Chasing Sunset

Month

September 2010

37 posts

Sep 29, 201046 notes
#star wars #tv #children #fantasy #muppets
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Sep 27, 2010
#environment #product #food #nature #green #recycling
South Africa's Democracy at Risk → avaaz.org

A campaign in South Africa calling on the ANC Council to protect transparent and accountable democracy and freedom of the press by reversing the Protection of Information Act and the Media Appeals Tribunal proposal.

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Sep 27, 2010
#petitions #democracy #media #freedom
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Sep 27, 20102 notes
#funny #social networking #love #people #chat
Sep 26, 20102 notes
#people #superhero
Sep 26, 2010
#robot #star wars #gadgets #geek
10 Ways We Get the Odds Wrong → psychologytoday.com

Is your gym locker room crawling with drug-resistant bacteria? Is the guy with the bulging backpack a suicide bomber? And what about that innocent-looking arugula: Will pesticide residue cause cancer, or do the leaves themselves harbor E. coli? But wait! Not eating enough vegetables is also potentially deadly.

These days, it seems like everything is risky, and worry itself is bad for your health. The more we learn, the less we seem to know—and if anything makes us anxious, it’s uncertainty. At the same time, we’re living longer, healthier lives. So why does it feel like even the lettuce is out to get us?

The human brain is exquisitely adapted to respond to risk—uncertainty about the outcome of actions. Faced with a precipice or a predator, the brain is biased to make certain decisions. Our biases reflect the choices that kept our ancestors alive. But we have yet to evolve similarly effective responses to statistics, media coverage, and fear-mongering politicians. For most of human existence, 24-hour news channels didn’t exist, so we don’t have cognitive shortcuts to deal with novel uncertainties.

Still, uncertainty unbalances us, pitching us into anxiety and producing an array of cognitive distortions. Even minor dilemmas like deciding whether to get a cell phone (brain cancer vs. dying on the road because you can’t call for help?) can be intolerable for some people. And though emotions are themselves critical to making rational decisions, they were designed for a world in which dangers took the form of predators, not pollutants. Our emotions push us to make snap judgments that once were sensible—but may not be anymore.

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Sep 26, 2010
#science #humans #people #life #advice #perspective
Sep 23, 2010411 notes
#funny #writing
Hyperbole and a Half → hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com

A funny blog that earns the pee-in-pants worthy award ^_^

Sep 21, 2010
#funny #comics #writing #blog #art
Sep 21, 201029 notes
#star wars #art #jedi #digital #caricature
Sep 21, 2010980 notes
#star wars #outdoors #activity #ballooning #hot-air balloon #adventure
Sep 21, 2010192 notes
#fantasy #art #visual #gaming #funny #monsters
Sep 21, 2010
#advertising #blooper #engrish #funny
Sep 20, 2010126 notes
#nudity #girl #sexy #office #books #body art
Sep 20, 2010888 notes
#science #crockery #geek #signs
Sep 19, 20107,036 notes
#art #photography #people
“We would define love as the complete and total acceptance of what is.” —Omni
Sep 18, 2010
#inspiration #life #love #metaphysics #spirit
Sep 18, 2010570 notes
#food #art #martial arts #men
“You set yourself up for happiness or you set yourself up for sadness. Either way, it’s your doing.” —Jill Davis
Sep 17, 20101,664 notes
#advice #life
drawing vs photography

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Sep 17, 201046,609 notes
#art #awesome #visual #sketch #photography
Sep 17, 201066 notes
#star wars #art #fantasy #awesome #visual
Sep 17, 201021 notes
#photo #woman #fashion
“To be angry at people means that one considers their acts to be important.
It is imperative to cease to feel this way.”
—Carlos Castaneda
Sep 17, 2010
#inspiration #insight #warrior #advice
Play
Sep 16, 2010
#movies #performance #Jai'prakash
Sep 13, 201079 notes
#star wars #art #fantasy
Sep 13, 201063 notes
#food #geek #creative #roleplaying #gaming
Sep 9, 201054 notes
#star wars #visual #art #digital #space #fantasy #geek
Sep 9, 20106 notes
#art #food #creative
Sep 9, 20101,556 notes
#signs #funny #food
Sep 9, 201014 notes
#beautiful #beach #girl #woman #nude #nudity
Where does the myth of a gene for things like intelligence come from? → guardian.co.uk

There’s a widespread assumption that people’s mental and physical attributes are predictable from their genes. So where does this belief come from, and is it wrong?

People’s understanding of genetic effects is heavily influenced by the way genetics is taught in schools. Mendel and his wrinkly and smooth peas make a nice introduction to genetic transmission, but the downside is that we go away with the idea that genes have an all-or-nothing effect on a binary trait. Some characteristics are inherited this way (more or less), and they tend to be the ones that textbooks focus on: for example eye colour, colour-blindness, Huntington’s disease. But most genetic effects are far more subtle and complex than this. Take height, for instance. Genes are important in determining how tall you are, but this is not down to one gene: instead, there is a host of genes, each of which nudges height up or down by a small amount.

Furthermore, genetic influences may interact in complicated ways. For instance, coat colour in mice is affected by combinations of genes, so that one cannot predict whether a mouse is black, white or agouti (mouse coloured!) just by knowing the status of one gene. The expression of a gene may also depend crucially on the environment; for instance, obesity relates both to calorie intake and genetic predisposition, but the effects are not just additive: some people can eat a great deal without gaining weight, whereas in others, body mass depends substantially on food intake. And a genetic predisposition to obesity can be counteracted by exercise.

This means that we get a very different impression of the strength of genetic influences on a trait if we look at the impact of a person’s whole genome, compared with looking at individual genes in isolation.

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Sep 9, 2010
#information #science #people #body
Sep 9, 2010
#love #random #visual #observations #heart
Sep 6, 2010106 notes
#art #visual #star wars #fantasy #marriage #space #robots #romance
“The relationship you have with the world is just like any other relationship. Every now and again, even if it’s pissed you off for no good reason, you have to look it in the eyes and say: I love you.” —I Wrote This For You: The World Loves You Too
Sep 6, 20101,592 notes
#inspiration #world #love #advice #life
Play
Sep 6, 2010
#funny #music
Play
Sep 6, 2010
#funny #sex #music
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