"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot." - Steven Wright

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The Straight Dope: Why does the alarm clock snooze button give you nine extra minutes, not ten?

Uncertainty, humility, and adaptation in the tropical forest: the agricultural augury of the Kantu' - "Moore's (1957) pioneering analysis of scapulimancy (bone divination) among the Naskapi Indians of Labrador. He concluded that divination helped to randomize Naskapi hunting strategies, which maximized their chances of success against nonterritorial herbivores whose location on any given day was also random. Lawless (1975) studied divination in a context of ecological change in Northern Luzon, and describes how such a system evolves as resources become scarce. In a related vein, Rappaport (1968) shows how ritual cycles regulate the relations among people, pig herds, and the natural environment in highland New Guinea. The linkage between ritual and ecology in all of these cases is instrumental: ritual practice has consequences that in turn have direct economic or ecological implications. The Kantu' augural system links ritual to ecology not just instrumentally, but also symbolically and pedagogically."

Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You - "People almost always think they are too smart for Prof. Brian Wansinks quirky experiments in the psychology of overindulgence... Dr. Wansink is particularly proud of his bottomless soup bowl, which he and some undergraduates devised with insulated tubing, plastic dinnerware and a pot of hot tomato soup rigged to keep the bowl about half full. The idea was to test which would make people stop eating: visual cues, or a feeling of fullness... He prefers to experiment on graduate students or office workers, whom he sometimes lures with the promise of a drawing for an iPod. Its easy to find undergraduates to participate, but with the guys nothing makes sense because they all eat like animals, he said."

The Malay Male: Mighty Morphin' Racist Rangers - "Malaysia is in peril. No longer able to withstand the terrible idiocy plaguing our country, Dr M - the spirit of Malaysia - sent four magic rings to four special young people."
He mixed up the Power Rangers and Captain Planet. Duh.

Man rams car into women's clinic in Davenport - "A man accused of ramming his car into a women's clinic and then setting his car on fire thought it was an abortion clinic, police said Tuesday... The center does not perform abortions and does not provide abortion referrals"

Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq - "To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration. O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade."

Nun tried to kill priest after finding him in bed with another woman - "A jealous nun appeared in court charged with threats to kill and an arson attack on a priest's house - after she caught him in bed with a married woman... "We had been together four years and I had even had two abortions because of him.""

YouTube - NTU Student survey - FUnny comments - Somehow I doubt that like NUS, NTU will now restrict access to webcasts. Bah.

Ubisoft's Softer and Sluttier Side - "I was sort of amazed, I mean -- sure I'm not oblivious! Sex sells, but what was Ubisoft hoping to sell by paying girls to come party with videogame nerds?"

Dutch mayor for prostitutes with army abroad - "A Dutch mayor backed the idea of sending prostitutes to accompany their troops on foreign missions.(e.g. Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan as part of a NATO peacekeeping force.) Annemarie Jorritsma, mayor of the town of Almere in Holland and a member of the ruling VVD liberals, told Dutch television: "The army must consider ways its soldiers can let off steam.""
Gotta love these Europeans.

'Paris Syndrome' leaves Japanese tourists in shock - "Already this year, Japan's embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors -- including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them. Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French "Sun King", Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves, the paper cited Japanese embassy official Yoshikatsu Aoyagi as saying."

department of crappy engineering: lecture paparazzi - "Today I was taking a short nap during the 5 minutes break in LT7, when I opened my eyes I saw a girl aiming her camera phone at me! I stared at her with that "what-are-you-doing" look on my face and she turned away giggling with her friend..."

Confident students do worse in math; bad news for U.S. - "The nations with the best scores have the least happy, least confident math students, says a study by the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy."

One for the ladies: How to date a geek guy? - "#2: Be direct. Geek guys tend to be in a shell. They are generally defensive and aloof. They aren't cold in the least; they're just extremely polite. Geeks tend to live by "do unto others". A geek guy who doesn't kiss you is worried about forcing himself. Grab him and plant one. Let him stagger and shake it off, but if he shows signs of recovering too quickly, grab him and plant one again. Subtlety and coyness completely fails with geeks; they'll be confused and expect that you're not on Pon Farr or are a nun or something. Where other guys need no provocation, a geek guy has to be brained on the noggin a couple of times, then he'll get the idea."

Christian soldiers take a beating over battle with Moors - "The fiestas — some dating back hundreds of years — celebrate the final “reconquest” of Spain by Christian armies from the Moors in 1492 after 781 years of Muslim rule. Villagers divide into rival “armies” of Moors and Christians to re-enact the conquest of their towns... “There are many Muslims living in all of these towns and none of them has any problem with the party,” Señor Pascual says. “There are no victors or vanquished. Moors and Christians always end up having dinner together.” The organiser of one fiesta, in Jávea, is a Palestinian-born Muslim. He said: “My family and I have participated for more than 20 years without the slightest religious or political problem,” Khader Ibeid wrote in a letter to El País newspaper. Calls for fiestas to be scrapped were a barbarity that would stoke resentment."

Dungeons Deep - Freeware Fantasy Dungeon Game Classics - "Castle of the Winds by Rick Saada is a fantasy rpg (with basic gfx) in which you explore dungeons, kill monsters, collect all manner of items and treasures and so forth. Typical dungeon crawl material but this one is nicely done and it has a story (steeped in Norse legend) that is very well written."
YuCheng, Lim and I have recently rediscovered this.

Oslo gay animal show draws crowds - "The exhibition - entitled Against Nature? - includes photographs of one male giraffe mounting another, of apes stimulating others of the same sex, and two aroused male right whales rubbing against each other. "Homosexuality is a common and widespread phenomenon in the animal world," says an exhibition statement."
Animals are fallen! And they are products of extensive socialization too!