Interesting Stuff Thread

robindch

legspin wrote: »

A collection of crackingly good ideas.

As part of A+A's broader remit to up the nation's quality of life, here are a few more lifetips:

http://thedailyedge.thejournal.ie/8-everyday-things-youre-probably-doing-wrong-893233-May2013/

...which inexplicably left out "How to fold a tee-shirt in five seconds":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAxhr0j0thY

Turtwig

robindch wrote: »

As part of A+A's broader remit to up the nation's quality of life, here are a few more lifetips:

http://thedailyedge.thejournal.ie/8-everyday-things-youre-probably-doing-wrong-893233-May2013/

...which inexplicably left out "How to fold a tee-shirt in five seconds":

BAxhr0j0thY

No mention of how to tie your shoes? Seriously, like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFcV7zuUDA

Monkey's don't peel a banana that way. That's just a myth. It is however, arguably the best way to peel a banana that still gets odds looks directed at me sometimes.

The potato peeling technique is hilarious though. My brother did that once. My mother saw it as some sort of witchcraft whereby the potato's essence wouldn't be pure or something and it's better to peel them by hand with a knife or something. I don't know.

kylith

Jernal wrote: »

No mention of how to tie your shoes? Seriously, like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFcV7zuUDA

I switched to tying my shoes like that a while back; they came undone more than they did tying them normally. I was most upset.

Turtwig

kylith wrote: »

I switched to tying my shoes like that a while back; they came undone more than they did tying them normally. I was most upset.

I was the same. I think it's because the knots I'd make would always be looser because of the counter intuitive dexterity required. Bad habits die hard.

Has anyone had success with the "proper" method?

kylith

I was making an effort to tie them firmly, so I put it down to the shape of the laces, I think they were round rather than flat. I then discovered that tucking the bow into one of the crossovers on the laces both stopped it from untying and stopped my chain ring from catching and mangling them, so I do that now.

keane2097

moar lifehacks!

Turtwig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2gYHJNT3Y

Gbear

How to open bananas properly - this video changed my life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBJV56WUDng

Sarky

Jernal wrote: »

I was the same. I think it's because the knots I'd make would always be looser because of the counter intuitive dexterity required. Bad habits die hard.

Has anyone had success with the "proper" method?

I've always done it the 'proper' way. Maybe because I'm semi-left handed and mixed up the way people tried to teach me as a child?

But yeah, it works. The only problems are with certain types of low-friction stupidly-shaped laces. Those f*ckers won't stay tied no matter what you do to them.

recedite

Jernal wrote: »

Has anyone had success with the "proper" method?

It works for me. The advantages are not so much that it won't come undone, but that it won't gradually loosen afterwards. The other advantage is that if you need to take your rival down a peg or two, your own laces need to already occupy the high moral ground, before you launch the annoying tirade.
So when making the second loop, remember the rabbit goes down the rabbithole. If you want extra security, bring the second loop around twice before tightening; it will never come undone.
Chainring.....bike reference (I didn't get it at first!)

mohawk

robindch wrote: »

As part of A+A's broader remit to up the nation's quality of life, here are a few more lifetips:

http://thedailyedge.thejournal.ie/8-everyday-things-youre-probably-doing-wrong-893233-May2013/

Speaking as a female the hair grips one blew my mind :eek:. It shocks you to the core when at the ripe old age of 28 you find out that you have been doing something so basic wrong.
Luckily my friend found a new Cadburys chocolate bar today that has popping candy in it which has substantially softened the blow .

swampgas

Jernal wrote: »

I was the same. I think it's because the knots I'd make would always be looser because of the counter intuitive dexterity required. Bad habits die hard.

Has anyone had success with the "proper" method?

I've always used the surgeon knot variation, have done so for nearly 30 years. Highly recommended.

There's a picture of it here: http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/surgeonknot.htm

darjeeling

Jernal wrote: »

I was the same. I think it's because the knots I'd make would always be looser because of the counter intuitive dexterity required. Bad habits die hard.

Has anyone had success with the "proper" method?

