@Happiness
Ohlsen, Ponten, and Hamburt (1978) noted that twenty-five of seventy-one women in their study were receiving psychiatric treatment prior to a breast augmentation procedure, whereas only three continued to do so after the operation.1 Klassen and his colleagues (1996) also found substantial reductions in psychiatric symptomatology among people receiving plastic surgery.2 Cole and his colleagues (1994) reported that 73 percent of their patients reported a higher quality of life after cosmetic surgery, compared to only 6 percent who reported a lower quality of life.
@Excerpt
Prior to [the mid-19th century], lobster was considered a mark of poverty or as a food for indentured servants or lower members of society in Maine, Massachusetts, and the Canadian Maritimes, and servants specified in employment agreements that they would not eat lobster more than twice per week. Lobster was also commonly served in prisons, much to the displeasure of inmates.
—Wikipedia’s lobster page
@Relationships and Sex
I recently tried my hand at making this bean-based, vegan taco filling (recommended), and noticed something curious while reading the recipe’s comments:
I made this for my vegetarian daughter and it was so good I served it to the whole family for dinner.
This stuff is the bomb. Even my carnivore husband loved it!
My daughter is vegan, while the rest of the family isn’t. My husband usually can’t stand non meat recipes, and loved this one!
@Relationships and Sex
Here’s one actual perk of being a wallflower:
Although extraverts are generally happier than introverts, Kette (1991) found that extraverted prisoners were less happy than introverted prisoners.
— Well-Being: Foundations of Hedonic Psychology
@Math
I don’t collect many things, who needs that junk? But I do have a collection of great math quotes that I’d like to share with you.
Great Math Quotes We must not believe those, who today, with philosophical bearing and deliberative tone, prophesy the fall of culture and accept the ignorabimus. For us there is no ignorabimus, and in my opinion none whatever in natural science. In opposition to the foolish ignorabimus our slogan shall be: We must know — we will know!
@Philosophy
Either the books contain what is in the Koran, in which case we don’t have to read them, or they contain the opposite of what is in the Koran, in which case we must not read them.
Omar I, on the destruction of the Library of Alexandria
There is a lesson here. It’s left as an exercise for the reader.
@Computer Science
Yesterday, while googling around for information on hyperoperations, I came across Scott Aaronson’s essay, “Who can name the bigger number?” You should go read it. I’ll wait.
On the halting problem:
The proof is a beautiful example of self-reference. It formalizes an old argument about why you can never have perfect introspection: because if you could, then you could determine what you were going to do ten seconds from now, and then do something else.
@Uncategorized
The glazed donut is the noblest of all donuts. It’s not a loud, flashy donut. It doesn’t seduce coffeehouse denizens with sprinkles or jelly filling. It’s an honest, functional donut. While all donuts may represent some excess, the glazed donut does not smack of the same gluttony as more lavish donuts.
The glazed donut is to donuts as black coffee is to coffee. It’s a man’s donut: a plain, frill-free donut.
@Relationships and Sex
The Justice Department now seems to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes committed in the US in 2008, likely making the United States the first country in the history of the world to count more rapes for men than for women.
Christopher Glazek
Women receive prison sentences on average only about half as long as men, and about half of that advantage is due solely to gender bias.
Math art. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
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