How Much Would It Cost To Raise A Kid Like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes? - "How much ruin can a 6-year-old possibly wreak (assuming Calvin "represents the worst-case scenario in terms of the amount of damage a child can do")? One dedicated soul has read through the comic's entire run to find out. Reporting in the Honest and Reliable Data sub-journal of Proceedings of the Natural Institute of Science* (PNIS-HARD), researcher Matt J. Michel attempts to provide "an explicit approximation of the amount of damage that children can cause," in a half-serious effort to increase the accuracy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's estimated cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 ($226,800–$264,600 total, for middle-classers). To do so, Michel read through every published strip of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes in chronological order and identified every instance in which Calvin or his tiger caused physical damage. Also included were cases where explicit mention was made of Calvin having caused damage... The monetary cost of damages is only mentioned on a handful of occasions in the course of the strip, so Amazon was consulted in estimating the cost of damaged goods. homewyse.com and fixr.com were referenced in estimating cost for property damage. The result of Michel's analysis is the chart you see at the top of this post, from which he concludes that Calvin caused an estimated $15,955.58 worth of damage, or $1,850.55 annually.
Meme - "Girls who say ""Hiiii" *Disney Princesses from Ralph Breaks the Internet*
Girls who say "Bruh" *Shrek*
Knights who say "Ni" *Monty Python*"
Blinded by speed, tiger beetles use antennae to 'see' while running - "Speed is blinding. Just ask the tiger beetle: This predatory insect has excellent sight, but when it chases prey, it runs so fast it can no longer see where it's going. Cornell University researchers have discovered that, unlike insects that wave their "feelers" around to acquire information, tiger beetles rigidly hold their antennae directly in front of them to mechanically sense their environments and avoid obstacles while running"
Meme - "Great news! My cereal is an excellent source of iridium!"
"Oat Start. Ca. Good source of calcium. Ir. Excellent source of iron"
Are House Spiders More Common in the Winter? - "Those spiders that you sometimes see scurrying around your house during this season have likely been living with you all year-round. In fact, less than 5 percent of the spiders you encounter inside your home have set one of their eight feet outside, according to Rod Crawford, Curator of Arachnids at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington... A female spider may have placed one of her egg sacs in an undisturbed area of your home. Once hatched, spiderlings instinctively seek out secluded lairs in crawl spaces, storage areas, wall and floor voids and behind furniture and appliances. You may encounter some house spiders in late summer and early fall that have migrated into your home, but they are not necessarily outdoor migrants seeking a place to stay warm during the winter. Most spiders' breeding seasons coincide with the transition from summer to fall. If you see more spiders than usual around your home during these months, chances are they're mature males wandering far and wide in search of a mate... So, what happens to all those outdoor spiders in the winter? If most of them don’t seek shelter inside our homes, how do they survive the frigid winter months? Unlike humans, spiders are considered cold-blooded creatures since they don’t have a mechanism to regulate body temperature. When it's cold, some spider species go through a process of cold-hardening to survive the winter. Beyond the chemical transformation in their bodies, many spiders seek shelter in piles of rocks, leaves or wood. Once snuggled up, spiders enter a slowdown state called diapause. In diapause, spiders are not completely inactive. Instead, they may emerge on warmer days to hunt and feed on any insect prey that may be active during this time."
Meme - "BREAKING NEWS. Spanish police deploy Phillip Schofield after search dogs fail to sniff out the teenage boy. Schofield's Wife said; "This is what he does best. If anyone can find a vulnerable teenage boy, its Phillip""
Could Toronto limit Uber, Lyfts on city streets? - "“I think the city really needs to consider a cap on the number of rideshare and vehicles on the road,” said Marc Andre Way, President of the Canadian Taxi Association. “You’re reducing the price and services, and there is enormous congestion in the city.” Hubbard said taxi operators and private citizens have built a vehicle-for-hire system over the years, but they are now out of work and desperately looking for answers."
Classic rent-seeking
We've been dealing with rage all wrong – here's what to do instead - "getting things off your chest may feel good in the moment, but in the long term it’s not effective at reducing the rage. A new study published in the Clinical Psychology Review suggests using techniques that address stress have been shown to be more effective at decreasing anger and aggression than venting, as the key is to lower physiological arousal. In other words, calm down... 'Despite what popular wisdom may suggest, even going for a run is not an effective strategy because it increases arousal levels and ends up being counterproductive.’... the research was partly prompted by the rising popularity of rage rooms which promote smashing things like glass, plates and electronics to work through angry feelings... Activities increasing arousal were ineffective in reducing anger and produced a range of outcomes. Jogging, in particular, was the most likely to increase anger, but physical education classes and playing ball sports had an arousal-decreasing effect – the researchers suggest having an element of play may counter negative emotions."
