Websites that pop up a box over the page

Posted by on December 11, 2014 5 comments
* subscribe to newsletter
* fill out survey
* make an account
* whatever

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.

Originally posted on Google+ · December 11, 2014

A lingerie company A/B tests its model photography

Posted by on December 10, 2014 1 comment
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.)

This Lingerie Company A/B Tests The World’s Hottest Women To See Who Makes You Click “Buy”
All lingerie companies hire hot women to flaunt their wares. Adore Me goes many steps furtherand the data is full of surprises.

Originally posted on Google+ · December 10, 2014

Owl attacked by falcons takes a swim

Posted by on December 5, 2014 1 comment

 Owl gets in water and takes a swim.

Originally posted on Google+ · December 5, 2014

What would our world be like if everybody behaved completely rationally?

Posted by on November 29, 2014 2 comments
That's the question I just did an effort-post in reply to on Quora.

http://qr.ae/lMYEu

Dustin Wyatt’s answer to What would our world be like if everybody behaved completely rationally? – Quora
It depends on what you mean by rationality.

If you mean some caricature of rationality like Spock, then the world would be a pretty lifeless place. People …

Originally posted on Google+ · November 29, 2014

Ordering a USB cable instead of digging through my cable closet

Posted by on November 25, 2014 1 comment
Instead of going upstairs and digging through my closet of computer cables, I just ordered a new USB cable.

Originally posted on Google+ · November 25, 2014

How many legs does this elephant have?

Posted by on November 22, 2014 4 comments

Originally posted on Google+ · November 22, 2014

Why Google halted its renewable energy research

Posted by on November 19, 2014 No comments
That would be a huge deal for climate. More and more electric utilities would switch over to this cleaner source over time. By 2050, the Google engineers' modeling suggested, US carbon-dioxide emissions would be 55 percent lower than what we're currently on pace for.

But they also found that this new technology would still be adopted too slowly to avert significant global warming…

Why Google halted its research into renewable energy
The company realized its aim to make solar cheaper than coal wasn’t ambitious enough.

Originally posted on Google+ · November 19, 2014

Fur seals caught trying to mate with penguins

Posted by on November 19, 2014 4 comments
In three of the four recorded incidents the seal let the penguin go. But on one of the more recent occasions, the seal killed and ate the penguin after trying to mate with it.

Seals discovered having sex with penguins
Fur seals have been caught engaging in an extreme form of sexual behaviour. Specifically, trying to have sex with penguins

Originally posted on Google+ · November 19, 2014

The math of why hipsters all look the same

Posted by on November 12, 2014 1 comment
Here comes the crucial twist. In all of the examples so far, we assumed that everyone had instant knowledge of what everyone else was wearing. People knew exactly what the mainstream trend was. But in reality, there are always delays. It takes time for a signal to propagate across a brain; likewise it takes time for hipsters to read Complex or Pitchfork or whatever in order to figure out how to be contrarian.

The mathematician who proved why hipsters all look alike
What brain neurons tell us about the ‘hipster effect’ when all contrarians end up looking the same.

Originally posted on Google+ · November 12, 2014

Jonathan Nolan is adapting Foundation for HBO

Posted by on November 10, 2014 8 comments
Jonathan Nolan, cowriter of Interstellar, is adapting Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy into a series for HBO.

Exciting news!

Originally posted on Google+ · November 10, 2014