Introducing a revolutionary new concept… a cell phone you can CARRY WITH YOU. Sure, you have to wind it up and add plutonium, but it’s worth it. Ah, the early 90’s.
Retro Commercial – Radio Shack Cell Phones – 1990
| September 19, 2011
Category: News
NYC Will Have 10,000 Shared Bikes Rolling Around the Streets Next Summer
| September 19, 2011
After much gnashing of teeth from city residents, NYC’s transportation department has the go ahead to launch their planned bike sharing system, comprising 10,000 bikes and 600 stations that will cover much of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
The original plan was first proposed last year, and since then, the city has been working to gather support for the project. Now that they have it, they’ve shared more details. According to the New York Observer, here are some of the key bits of info:
• Bikes will be available 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week.
• Stations will span across the city from the Upper West Side neighborhood in Manhattan out to Brooklyn neighborhoods like Greenpoint and Crown Heights.
• Portland-based Alta Bike Share is the company responsible for installing and managing the bike sharing infrastrucure.
• The first 30 minutes of any ride are expected to be free, with fees for additional time.
• An annual membership is expected to cost less than a MetroCard (which normally costs ~$100/month).
Read more…
Affirmative Action For Ugly People?
| September 18, 2011
The effects are not small: one study showed that an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $230,000.
In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also helps you earn more money, find a higher-earning spouse (and one who looks better, too!) and get better deals on mortgages. Each of these facts has been demonstrated over the past 20 years by many economists and other researchers.
Why this disparate treatment of looks in so many areas of life? It’s a matter of simple prejudice. Most of us, regardless of our professed attitudes, prefer as customers to buy from better-looking salespeople, as jurors to listen to better-looking attorneys, as voters to be led by better-looking politicians, as students to learn from better-looking professors. This is not a matter of evil employers’ refusing to hire the ugly: in our roles as workers, customers and potential lovers we are all responsible for these effects.
A chopstick will get you to smile
| September 18, 2011
They train to smile with chopsticks wedged between their teeth and books balanced on their heads. They must be nearly as tall as the Miss China beauty contestants and produce smiles outlasting any beauty contest: 4 hours and 48 minutes aboard the new train from China’s capital to coast.
The 313 attendants on the 1,318-km Beijing-Shanghai bullet train launched last week have earned the online nickname ‘high-speed sisters’ for their charm offensive. The glimpses of smile training sessions reported in the media served to divert some of the public attention away from the high ticket prices and corruption and safety scandals in China’s railroad expansion.
Sick of having a box full of tangled cords?
| September 17, 2011
Image Gallery: Cats that Glow in the Dark
| September 17, 2011
A 1-month-old kitten that has genes for a jellyfish fluorescent protein along with a rhesus macaque gene (a virus-blocking restriction factor) is shown next to a sleeping adult control.
