Alan Moore on Pornography
Speaking of having fun . . . .
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There's an Upside to Color Blindness?
Researcher Amanda Melin posits that color blindness might be an advantageous adaptation for capuchins hunting camouflaged insects. For us humans? Not so much—"selection pressure for maintaining color vision could have relaxed because it wasn’t a big advantage in the habitat or types of hunting used at the time."
How We Learned to Stop Having Fun
Is depression an epidemic? Barbara Ehrenreich says that the way that depression seemed to sweep across Western Europe in the 17th Century <I>looks</I> like one, but is probably the result of the modern age's celebration of individuality. An increased sense of personal autonomy was accompanied by the loss of communal rituals and festivities that emphasized belonging to communities.
Opening Day, Grand Opening, DRM-Free! What?
I have no idea how <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/technology/03music.web.html?hp">this<…; is going to impact the world of digital music.
The Psychology of Baseball
Don't let the April 1 dateline throw you. It was also opening day, not just a holiday for the world's fools.
The Archeology of Table Manners
Kate Colquhoun reviews Martin Jones's <I>Feast: Why Humans Share Food</I>. At first I thought the article's title was absurdly inflated, but I was convinced by the time Colquhoun wrote: "To mangle Brillat-Savarin, he dissects not just what early humans ate, but how they ate, in order to draw conclusions about who they were. In the process, he proves once again that food and the ways we have chosen to process and proffer it can be more revealing than any other historical or prehistoric artefact."
Confessions of a Car Salesman
Chandler Phillips thought he was applying to <I>Edmunds.com</I> for a job writing an advice column on buying and leasing cars. The editors had a better idea. They asked him to go undercover and work as a salesman at two lots: a high-pressure import dealership on the "auto mile" and a no-haggle American showroom.
Red State Blues
Michael Ventura gets off the main roads and reports on the state of the union. The kids are leaving.
Are you happy with your audio system?
A very simple question this week: Are you happy with your audio system?
mbl 1611HR D/A converter & 1621 CD transport
More than a decade ago, I bought a new pair of speakers and sought to find the most suitable cables for them. After auditioning a number of borrowed sets, I enlisted my daughter to confirm my selection. She grew up in a household where there was always good music playing on good equipment, but had no active interest in either. To placate Dad, she listened to a few of her own recordings with each of the various cables and then, lo and behold, reached the same conclusion I had. In fact, she described the differences almost exactly as I would have. I was ecstatic. Not only did it confirm my opinions about the cables, but it confirmed to me that any motivated listener can hear what golden-ear audiophiles obsess about. As I tried to express my joy to her, she left the room with this parting shot: "Yes, of course, but who cares?"