Interesting

Driving blind video captures award-winning experiment. By Sandrine Ceurstemont

Think you need to keep your eyes on the road to be a good driver? In the 1960s, psychologist John Senders and his team conducted pioneering safety experiments to test the amount of attention required by getting people to drive with a visor that blocked their vision at regular intervals. The paper wasn’t widely read at the time but last year a video posted on YouTube (shown above) attracted enough attention to reward the research with an Ig Nobel prize.

The film clip shows Senders driving down a busy highway “blind”, as he wears the bespoke helmet used in his experiments. For his research, participants were subjected to a similar set-up on a rented racetrack, a closed stretch of highway and later on a public road during morning rush hour. “There were no ethical approval boards at that time,” explains Senders.

The experiments aimed to determine the relationship between the type of road, the amount of time spent looking at the road, the interval between observations and driving speed. Quite predictably, the researchers found that drivers maintained a slower speed when their view was frequently blocked and when driving on a complicated road, regardless of how often they looked at it.

The idea for the research came to Senders after he had drivien through a rainstorm. “I found that I could drive comfortably with an interrupted view of the road at a speed of 32 miles per hour [51 kilometres per hour],” he says.

If Women Ruled the World

Fox News geography lesson: Hamid Soryan won gold for Iran in Greco-Roman wrestling. He’s from Iran.

Facepalm.

[gawker]

Seeing how Iron Man and Batman are only really smart and super rich, I’m really disappointed with Bill Gates

“

—	@the_moonface

sine verba

Deadbeat Dad Lured Home With Promise of Role in Jennifer Aniston Romantic Comedy. Posted by HVNEWS

When “producers” contacted a man who owed $32,000 in child support with the offer to play a role in a new Jennifer Aniston rom-com, Joshua Garlathy didn’t think twice about leaving his Hawaii hideout and heading back to Allentown, Pennsylvania.

There, his ex-girlfriend had spent the last 19 years trying to get Garlathy to pay up — but nothing worked. The “producer” was actually Scott Bernstein, a nationally known bounty hunter, and the movie — called Banished in Brooklyn, in which Garlathy would play “a small part as a guitar-strumming bad guy named Dirty Nick” — was all bogus.

It might be the greatest deadbeat ruse since Operation Iron Snare, down in Alabama, which rounded up deadbeat parents with the promise of Iron Bowl football tickets.

Garlathy pleaded guilty Tuesday to willful failure to pay child support, more than a month after he was arrested when his flight from Hawaii landed in Philadelphia. He was nabbed under a new law making it a crime to move out of Pennsylvania to avoid paying child support.

The plot had originated with Garlathy’s ex-girlfriend, Beth Ann Holderman. … “He always wanted to be famous,” Holderman said. “Now he’s famous,” she told the Allentown Morning Call.

1

Garlathy arrived at the Philadelphia International Airport in May to find a film crew there. They weren’t filming a movie, but Bernstein’s pilot for a reality TV show on deadbeat parents.

“Every single woman I’ve eve been with is a 10″: Blind YouTuber Tommy Edison runs us through all the benefits of being blind.

[tommyedisonxp]

NBA rookie of the year Kyrie Irving goes undercover at a pickup basketball game, dressed as the aging “Uncle Drew.” Unbeknownst to his opponents, Uncle Drew’s got skills, and he wants you kids to get off his ~~lawn~~ court.

This is basically the best disguise for a pro basketball player since Larry Johnson dressed up as Grandmama to help out Steve Urkel and sell some Converse shoes.

[tastefullyoff]

Photos. By Pixdaus

Humour: excuses

“Now class, I won’t tolerate any excuses for you not being there tomorrow.
I might consider a serious personal injury or illness, or a death in your immediate family - but that’s it, no other excuses whatsoever.”
A wise guy in the back of the room raises his hand and asks, “What if I was suffering from complete and utter sexual exhaustion?”
The entire class does its best to stifle their laughter and snickering.

When silence is restored, the teacher smiles sympathetically at the student, shakes her head, and sweetly says, “Well, I guess you’d have to write the exam with your other hand.”

Time to Save Our Oceans

Our oceans are dying — beset by pollution and demolition industrial fishing. But right now governments are considering a new rescue plan. Powerful nations are trying to stall, but Europe is emerging as an unlikely hero, and only we can help them push it through. Sign the urgent petition now to save our oceans:

Our oceans are dying. Beset by pollution and demolition industrial fishing, the magical and bountiful deep blue is turning into a barren desert. But right now governments are considering a new rescue plan — and we can help push it through.

The new plan would create new marine sanctuaries so that the seas replenish themselves and a new treaty for critical protection of the high seas. But Canada, the US and Japan are threatening to water down or even kill it.Our only hope is to get behind Europe to champion the idea before it’s too late.

