December 2011
16 posts
10 tags
Stumptown Depression Fathers Trap 2011 Straw...
The Fat Trap by Tara Parker-Pope (New York Times): You know how there’s all those yo-yo dieters who take it off and put it back on pretty soon? Turns out there’s a biological reason for this: our bodies (to different extents) try very hard to put the weight back on by using less calories and making it harder to resist the calories. [via]
Stumptown Girl by Margaret Talbot (New Yorker):...
10 tags
Southpaw Antidepressants Catch Cross-Wired...
The Great Train Robbery by Mark Pullham (Crime): For me, the Great Train Robbery in England in 1963 is one of those things that I’ve been vaguely aware of - mostly because of the publicity around Ronnie Biggs - but never really knew the details of. So here’s the details (including that the police might have planted evidence on some of the suspects). [via]
As Permafrost Thaws,...
12 tags
Santa Women Failing Teenagers Viral Hunger
Trials And Errors: Why Science Is Failing Us by Jonah Lehrer (Wired): Lehrer makes the interesting case here that science - at least, in the area of medicine/pharmaceuticals - isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Scientists have worked out a bunch of stuff to do with how cholesterol works in the body, and as a result of this research, a pharmaceutical company put together a drug that was...
1 tag
2012 Best Music Writing →
Right now, the (newly independent) annual Best Music Writing series of books is looking for nominations of music writing from 2011. If you read this blog, you probably read a lot of music articles this year, because I linked to 8 pieces of music writing a week in my ‘Music Dump’ series on the Vine. So if some of these really did it for you, nominate!
(I also wrote some things if you...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-18) →
Karen Dalton (28)
Sebadoh (21)
Lambchop (16)
Peter Gabriel (16)
Bill Callahan (16)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
11 tags
Multitasking Kings Want Semi-Naked Prozac...
The Bioterrorist Next Door by Laurie Garrett (Foreign Policy): You know how there’s scientists who’ve created very-deadly and very-contagious versions of influenza based on bird flu? No? Well, scientists have already created very-deadly and very-contagious versions of bird flu. And the techniques for doing so are simple enough, and Al Qaeda are already advertising for people willing to...
3 tags
Top 10 Of 2011 - Best Little Moments In Music →
When it comes to best of 2011 kind of stuff at the Vine, Marcus the editor encourages us to avoid the typical top 10 albums, to go for something different. I wrote this one late last week and now feel slightly embarrassed at having to follow Ian Rogers’ amusing foray into his psyche circa 2011. But here I’m going for the best little moments, the bits of songs that I liked the best. So...
13 tags
Overjustification Machine Inside WEIRD...
The WEIRD Evolution Of Human Psychology by Eric Michael Johnson (The Primate Diaries): It’s important to remember that most psychology research has been done on American undergraduates. And that even some perceptual findings that most psychologists would assume were due to very basic properties of the visual system - like the Muller-Lyer Illusion - are actually sometimes not found in...
1 tag
1 Song A Day: Dawes - 'If I Wanted Someone' →
sallyo:
o-song:
Except that Dawes – however respectfully, considering the pastiche – disagree with Neil Young’s old ode to chauvinism. Depending on your point of view, Neil Young’s song will either evoke thoughts about a) how abjectly hopeless men are, how we need women to ensure we don’t fall apart or b) how a woman’s place is in the home, looking after these abjectly hopeless men. As a...
3 tags
1 Song A Day: Dawes - 'If I Wanted Someone' →
Another piece for 1 Song A Day…this time I’m thinking about critical thinking and pop together, and one of my favourite songs of the year. Oh, and by the way, I signed the acceptance page of a job offer yesterday, so I’m now a Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland. (For US audiences, Lecturer in Australia is, I think equivalent to something like...
11 tags
Mystery Doctors Master His Comity Christians
Out Of Body Experience: Master Of Illusion by Ed Yong (Nature): Henrik Ehrsson, a neuroscientist in Sweden, does these amazing experiments which really question our senses of selves; in 10 seconds, he can make people think that they have left their bodies, or that they have three hands. Which says very interesting things about the way psychology works.
Standup Comity by Steve Macone (The Morning...
2 tags
Music Dump - Flying Nun's Public Enemy RnB Carols... →
Christmas carols are a good primer on the history of Western music; an introduction to Stereolab; Public Enemy’s Apocalypse ‘91 revisited; how those songs get on your favourite TV show; trollgaze and the art of the stream; Billboard asks, does selling out matter anymore?; is Flying Nun really that good?; and is R&B music so anti-love these days?
(All of these articles were written...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-11) →
Tori Amos (18)
The High Llamas (12)
M. Craft (11)
Sam Prekop (11)
Nina Simone (11)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
2 tags
LMFAO's Cyndi Lauper Semisonic Lana Del Ray Jazz →
Steven Hyden on why Semisonic’s ‘Closing Time’ is still omnipresent; Jonah Weiner, author of “Why Creed Are Totally Underrated”, on why LMFAO are brilliant; the story of the 1930s girl jazz band International Sweethearts of Rhythm, and why they’re a major motion picture waiting to happen; mainstream pop is, like, mainstream and pop; Chunklet on Jason...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-12-4) →
Bobby Charles (37)
Paul Simon (28)
Steve Miller Band (27)
Rilo Kiley (26)
Shearwater (24)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
9 tags
Thames Amoebas Survey Broken Islamic Nakedness
The Psychology Of Nakedness by Jonah Lehrer (The Frontal Cortex): There’s a lot of controversy about ‘slutty’ clothing and slutwalks and whatnot, and one of the reasons for this is the idea that men objectify women who show a bit of cleavage, that they stop seeing women as people and see them as objects. But the research Lehrer discusses here suggests that men don’t...
November 2011
23 posts
2 tags
Music Dump - The Beatles' Softcore Coldplay... →
The link between the Muppets and 1960s Italian softcore porn; Courtney Love and fraud; Miley Cyrus’s Party in the OWS; the yin and yang of George Harrison; rock is no longer pop; the link between Brandy and dubstep; Lee Ranaldo on the future of Sonic Youth; the gender politics of Drake.