Horrible History: Lighting the way - "Wall sconces and torches are favourite lighting motifs in films set in the ancient and Mediæval eras. There is one major problem with most depictions however: the settings are usually, but not always, too well lit. In Mediæval castles, for example, far more reliance was placed on windows to admit natural sunlight but, contrary to film and TV, ancient halls and castles generally would have been quite dark. Torches were not lit every ten metres along corridors, nor were rooms flooded with candlelight. Indeed, the idea that rooms were lit all the time is most certainly a ‘Hollywood-ism’. Rather, if you wanted illumination, most people carried it with them in the form of a candle, a rushlight or an oil lamp. If you want to experiment in your own home to see how effective such things are, then get a candle. For authenticities sake, peasants would have used ones made from animal fat, known as tallow, which was smoky. The nobility and clergy on the other hand preferred beeswax that burned brighter and cleaner. Regardless of your chosen medium, put the candle in some sort of holder, light it, then turn off all the modern lights. Allow your eyes a minute or two to adjust and you will find that you can move about your unlit home with perfect confidence, by the light of a single candle. You may also discover that the light given off by candles, tapers, rushlights or oil lamps is a much warmer glow perfect for inducing a more mellow ambience. All of which leads us to how film-makers use different lighting methods to set the tone or mood of a scene.
Film-makers typically deploy two forms of torch to light an actor’s way: handheld burning brands or those attached to a wall. At a time devoid of electricity (or gaslighting), torches provided much needed illumination, but fire was a constant hazard in the ancient and mediaeval world. Property owners, apartment dwellers, city magistrates, and even monarchs lived in fear of the potential damage caused by unchecked fires, particularly in urban areas. While burning torches were carried by the joyous celebrants at Roman era weddings, the very same torches still retained their potential to cause harm and, in some cases, signalled the potential for violence to break out. After Gaius Julius Caesar’s assassination, in 44 BC, Rome’s citizens gathered in the Forum to hear erstwhile colleague Marcus Antonius’ eulogy. They collected pieces of wood and furniture from the surrounding locality to make an ad hoc funeral pyre upon which to burn the dictator's body. Fired by Anthony’s words - literally - many of those present then grabbed pieces of flaming wood as torches from the pyre...
In most movie settings it is unclear what flammable material is being used with the typical burning brand. In most cases it appears to be some form of material coated in a flammable fuel, perhaps pitch or animal fat, wrapped tightly about the end of a wooden stick. To be of use the burning torch is typically held in front of the bearer, but this creates a few problems. Firstly, as the layers burn off little pieces of flaming cloth or dripping hot fat or pitch can become a hazard to the user. At the same time, the bearer is effectively walking into, and breathing, acrid smoke while being dazzled by the torchlight itself. Furthermore, the flammable material can burn off quite quickly and would need replacing frequently, which is something you rarely see in films (in much the same way that, in the old cowboy movies, six-shooters seemingly never ran out of bullets!). The second type of burning brand are usually set in a bracket or sconce affixed to a wall... a flickering flame produces inconsistent lighting which, depending on how the torch is positioned, may not illuminate an area or corridor particularly well. As before, if you were moving from place to place, it is far more convenient to carry a light source with you. Secondly, torches are largely impractical indoors because, depending on the fuel used, they can create a lot of obscuring, noxious fumes. Such smoke is potentially lethal in a poorly ventilated space such as in a tunnel or windowless corridor. Thirdly, lighting is often depicted positioned high up on walls well above an average person’s reach... How do the castle’s occupants refuel these torches? While it is not inconceivable that a servant had to regularly position and climb a ladder to reach the bowls to refuel them, this is labour-intensive and not very practical. The sconces shown are best described as uplighters. Precisely what illumination value would these torches offer?... Moreover, it is daylight, why are the torches burning at all! They are not providing any additional light, so why waste fuel? Fuel is expensive (something we can all identify with currently)... why do so many films and TV shows depict scenes with gratuitous numbers of candles burning even in daylight? Oddly, this even applies to electric lighting in much more modern settings. The answer seems simple enough. Lighting technicians are employed to create the director/producer’s desired ambience or ‘mood’... viewers may struggle to see what is going on, which can be both frustrating and irritating. With this in mind, it just makes sense for lighting technicians to err on the side of caution"
Dozens rally in Pakistan after a Christian man is sentenced to death for blasphemy - "Blasphemy accusations are common in Pakistan. Under the country’s blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death"
Islamophobia!