From this very thread - the 'proper' way, with an extra secure finish as described by Ian Fieggen (Ian is a legend in the shoelace tying world, and is credited on the Wikipedia shoelace tying page as the inventor of the fastest way to tie the standard knot):

darjeeling wrote: »

I had my own Damascene conversion some years ago. After years of shoelace hell, I went on line and found the amazing story of a man who tied for us all. Ever since that day, I have tied my shoelaces with 'Ian's secure shoelace knot'. They have never come undone - once tied, always tied.

After two more years of methodical data acquisition, my shoelaces have not yet undone themselves.

A subtle difference is that Ian's way starts with a left over right half-knot, and proceeds with a slipped right over left half knot. Your TED man, by contrast, ties right over left, then left over right, as per Satan.

Turtwig

Personally, I'm surprised that this didn't take longer but it looks like Psychiatry is moving towards another paradigm shift of sorts.

The world's biggest mental health research institute is abandoning the new version of psychiatry's "bible" – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, questioning its validity and stating that "patients with mental disorders deserve better". This bombshell comes just weeks before the publication of the fifth revision of the manual, called DSM-5.

On 29 April, Thomas Insel, director of the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), advocated a major shift away from categorising diseases such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia according to a person's symptoms. Instead, Insel wants mental disorders to be diagnosed more objectively using genetics, brain scans that show abnormal patterns of activity and cognitive testing.

This would mean abandoning the manual published by the American Psychiatric Association that has been the mainstay of psychiatric research for 60 years.

The DSM has been embroiled in controversy for a number of years. Critics have said that it has outlasted its usefulness, has turned complaints that are not truly illnesses into medical conditions, and has been unduly influenced by pharmaceutical companies looking for new markets for their drugs.

There have also been complaints that widened definitions of several disorder have led to over-diagnosis of conditions such as bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Now, Insel has said in a blog post published by the NIMH that he wants a complete shift to diagnoses based on science not symptoms.

"Unlike our definitions of ischaemic heart disease, lymphoma or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure," Insel says. "In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain, or the quality of fever."

Insel says that elsewhere in medicine this type of symptom-based diagnosis been abandoned over the past half-century as scientists have learned that symptoms alone seldom indicate the best choice of treatment.

To accelerate the shift to biologically based diagnosis, Insel favours an approach embodied by a programme launched 18 months ago at the NIMH called the Research Domain Criteria project.

The approach is based on the idea that mental disorders are biological problems involving brain circuits that dictate specific patterns of cognition, emotion and behaviour. Concentrating on treating these problems, rather than symptoms is hoped to provide a better outlook for patients.

"We cannot succeed if we use DSM categories as the gold standard," says Insel. "That is why NIMH will be reorienting its research away from DSM categories," says Insel.

Prominent psychiatrists contacted by New Scientist broadly support Insel's bold initiative. However, they say that given the time it will take to realise Insel's vision, diagnosis and treatment will continue to be based on symptoms.

Insel is aware that what he is suggesting will take time – probably at least a decade, but sees it as the first step towards delivering the "precision medicine" that he says has transformed cancer diagnosis and treatment.

"It's potentially game-changing, but needs to be based on underlying science that is reliable," says Simon Wessely of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London. "It's for the future, rather than for now, but anything that improves understanding of the etiology and genetics of disease is going to be better [than symptom-based diagnosis]."

Michael Owen of the University of Cardiff, who was on the psychosis working group for DSM-5, agrees. "Research needs to break out of the straitjacket of current diagnosis categories," he says. But like Wessely, he says it is too early to throw away the existing categories.

"These are incredibly complicated disorders," says Owen. "To understand the neuroscience in sufficient depth and detail to build a diagnosis process will take a long time, but in the meantime, clinicians still have to do their work."

David Clark of the University of Oxford says he's delighted that NIMH is funding science-based diagnosis across current disease categories. "However, patient benefit is probably some way off, and will need to be proved," he says.

The controversy is likely to erupt more publically in the coming month when the American Psychiatric Association holds its annual meeting in San Francisco, where DSM-5 will be officially launched, and in June in London when the Institute of Psychiatry holds a two-day meeting on the DSM.

Source.

