Sitting down, which most of us do for at least eight hours each day, might be the worst thing we do for our health all day.
We’ve been preaching the benefits of stand-up desks for a while around here — and no one needs this good news more than social media-obsessed web geeks. A recent medical journal study showed that people who sit for most of their day are 54% more likely to die of a heart attack.
And our readers are receptive to the idea, too. In fact, in a recent poll, three-fourths of you said you already used a stand-up desk or you’d like to try one.
Full Lineup
Eminem
Foo Fighters
Coldplay
Muse
My Morning Jacket
deadmau5
A Perfect Circle
Cee Lo Green
Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley & Nas
The Cars
Ween
Bright Eyes
Arctic Monkeys
Big Audio Dynamite
Deftones
Beirut
Explosions In The Sky
Death From Above 1979
Ratatat
Crystal Castles
Flogging Molly
Atmosphere
Cold War Kids
Lykke Li
Cage The Elephant
Ok Go
Local Natives
The Kills
White Lies
Portugal The Man
Two Door Cinema Club
Ellie Goulding
Delta Spirit
Beats Antique
The Mountain Goats
Sleigh Bells
Manchester Orchestra
Smith Westerns
Best Coast
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
The Drums
Black Lips
Fitz & The Tantrums
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
City and Colour
Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses
Cults
Noah & The Whale
Sam Adams
J. Roddy Walston And The Business
Tinie Tempah
Lissie
Dom
The Vaccines
Foster The People
Titus Andronicus
Mayer Hawthorne & The County
Chico Trujillo
The Naked And Famous
Phantogram
Rival Schools
Friendly Fires
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
Reptar
Maps & Atlases
Fences
Tennis
An Horse
Young The Giant
Los Bunkers
Imelda May
Grouplove
Wye Oak
The Joy Formidable
Lord Huron
Disappears
Walk The Moon
Gold Motel
Iration
Ryan Leslie
Tab The Band
Skylar Grey
Christina Perri
Black Cards
The Pretty Reckless
Boy & Bear
Patrick Stump
Kids These Days
Young Man
The Kingston Springs
Lia Ices
The Chain Gang Of 1974
Ximena Sarinana
Typhoon Electric Touch
Kerli
Ruby Jane
Julia Easterlin
DJ Mel
Perry’s Place Stage
Girl Talk
Pretty Lights
Kid CuDi
The Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77
Afrojack
Modeselektor
Skrillex
Perryetty Vs. Chris Cox
Chuckie
The Glitch Mob
Busy P
Joachim Garraud
Super Mash Bros.
Jay Electronica
12th Planet
Daedulus
Feed Me
Jackmaster
Collie Buddz
Savoy
Kyle Lucas & Captain Midnite
Ana Tijoux
Midnight Conspiracy
Light
Lady D
Rejection hurts. Before you groan and sign and say “I know, I know, let me tell you about the time you-know-who did you-know-what to me,” let us clarify. Rejection actually physically hurts. Like dropping something on your toe or getting lemon juice in a papercut hurts. This is true, according to science, and according to the New York Times, which reports on how badly rejection hurts, and how science knows this.
According to a recent study, areas of the brain that indicate physical pain area activated “at moments of intense social loss.” In terms of the actual study, 40 volunteers (who all felt “intensely rejected” due to a recent breakup), were hooked up to MRI scanners to measure their brain activity while they looked at photos of former boyfriends/girlfriends and thought about exactly how they’d been rejected. (Man, science is mean.) Then they were asked to look at a picture of a friend and think of a good experience with that person.
After all that, they “experienced noxious thermal stimulation on their left forearms,” which basically means it feels like they spilled hot coffee on themselves. Then they received “nonnoxious” stimulation, which feels, probably, like a nice warm bath, or at least not as noxious as hot coffee.
The documentary film, Vanishing of the Bees, narrated by Ellen Page, takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee. Directors George Langworthy and Maryam Henein present not just a story about the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder, but a platform of solutions, encouraging audiences to be the change they want to see in the world.
Like other employers, Disney has mastered how to rebrand ordinary jobs as exciting opportunities. “We’re not there to flip burgers or to give people food,” a fast food intern told the Associated Press. “We’re there to create magic.” Yet training and education are afterthoughts: the kids are brought in to work. Having traveled thousands of miles and barely breaking even financially, they find themselves cleaning hotel rooms, performing custodial work, and parking cars in the guise of an academic exercise.
Like many a corporate titan, Disney likes to give the impression it’s in the education business. Disney University, born in 1955 as the company’s training division, predated McDonald’s Hamburger University, Motorola University, and others, prefiguring what Andrew Ross has called “the quasi-convergence of the academy and the knowledge corporation.”
In its scale, the Disney program is unusual, if not unique. Although technically legal, the program has grown up over thirty years to become an eerie model, a microcosm of an internship culture gone haywire. The word “internship” has no set meaning, but at Disney World it signifies cheap, flexible labor for one of the world’s best-known companies—magical, educational burger-flipping in the Happiest Place on Earth.
