Contriving

Vox has a nice article on how much weight to give different types of health studies.

There are literally thousands of ways to design a study. When a news story suggests, "A new scientific study has found…" or a celebrity doctor begins a sentence with, "Studies show…", you need to ask, "What kind of studies?" Because "studies" are not equally reliable, they all have different limitations, and they should not be acted on in the same manner — or even acted on at all. Here's a quick guide to understanding study design that will help you navigate the often bewildering world of health research.

Resolution for the new year:  hate websites that embed YouTube videos without the option for full screen even more than I did in 2014.

One of my crusades is against bad science, and nutrition-related science is some of the worst.

A 2008 review by the Food and Agriculture Organization concluded that “there is no probable or convincing evidence” that a high level of fat in the diet causes heart disease.18 A 2012 Cochrane review of 24 comparisons with 65 508 participants found no benefit from total fat reduction and no effect on cardiovascular or total mortality but a small reduction (relative risk 0.86 (95% confidence interval 0.77 to 0.96)) in cardiovascular events in men (not women).

Detecting planets around stars other than the Sun with a regular digital camera and telephoto lens.

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I'm closing your website and never coming back.  Also, if I meet you in real life I might consider pushing you down the stairs.

These are not the classic "pop up in a new window" pop ups, they're the "pop up entirely within the webpage" pop ups.

Company selling lingerie A/B tests the heck out of product and model photography to see what sells best.

At the photo shoot, beautiful models with perfect everything glide by in stilettos. Space heaters are put out to warm the nearly nude women, while makeup artists in puffy jackets touch up their faces. The photographer, a man, has some guidelines for what works in pictures: a certain distance between the camera and the model, a specific blurriness, particular positions that sell well. Hand on hip, a popular pose among Instagrammers trying to make their arms look skinny, doesn't resonate nearly as well as a hand on the head, for example. (That slight change can double sales, according to internal research.)

That's the question I just did an effort-post in reply to on Quora.

http://qr.ae/lMYEu

Instead of going upstairs and digging through my closet of computer cables, I just ordered a new USB cable.