and the cost as I describe in my Systems of Control in F2P paper. This additional stress is often in the form of what Roger Dickey from Zynga calls “fun pain”. Premium Currencies Skill Games vs. Reward Removal Progress Gates Soft and Hard Boosts
4 Habits Of Punctual People Plan any event and chances are one in five of the people you invite will be late. A study done at San Francisco State University found that about 20% of the U.S. population is chronically late—but it’s not because they don't value others' time. It’s more complicated than that, says lead researcher Diana DeLonzor. "Repetitive lateness is more often related to personality characteristics such as anxiety or a penchant for thrill-seeking," she says. In her book Never Be Late Again: 7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged, DeLonzor says our relationship with time often starts in childhood and becomes an ingrained habit. "Looking back, you were probably late or early all of your life—it’s part physiological and part psychological," she says. DeLonzor says the majority of people have a combination of late and punctual habits—usually on time, but with a frantic rush at the last minute—but we can all learn from those who are chronically punctual. 1. Punctual people know how long things take. 2. 3.
Don’t believe the hype – 10 persistent cancer myths debunked Google ‘cancer’ and you’ll be faced with millions of web pages. And the number of YouTube videos you find if you look up ‘cancer cure’ is similarly vast. The problem is that much of the information out there is at best inaccurate, or at worst dangerously misleading. There are plenty of evidence-based, easy to understand pages about cancer, but there are just as many, if not more, pages spreading myths. And it can be hard to distinguish fact from fiction, as much of the inaccurate information looks and sounds perfectly plausible. But if you scratch the surface and look at the evidence, many continually perpetuated ‘truths’ become unstuck. In this post, we want to set the record straight on 10 cancer myths we regularly encounter. Myth 1: Cancer is a man-made, modern disease It might be more prominent in the public consciousness now than in times gone by, but cancer isn’t just a ‘modern’, man-made disease of Western society. Myth 2: Superfoods prevent cancer Myth 3: ‘Acidic’ diets cause cancer
First Official Climate Change Refugees Evacuate Their Island Homes for Good Update: Please note that this story is from 2009. For more recent news & articles, follow us on Facebook. Thank you! The day has finally come, and a critical landmark in the saga of global climate change is occurring as we speak—and hardly anyone has noticed. The Carteret Islanders of Papua New Guinea have become the world's first entire community to be displaced by climate change. On the Carterets, king tides have washed away their crops and rising sea levels poisoned those that remain with salt. That report comes from the Ecologist, one of only a handful of media outlets to cover the story, and the only one to have a reporter on hand to witness the evacuation. The men climbed silently from the boat and into the shallows. Thus begins an unfortunate exodus, however small, of a people whose lives have been directly threatened by climate change.
The Logic of Stupid Poor People We hates us some poor people. First, they insist on being poor when it is so easy to not be poor. They do things like buy expensive designer belts and $2500 luxury handbags. To be fair, this isn’t about Eroll Louis. His is a belief held by many people, including lots of black people, poor people, formerly poor people, etc. It is, I suspect, an honest expression of incredulity. One thing I’ve learned is that one person’s illogical belief is another person’s survival skill. My family is a classic black American migration family. We had a little of that kind of rural black wealth so we were often in a position to help folks less fortunate. I remember my mother taking a next door neighbor down to the social service agency. I internalized that lesson and I think it has worked out for me, if unevenly. I do not know how much my mother spent on her camel colored cape or knee-high boots but I know that whatever she paid it returned in hard-to-measure dividends. Like this: Like Loading...
the_dimka: codex seraphinianus in the late 70s italian architect, illustrator and industrial designer luigi serafini made a book, an encyclopedia of unknown, parallel world. it’s about 360-380 pages. it is written in an unknown language, using an unknown alphabet. it took him 30 month to complete that masterpiece that many might call “the strangest book on earth”. codex seraphinianus is divided to 11 chapters and two parts - first one is about nature and the second one is about people.btw five hundred years ago there was another book somewhat like that - voynich manuscript. take a look at some pages (click on image to see a bigger version) amazon sells those for 500 bucks or more you can read about it in wikipedia.i can’t even tell you how much i like stuff like that phat a? update 2 i ordered the book and it arrived. it is gigantic in size, thick and large. print, paper and binding quality is superb. they also insert a booklet - decodex, but it is in italian and i have not mastered that one yet.
The Brain on Architecture Looking at buildings designed for purposes of contemplation—like museums, churches, and libraries—may have positive measurable effects on mental state. At a particular moment during every tour of Georgetown’s campus, it becomes necessary for the student guide to acknowledge the singular blight in an otherwise idyllic environment. “Lauinger Library was designed to be a modern abstraction of Healy Hall”: a sentence that inevitably trails off with an apologetic shrug, inviting the crowd to arrive at their own conclusions about how well it turned out. I spoke with Dr. Contemplative architecture contains a series of design elements that have historically been employed in religious settings: Bermudez noted that it is “logical to expect societies not only to notice [the link between built beauty and experience] over time, but to exploit it as much as possible in their places for holy purposes.”