Monday Links from the Fireside Vol. XXXXIII

[NickFitz]

You're quite a fan of cognitive dissonance-

http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...nch-vol-x.html

have you recently had your faith in it shaken?

I knew as I was putting that link in that I'd posted something relevant to the subject before, but I was in a hurry and denial

Anyway, I think both articles are worth a read. I'm bound to revisit some subjects occasionally, with the likely exceptions of "accidental penis" and "hungover owls"

Still, it's nice to know that somebody remembers what I posted back in March

[TimberWolf]

You're quite a fan of cognitive dissonance-

http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...nch-vol-x.html

have you recently had your faith in it shaken?

You can see this effect quite clearly on, for example, big brother, when a contestant gets booted out. Almost to a man (or woman) they say first ""I knew it was going to be me" followed by "I wanted to go..." (or words to that affect), plus a pathetic reason for wanting to go. And when the result is an almost certainty beforehand, they start finding reasons for wanting to go before they are booted out. Even though it may be a universal and common phenomenon, it's still odd seeing it expressed so unconvincingly and predictably.

[thunderlizard]

You're quite a fan of cognitive dissonance-

http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...nch-vol-x.html

have you recently had your faith in it shaken?

[NickFitz]

Hmm, working for me right now - have you tried Google's cache?

[RichardCranium]

Nowhere But In Mosselprom. Old Posters - "Because the majority of advertising materials in the USSR were of a political propagandizing nature, the many examples of simple commercial advertising are often overlooked... These ads for goods and services were pervasive, with many having been published during the New Economic Politics (NEP) period (1921-1928). " Interesting gallery of posters, many (perhaps unsurprisingly) for smoking materials and booze.

502 Bad Gateway
nginx/0.7.65

[norrahe]

Sorry, I'm too busy to come up with an intro this week: just read this lot
[LIST][*]The Food Lab's Top 6 Food Myths - Kenji Lopez-Alt, who has previously brought us perfect french fries, burgers, and pizza turns his attention to exploding some popular myths about cooking. "You can use this information to either improve your cooking, or to sound like a pompous windbag at your next cocktail party."

Anyone interested in reading further should try this book

[TimberWolf]

These helmets would be a bit spooky seen on the street:






Bike helmets have never been more fun » This Blog Rules | Why go elsewhere?

[TimberWolf]

Ah, I havn't looked at that links to funny pictures, etc site for ages. Here's a good one:



Well i thought it was funny. Probably because I didn't spot it straight away.

[NickFitz]

Sorry, I'm too busy to come up with an intro this week: just read this lot

• The Food Lab's Top 6 Food Myths - Kenji Lopez-Alt, who has previously brought us perfect french fries, burgers, and pizza turns his attention to exploding some popular myths about cooking. "You can use this information to either improve your cooking, or to sound like a pompous windbag at your next cocktail party."
  
  
• Lego 'doing it wrong' ads - Excellent work by the Leo Burnett ad agency of Moscow. Who'd have thought the Taj Mahal would make such a great spaceship?
  
  
• Japanese Special Attack Units training centre haikyo - Lee is an urban explorer in Japan, here visiting an abandoned WWII base: "Many of those enlisted for the far more widely known of Japan’s special attack units, the Kamikaze, were taught at the relatively nearby Tachiarai Air Base, but at Kawatana, the less well known but no less deadly Shinyo (suicide boats) and Kaiten (explosives-laden submarines) personnel underwent their specialized training. Along with the even more desperate, although in the end little used, bomb carrying Fukuryu divers. All of it needless to say in preparation for the young conscripts one and only mission."
  
  
• The High Is Always the Pain and the Pain Is Always the High - "Pain in poker comes in many forms. There is the loss you feel about living off of the dregs of a societal illness. There is the gambler’s moment of clarity when you realize you have become just like the old, sad men that you ridiculed in your younger, luckier days... But none of poker’s daily pains are deadly or instructive, really. What’s more, all of guilt’s iterations can be cleansed by one monster score." Jay Kaspian Kang writes about his gambling addiction.
  
  
• Lost in Space - "It was a bold experiment in creating the office of the future. There were no offices, no desks, no personal equipment. And no survivors." This Nineties attempt to run a business using only hotdesking sounds like epic fail.
  
  
• 50 Ways to Get Unfriended on Facebook - "You think you’re best buds with someone, then one day — BAM! — you sign on to discover they’ve unfriended your sorry ass. Was it something you said? Something you did? In short: yes. Most likely." JR Raphael and Dan Tynan's list may be somewhat tongue in cheek, but there's an element of truth in there.
  
  
• An Inside Look at Hacker Business Models - "As hackers started making money, the field became full of “professionals” that inspired organized cyber crime. Similar to industrial corporations, hackers have developed their own business models in order to operate as a profitable organization. What do these business models look like?" Interesting examination by Noa Bar-Yosef of some of the techniques used to reduce costs and market essentially criminal enterprises; don't forget to follow the links to the first three parts in this series of articles.
  
  
• Rick Astley in thesis - Brilliant rickroll woven into a student's essay on broadband networks, as a kind of acrostic
  
  
• When in doubt, shout – why shaking someone’s beliefs turns them into stronger advocates - "You don’t have to look very far for examples of people holding on to their beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Thousands still hold to the idea that vaccines cause autism, that all life was created a few thousand years ago, and even that drinking industrial bleach is a good idea. Look at comment threads across the internet and you’ll inevitably find legions of people who boldly support for these ideas in the face of any rational argument." I forbear to make the obvious comment.
  
  
• Nowhere But In Mosselprom. Old Posters - "Because the majority of advertising materials in the USSR were of a political propagandizing nature, the many examples of simple commercial advertising are often overlooked... These ads for goods and services were pervasive, with many having been published during the New Economic Politics (NEP) period (1921-1928). " Interesting gallery of posters, many (perhaps unsurprisingly) for smoking materials and booze.

Happy invoicing!