Sarky

Friend of mine works in the US with people suffering some of the more extreme mental health issues. The sheer number of them and the amazing lack of understanding and care for them that she's told me about suggests that there's something seriously wrong with the models they've been using, so yeah, I'm not hugely surprised. Although it is kind of unexpected when anything that big actually happens. Interesting times ahead.

Dave!

Found this interesting. I saw some of it before, but not all. Sam Harris gets a bit of criticism from his peers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsjo5ScYS44

The part about Buddhism is quite surprising and revealing... He seems to have a bit of a soft spot for reincarnation, wtf!

FouxDaFaFa

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

I've posted about the topic before but this Vice documentary on 3d-printed guns is pretty interesting. (Just 25 mins)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DconsfGsXyA

Well, that escalated quickly.

The first completely printed gun has been manufactured and fired by the company in the above video, Defense Distributed.
The gun is free from metal, apart from the firing pin. Meaning it will be a working gun that metal detectors cannot pick up on.

I find this whole thing interesting not due to an interest in guns (as an Irish person, my thought process is inevitably guns= bad) but because of the practical arguments it presents.

At what point do you make "making something" illegal? Do you make the plans illegal? Having the components? Or only when the components are assembled? Etc.

Edit: It's called "The Liberator". I'm dying.

recedite

The handgun only fires .22 ammunition, and it looks like the barrel has to replaced after each firing. Still, I'm surprised a gun made of ABS plastic works at all. Its a significant achievement in design. I could see it being banned on two separate grounds; being a hidden weapon (hidden from metal detectors) and the health and safety concerns to the user (like cheap fireworks). I'd imagine it could only be banned if you had all the component parts physically together, whether assembled or not.

robindch

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

At what point do you make "making something" illegal? Do you make the plans illegal? Having the components? Or only when the components are assembled?

Hard to say really. I'd imagine there's a precedent (in Ireland anyway, I assume) in whatever laws are in place to stop people buying up sacks of fertilizer and turning it into explosive. That said, personally, I'd prefer people thinking about making these kind of things to ask themselves "Will this make the world a better place?" before going ahead.

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

It's called "The Liberator".

Calling it "A Thing That Can Reduce a Thinking, Feeling Human Being to Bloody Pulp" probably wouldn't sell nearly as well.*



[*] May move this into the guns thread.

magicbastarder

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/07/antibiotics-cure-back-pain-patients

one of those 'well why didn't we think of this before' moments?

robindch

The pope announces that "good christians" shouldn't complain:

The Pope wrote:

A Christian “who constantly complains, fails to be a good Christian: they become Mr. or Mrs. Whiner, no? Because they always complain about everything, right?” the Pope remarked in his May 7 homily at St. Martha’s residence.

“And the Lord invites us to this: to be rejuvenated Easter people on a journey of love, patience, enduring our tribulations and also - I would say – putting up with one another. We must also do this with charity and love, because if I have to put up with you, I'm sure you will put up with me and in this way we will move forward on our journey on the path of Jesus.”

Can't wait to show this to Popette who's not known for keeping her complaints under the table.

Hotblack Desiato

Via the Dublin West forum:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/may/08/free-newspapers-ireland

Irish political aide shows how to censor free newspapers - dump them

...

Despite his shock and disappointment, Keating offered a lame defence for his parliamentary assistant's actions by saying: "This publication is a free sheet so there is no question of Tommy breaking the law."

Dear oh dear. You'd think a legislator would realise that being allowed to take a free copy for personal use doesn't imply you can take hundreds to dump them.
Doesn't he know about the etiquette of free samples - obviously not a Curb viewer.

robindch

Israel's Attorney General orders government ministers and departments to get serious about fighting religiously-inspired gender discrimination:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-s-ag-impels-ministers-to-crack-down-on-exclusion-of-women.premium-1.519917

Haaretz wrote:

Israel's Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein dropped a bomb in the realm of Haredi-secular relations on Wednesday, when he instructed government ministers in a sharply-worded statement to immediately stop the exclusion of women in the areas under their authority.

