Shit!

I passed my LJ anniversary _and_ 6000 posts without noticing!

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-19-2008

• iPhone Dev Spends $500k on Development, Still Not Approved by Apple
  Reason #37 I won't be getting an iPhone
  (tags: iphone marketing)
• Psychologists recreate Milgrom experiment - 70% of people still willing to torture
  He told Reuters: "What we found is validation of the same argument - if you put people in certain situations, they will act in surprising and maybe often even disturbing ways."
  
  He said that it was not that there was "something wrong" with the volunteers, but that when placed under pressure, people will often do "unsettling" things.
  
  Even thought it was difficult to translate laboratory work to the real world, he said, it might partly explain why in times of conflict, people can take part in genocides.
  (tags: psychology)
• Tramworks will close Princes St
  A review group had considered keeping a westbound lane open for buses. However, that option would have extended tram works into 2010.
  (tags: Edinburgh trams)
• What science can teach us about the laws of attraction
  A quick roundup of the research
  (tags: science love)
• 10 is the one
  Opera moves to version 10. Badly coded browsers sniffers detect it as version 1. Many websites suck. A lot.
  (tags: funny browser opera)
• Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008
  Wow. Space sure is pretty.
  (tags: science photography space)
• The Fiendish Genius of Credit-Card Minimum Payments
  Mr. Stewart presented 413 people with mock credit-card bills of £435.76 (about $650) that were identical except that only half mentioned a minimum payment of £5.42. Participants were asked how much they would pay.
  
  Among those inclined to pay the bill in full, the presence of the minimum payment hardly made any difference. However, those who wanted to pay just part of it handed over 43 percent less on average when presented with a minimum payment. In the real world, this would roughly double interest charges.
  (tags: psychology economics debt finance)
• Map of science
  Which looks at what papers reference each other and builds a graph/map of how the subjects are intertwined.
  (tags: science visualization maps)
• The Periodic table of Awesoments
  Aristole postulated that all good things were made of "win." That was a pretty good guess, but he was drunk and probably also having an orgy. Modern day awesominers know there are actually 118 fundamental "awesoments" that compose all good things. The Periodic table of Awesoments can be a very useful tool. It's designed to show the relationships between awesoments, and often one can even predict how awesoments interact simply by their positions on the table.
  (tags: funny geek science periodic_table)

You realise, of course, that this means WAR!

This is what YouTube _should_ be used for - distributing short films made by people who would otherwise not have any way of getting them seen.

(stolen from meihua)

Christmas Spirit

I don't like sending Christmas cards - but this year I've had a few, so the spirit of christmas guilt has infused me with a sense of responsibility.

And I've donated £25 to Oxfam for the emergency relief in Zimbabwe.

If you sent me a card then feel free to have a warm glow in your heart.