Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse Five, Welcome to the Monkey House, and other novels contributed fantastic words of advice to writers in a newspaper years ago, re-published on San Diego State University website (via Kottke via Chris Glass)
Vonnegut’s whole article is great — self-deprecating and witty and downright charming. His suggestions are for writing, but I think that some of these would not be bad to follow in the course of everyday conversation and life in general.
Can violent video games narrow the gender gap in science? According to one intriguing paper, reported on by Cognitive Daily, it seems possible.
The study found that:
– After playing a violent video game, women performed just as well as the men did on a spatial test commonly used to test science skills — and this gender gap absence was still present 5 months after the study.
– Both men and women improved drastically on the spatial test after playing a violent game, while a peaceful puzzle game resulted in little improvement.
it’s intriguing that video games could possibly help more women excel in a career reserved for men …
Sad that maybe violence is necessary to do it, but maybe a more peaceful game could be developed that hold attention while improving science skills.
Tetris, anyone?
(Complete paper: Feng, J., Spence, I., Pratt, J. (2007). Playing an Action Video Game Reduces Gender Differences in Spatial Cognition. Psychological Science, 18(10), 850-855. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01990.x)
For obvious reasons, Fridays rock my world. Even more than Saturdays, methinks. There’s something about the anticipation of a free day to plan for that thrills me to no end.
Tomorrow, a large group of Culture Vultures is going to see Metropolitan Museum of Art. There’s a sculpture of a balloon animal on the roof!
During walks around this quaint little city of ours, I have noticed that there are many signs proclaiming various #1s — stores proclaim to have the BEST, the MOST FAMOUS, the CHEAPEST of whatever they are selling — without documenting an objective source.
There are 2 signs below: The first picture was taken at a street fair, and struck me as quite preposterous. The SOFTEST socks? Really? Is there a soft sock contest I am not aware of? Did these random socks at a random street fair happen to win it?
The second sign shows the somewhat painful wording that comes with brutal honesty …
Thanks to Allison for sending me this pic.
Thanks to Stephanie for sending me this pic.
Have a cool pic? Send it in to non dot cultured at gmail dot com
Shel Silverstein contributed to Playboy starting in 1956, wrote awesome children’s books, such as Where the Sidewalk Ends, and a song for Johnny Cash (the video of the song is at the end of this post).
For the kiddies, Shel wrote inspirational, heady stuff like this:
Listen to the MUSTN’TS child,
Listen to the DON’TS
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me -
Anything can happen, child
ANYTHING can be.
And then, for Playboy, he wrote stuff like Topless Town, a poem about a restaurant that discovers the way to make big $ is for the waitresses to go topless.
And, then, he wrote A Boy Named Sue for Johnny Cash! (which is CRAZY! I didn’t know that, and I’m kinda obsessed with Cash). Here’s Shel and Johnny:
‘Twas a really cool tour, where we learned stuff about Andrew Carnegie and the Hall itself– like that:
Andrew Carnegie’s mommy forbid him to marry while she was alive (hmmmm … Freud would have a field day with that one!)
That Carnegie Hall has 837 seats in the balcony, because Andrew Carnegie came from very humble beginnings, and wanted there to be as many cheap seats as possible
The origin of that old joke: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” “Practice, practice, practice” was the following: Some violin player was leaving Carnegie Hall after a bad rehearsal. A tourist came up to him, and said, “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?” His answer: “Practice, practice, practice”
Cool, eh? Public tours start up again in September.
Want people to remember your name — at a party, at work, at a networking event, etc? Be sure to smile when you are first introduced. According to a new study, “behavioral results showed that the retrieval of face-name associations was more accurate and faster for smiling than neutral faces.”
I don’t know if you could completely see this ad for Gold Peak Tea, but you can see the large feet in the corner, right? The words next to those large feet are “The Way Tea Should Taste.”
It’s really hot outside. I don’t know about you, but I could go for a refreshing gulp of relaxing male feet fresh from the ‘fridge.
The ad was on the side of an innocent New York City bus, but it follows me everywhere I go. **Thanks to Allison for capturing it and sending it in**.
(Do you have an odd picture? Send it to non dot cultured at gmail dot com !)
OK, so the title of this post is pretty awful. Kids are great, of course — how could you not love ‘em?
So cute & innocent.
In fact, I once read that babies’ proportions have evolved so that adults cannot resist the urge to care for them: babies have big heads in relation to their bodies, big eyes in relation to their heads, and, oh, that sweet baby smell (well, um, sometimes)!
However, it’s scenes like this that make me think parenthood is a little like living under a tyrant:
I was on the E subway today, on my way from Manhattan into Queens. Across the way was a family: 2 little girls, a Mom, a Dad. One of the little girls — maybe 7 years old or so — kept on putting her feet in Mom’s lap, for her Mom to rub.
The girl would put a foot up on her Mom’s lap. Mom would rub it. Girl would switch feet. Rub. Switch feet.
And, of course, this scene rates a big ZERO on the spectrum of disgusting that that Mom has probably done for her daughter — over and over and over again.
But, of course, it’s all probably worth it for the cute ‘n innocent little task-masters. Right?
There’s a grass-roots movement now to do just that, begun by Dave Bruno. It’s sort of a backlash against American consumerism. Bruno documents such questions as if a pair of shoes constitutes 1 item or 2 on his blog and how many jeans is absolutely necessary at www.guynameddave.com
I don’t know how I feel about that: it’s rather drastic, isn’t it? I mean, simplifying your life by that much takes a lot of effort in itself — a lot of thought about what is important and what isn’t. Like trimming a bonsai tree, keeping your items under 100 needs a constant attention — a constant weighing of one’s possessions.
Might be better to go for a sort of moderate materialism, know?
Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse Five, Welcome to the Monkey House, and other novels contributed fantastic words of advice to writers in a newspaper years ago, re-published on San Diego State University website (via Kottke via Chris Glass)
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