At the end of several meetings in his office, Weinstein adopted the recommendations of a report by the team led by Sarit Dana, outgoing deputy attorney general in charge of civil affairs, that boldly calls for an end to discrimination in every area of public policy. Weinstein explicitly ordered Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat, Communications Minister Gilad Erdan, Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Religious Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett, Health Minister Yael German and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz to eliminate the exclusion of women from the public sphere.

Additionally, a report by the Justice Ministry determined that segregation in cemeteries and the prohibition against women delivering eulogies at funerals constitute illegal discrimination and the Religious Affairs Ministry must put an end to them immediately. Furthermore, no state-sponsored event, such as those organized by any of the ministries, or public authority may segregate men and women. Same goes for buses, which last year became a battleground for the issue.

Weinstein instructed the Transportation Ministry to ensure that no form of segregation would be practiced, directly or indirectly, by any of the franchisees who operated licensed public transportation. The Transportation Ministry must issue clear instructions and increase supervision of the companies, he wrote, adding, “Boarding buses will be permitted only through the front door, and payment must be made directly to the driver.”

Segregation between men and women is also prohibited in the offices of the state's health maintenance organizations as well. “The Health Ministry must put a quick end to all the various manifestations of segregation at HMO branch offices,” Weinstein wrote. Weinstein next addressed pashkevilim — public posters popular in Haredi neighborhoods that sometimes call for action. His report states that local authorities must prevent signs urging women to use segregated sidewalks or dress modestly from being mounted on the streets under their jurisdiction, particularly those in the public space.

In the realm of radio, Weinstein's report called for an end to the policy of not allowing women to speak on air at the Kol Berama radio station and not hiring women as announcers. The Second Television and Radio Authority has six months to end Kol Berama's policy of discrimination. “According to the rules and regulations of the Second Television and Radio Authority, Kol Berama puts women on the air every day,” said officials at Kol Berama.

Weinstein also called on the Knesset to promote legislation "making it a criminal offense to harass anyone by treating them in a contemptuous or humiliating manner on the basis of race, religion, religious affiliation, nationality, country of origin, sex, sexual preference, world view, party affiliation, or marital or parental status for the purpose of denying them access to or use of public services or reducing the level of their service.” The attorney general wrote that each of the public authorities involved must work quickly, efficiently and firmly to stop all manifestations of segregation in their areas of responsibility and influence. The Justice Ministry is also applying the law against the exclusion of women to private agencies with a license or franchise from the state or a public authority.

“The public authority must use all legal means available to it as a supervisory and regulatory agency to put an end to every form of segregation and differentiation which, as stated, constitute discrimination,” the report said.

yeppydeppy

FouxDaFaFa

Good old-fashioned bank heist (well, kind of) based in New York with a worldwide collaborative effort to steal a grand total of €34 million in one day.

legspin

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

Good old-fashioned bank heist (well, kind of) based in New York with a worldwide collaborative effort to steal a grand total of €34 million in one day.

As it was against the institutions rather than individuals., tbh I have a certain admiration for the brains behind it.

recedite

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

Good old-fashioned bank heist (well, kind of) based in New York with a worldwide collaborative effort to steal a grand total of €34 million in one day.

“When you have a scheme like this, where the system can be manipulated to quickly get access to millions of dollars that in some sense did not exist before, it could be a systemic risk to our financial system.”

Much the same as the Libor scandal in UK, or indeed the activities of Fingers Fingleton, David Drumm, Seanie Fitzpatrick etc...
although they had less of the brains input.

legspin

FouxDaFaFa wrote: »

Well, that escalated quickly.

The first completely printed gun has been manufactured and fired by the company in the above video, Defense Distributed.
The gun is free from metal, apart from the firing pin. Meaning it will be a working gun that metal detectors cannot pick up on.

I find this whole thing interesting not due to an interest in guns (as an Irish person, my thought process is inevitably guns= bad) but because of the practical arguments it presents.

At what point do you make "making something" illegal? Do you make the plans illegal? Having the components? Or only when the components are assembled? Etc.

Edit: It's called "The Liberator". I'm dying.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/09/3d-printed-guns-plans-state-department

Some follow-up.

PopePalpatine

Commander Chris Hadfield plays "Space Oddity"...in space!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

robindch

^^^ Commander Hadfield - he da man.