Category: Society and Popular Culture

When Green Gets Silly — Solar Bikinis and Eco-Bottles

On By quriosityIn Business and Marketing, Environment, Society and Popular CultureLeave a comment

Solar bikiniA long time ago, I stopped telling people that I write about “green” issues (now I say “environmental”), because of just the sort of silliness David Sims highlights in today’s article at ThomasNet Green & Clean, “Green Products We Don’t Need — Solar Bikinis? Eco-Plastic Bottles?”

Sims writes,

Somehow we don’t think surveying a garbage dump’s worth of Poland Spring plastic water bottles with 30 percent less plastic and paper warms the hearts of diehard greenies. It’s a bit like marketing Big Macs to vegetarians by saying they’re now 30 percent soybean and only 70 percent meat.

AB — 1 July 2011

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Howlin’ Wolf: Why they called it Smokestack Lightnin’

On By quriosityIn music, Society and Popular CultureLeave a comment

According to Rolling Stone, here’s where Howlin’ Wolf’s song “Smokestack Lightnin'” got its name:

The inspiration, said Wolf, was watching trains cut through the night: “We used to sit out in the country and see the trains go by, watch the sparks come out of the smokestack. That was smokestack lightning.”

Here’s a video of Wolf himself doing the song, along with a little howlin’:

AB — 22 June 2011

So, are cell phones really destroying the bees?

On By quriosityIn Environment, Science, Society and Popular CultureLeave a comment

That’s what you might think from reading a recent headline, says David Sims, writing for ThomasNet Green & Clean — see “Are Cell Phones Killing Off Bees?”

Sims was alerted to an article with the headline, “It’s Official – Cell Phones are Killing Bees.” Sounds pretty definitive, right? Sound science must have finally proven it, right?

Not so much. Drilling down into the sources, Sims finds that,

Favre himself [the researcher] concluded the study did not show that mobile phones were deadly for bees. The most he’d commit himself to was a hypothesis that electromagnetic fields “might be contributing to the disappearance of bee colonies.”

So, whither the bold headline ‘It’s Official’? I think the answer is that science journalism, like most journalism today, has to grab eyeballs, so journalists are motivated to write sensational headlines to attract readership. As a result, all kinds of nonsensical assertions are promoted as “fact” and “proven” when such is far from the truth — see “How the Media ‘Inform’ People What Science Has ‘Proven.’”

Unfortunately, many readers don’t get past the headlines.

AB — 19 June 2011

Great deal on this watch — save $58,000.01!

On By quriosityIn Life, Society and Popular Culture1 Comment

Here’s one of my favorite Amazon products — the Zenith Men’s 96.0529.4035/51.M Defy Xtreme Tourbillon Titanium Chronograph Watch! Generously marked down from $145,000.00 to $86,999.99!

Visit the Amazon product page to read some of the hilarious product reviews. One review titled “$9.95 shipping…..Outrageous!” says:

I had decided on this watch, but then I noticed the shipping charge. Outrageous! I’m shelling out close to 100k, and they want me to take care of the shipping too. Forget it!

Zenith Men's 96.0529.4035/51.M Defy Xtreme Tourbillon Titanium Chronograph Watch

AB — 8 May 2010

George Douvris Video Interviews About Terence McKenna

On By quriosityIn Creativity, Life, Society and Popular CultureLeave a comment

I just wanted to preserve and share links to a series of video interviews with my high school friend George Douvris, publisher of Links by George. As I understand it, these interviews were conducted in Hawaii recently. George is discussing his experiences with Terence McKenna.

First segment (scroll to the bottom for this video): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1862402066/the-brotherhood-of-the-screaming-abyss/posts/78893

Second segment: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1862402066/the-brotherhood-of-the-screaming-abyss/posts/78918

Third segment: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1862402066/the-brotherhood-of-the-screaming-abyss/posts/78919

AB — 23 May 2011

Chart shows how much radiation you would absorb from various sources

On By quriosityIn Science, Society and Popular Culture, Technology, World AffairsLeave a comment

This chart from XKCD shows the ionizing radiation you might absorb from various sources according to the standard sievert (Sv) measurement unit.

The interesting thing about this chart is it allows you to compare radiation absorption of a wide range of activities from the smallest risk, sleeping next to another person (tiny risk); to something greater but not really that bad in the end, such as being 50 km away from the Fukushima site in Japan; to something catastrophic, like being next to the Chernobyl reactor core after its explosion and meltdown. The chart helps you to understand where a fatal radiation dose stands within that great range.

XKCD gives a disclaimer that the chart probably contains mistakes and warns that “if you’re basing radiation safety procedures on an internet PNG image and things go wrong, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

The following image is linked from the original — click on it to inspect the original at full size.

XKCD's radiation does chart

 

AB — 19 March 2011