The talks are off the media’s radar. Let’s break open the talks and deliver massive global support to Europe to save our oceans. Sign the urgent petition and send this to everyone — once we hit 500,000 signatures, we’ll deliver the petition straight into the meeting:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/72_hours_to_save_our_oceans/?vl

Our marine ecosystems are collapsing, and 85% of fish stocks are dangerously depleted. But no one is policing the trawlers’ plunder, and waste is poisoning our seas. Without an urgent intervention now, our grandchildren may study whales and coral reefs in their history lessons.

Scientists say that what we need right now is a bold plan that sets aside 20% of our blue planet as conservation areas by 2020, allowing the seas to replenish themselves for generations to come and creates a new protection agreement for the oceans outside of national boundaries.

Against the odds, the European Union is pushing for an agreement, and has the support of droves of developing countries. But the blockers are battling to limit the conservation areas and kick decisions on a global treaty far into the future. If they don’t get that, they are threatening to drown the plan completely before it is even born. Our only hope is to massively and publicly get behind the Europeans and drive an oceans rescue plan through.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/72_hours_to_save_our_oceans/?vl

SOURCES

International Policy: United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Pew Environment Group)
http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/compilations/international-policy-united-nations-conference-on-sustainable-development-328397

Six steps for successful oceans negotiations (Greenpeace)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/89557361/Six-Steps-Rio-Oceans-Rescue-Plan-Greenpeace

Our Endangered Oceans (Ecoworld)
http://www.ecoworld.com/animals/our-endangered-oceans.html

Threats to Oceans and Coasts (WWF)
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/

Why Women Can’t Sleep

Have you ever wondered how a woman’s brain works? Well, it’s finally explained here in one, easy-to-understand illustration. Each of those little balls is a thought about something that needs to be done, a decision to make, or a problem that needs to be solved:

A man has only 2 balls. They consume all his thoughts, and he sleeps like a baby.

Ashton Kutcher Shows Many Faces in Popchips Ad Campaign

By STUART ELLIOTT

Ashton Kutcher, who serves as the “president of pop culture” for the snack brand Popchips, will appear in a new ad campaign in four personas including this guy, a hippie named Nigel.

Ashton Kutcher appears as an Indian character named Raj in a Popchips ad.

Ashton Kutcher is an Indian character named Raj in one Popchips ad.

On CBS, Ashton Kutcher is a star of “Two and a Half Men.” In a new campaign for Popchips snacks, he will play four men.

The campaign, scheduled to be under way on Wednesday morning, features Mr. Kutcher’s portrayal of four different comedic personalities, all of them, natch, fans of Popchips. Mr. Kutcher has been involved with marketing Popchips since he was named the brand’s “president of pop culture” in 2010.

During that time, he has done some brand work that included video clips that can be viewed on YouTube. The new ad campaign represents the first for Popchips in which he plays a central role.

The campaign, with a budget estimated at $1.5 million, will include video, outdoor ads and social media sites like Facebook and YouTube. The social media outlets should be no surprise in light of Mr. Ashton’s reputation as a social media master.

The campaign is being developed by Mr. Kutcher, Popchips and an advertising agency named Zambesi. Alison Brod Public Relations is handling the public relations duties.

“It’s been great working with Ashton,” Keith Belling, chief executive at Popchips Inc. in San Francisco, said in a phone interview, “and as a social brand, we’ve had a lot of social engagement.”

“Now, it’s time to take it to the next level,” Mr. Belling said, with an ad campaign that would provide “more reach.”

The underpinning of the campaign is the love that Popchips customers have for the brand, so the campaign has a dating theme and is being called “World Wide Lovers.”

The initial video is styled like a dating video and Mr. Kutcher appears as the four characters: Darl, a diva; Nigel, a hippie; Raj, an optimist who is Indian; and Swordfish, a sweet biker. Each character’s search for love is paired with a particular flavor of Popchips.

Mr. Kutcher also appears in character in the outdoor ads, some of which are about product attributes.

For instance, he is Nigel the stoner on a sign that reads “Never baked, but perfect if you are,” and he is Darl the fierce on a sign that reads “Fried is so last season.”

The outdoor ads are to appear in markets like Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco and Seattle.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991.

Brian Greene: Why is our universe fine-tuned for life?

At the heart of modern cosmology is a mystery: Why does our universe appear so exquisitely tuned to create the conditions necessary for life? In this tour de force tour of some of science’s biggest new discoveries, Brian Greene shows how the mind-boggling idea of a multiverse may hold the answer to the riddle.

Brian Greene is perhaps the best-known proponent of superstring theory, the idea that minuscule strands of energy vibrating in a higher dimensional space-time create every particle and force in the universe. Full bio »