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| August 21, 2011
Category: Need more MoPo? Check Out These Random Posts
Google Street View Goes to the Amazon
| August 20, 2011
The Google mapping team has headed down to South America for a little Amazon street view (well, river view anyway) mapping. The vehicles of choice will mostly be boats and bicycles to bring all of us a great view. This is another in a series that entertains more than informs. Kudos to the Google team. I’m sure the results will be spectacular.
Canadian Library Will Loan Out People as Well as Books
| August 20, 2011
For centuries the public library has been a great source of knowledge through books. Now one library in Canada is opening up the scope of how you acquire knowledge at the library; by offering up skilled people. Why read a history book when you can talk to a historian?
The program is far less insidious than it sounds. The library has assembled a group of volunteers with particularly interesting skills or histories, and has a system in place to put these people in touch with knowledge seekers. If you’re looking for someone to practice your German with, or to ask about their experiences during the Great Depression, or their struggle with illness, the library will put you in touch with an appropriate individual. Once in touch, you can meet in the library’s cafe, keeping the entire operation under one roof.
$1Million A Week Space Hotel
| August 20, 2011
How awesome would this be? Don’t let the million dollar price tag for a five night stay get in your way, you have until 2016 to save up the money.
How China controls the weather with rockets launched from pickups
| August 19, 2011
With severe drought gripping much of central China this winter, authorities there didn’t just sit back and let Mother Nature scrimp on the rain. They blasted it out of the sky, with thousands of rockets launched from pickup trucks.
As some of China’s farming regions faced their worst winter rainfall shortage in six decades, authorities throughout the country turned to cloud seeding — where tiny particles of silver iodide are shot into clouds to trigger the ice crystals that eventually become rain. While using planes to dump silver iodide can help large areas, many provinces rely on rockets launched from pickup beds, a cheaper solution.
Mean People Make More Money
| August 18, 2011
Psst! Want to earn more money? The secret to earning more money in the workplace is … to be mean.
That’s right: a new study found that agreeable workers earn significantly less than their meaner counterparts.
The researchers examined “agreeableness” using self-reported survey data and found that men who measured below average on agreeableness earned about 18% more—or $9,772 more annually in their sample—than nicer guys. Ruder women, meanwhile, earned about 5% or $1,828 more than their agreeable counterparts.
“Nice guys are getting the shaft,” says study co-author Beth A. Livingston, an assistant professor of human resource studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