The fact that it's only dozens is telling
Meme - "Holy Communion. All Baptised Christians are welcome to receive Holy Communion. During Communion, the choir will sin"
Meme - *Furniture diagram with measurements*
*Assembled furniture with measurements displayed in real life*
Meme - Michael Foster @realmfoster: "*Every Project Veritas recording*
Subject: You're not from Project Veritas, are you?
Project Veritas: No lol
Subject: Oh ok. haha. Just making sure. So yeah, we are building a "Lair of Doom" inside a Volcano."
Nicholas A. Christakis on X - "Police officers, financial advisors, and CEOs or CFOs who used the Ashley Madison infidelity website were significantly more likely to engage in professional misconduct. Many have argued that people who lack integrity in their personal lives often lack integrity in their professional lives, and this has been true in academia this past decade, too. So I was amazed to stumble on this inventive 2019 study in @PNASNews via @mattyglesias just now. https://pnas.org/doi/full/10.10"
Meme - *Meme mashup: Saddam Hussein hiding place + Plato's Cave + Sisyphus + "Never Give Up" / Digging for Diamonds*
This man accidentally swallowed and then pooped his AirPod. It still worked. - "Ben Hsu was wearing Apple's wireless earbuds when he discovered that one was missing after he woke up. He tried looking for it everywhere and finally decided to use Apple's tracking feature. Now, when the feature is used, the loose AirPod should emit a sound so long as it is within range. Hsu heard the beeps. But he still couldn't find his AirPod. "I checked under my blanket and looked around but couldn't find it – then I realised the sound was coming from my stomach"... Hsu is a lucky dude, by the way. Not only did he retrieve his expensive AirPod and they were still functional, he could have been dead if the batteries of the earbuds were exposed."
Defying Cavity: Lantern Bioworks FAQ - "Lantern Bioworks says they have a cure for tooth decay. Their product is a genetically modified bacterium which infects your mouth, outcompetes all the tooth-decay-causing bacteria, and doesn’t cause tooth decay itself. If it works, it could make cavities a thing of the past (you should still brush for backup and cosmetic reasons)."
Reports of the Death of Dental Cavities Are Greatly Exaggerated - "If I asked you to name the most common chronic disease in children, what would you say? Asthma comes top of mind, but there is something five times more common in kids: cavities... It may seem like BCS3-L1 was the perfect candidate, but in an independent paper looking at this body of research, multiple concerns were highlighted. The toxicity of this Mutacin-1140 compound had not been tested. What would be the consequences of millions of bacteria in the mouth releasing this compound? The answer wasn’t clear, even though the archetypal compound in the family Mutacin-1140 belonged to was known to be very safe. BCS3-L1 also had the possibility to disturb the microbiome in the mouth in ways that were not predicted and allow disease-causing microorganisms to grow and thrive. And the fact that this bacterium did not produce acid could theoretically be reversed if it acquired the gene from a neighbouring bacterium. Still, a new drug application was filed with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and thus began a decade of back-and-forth. The FDA wanted a big red “abort” button in case something went wrong, a way to kill BCS3-L1. So Hillman, who was now the director and chief scientific officer for a company called Oragenics, made a change to BCS3-L1: the bacterium now needed an amino acid to survive, one that wasn’t typically found in the human diet but which would be given to research participants in the form of a mouthwash. By withholding the mouthwash, the bacterium would die. Once on the market, though, the strain that would be sold to people would not need this amino acid to survive: this safeguard was only meant for the safety trials. (It turns out that when tested in rats, this safeguarded bacterial strain was still occasionally able to colonize the mouth in the absence of this amino acid in the rat’s diet, possibly because it was getting it from the poop the rat was eating. Hence the safeguard was not foolproof.)... This whole technology is predicated on the assumption that dental caries are caused only (or, at the very least, mostly) by S. mutans. That was, after all, the accepted theory in the 1970s when Hillman got the ball rolling. Our understanding of dental caries, however, has greatly advanced in the interim. We went from calling caries an infectious disease that was specifically caused by S. mutans—much like how the influenza virus causes the flu—to gaining a more ecological perspective on the disease. S. mutans is not the only acid-producing oral bacterium that can cause caries: in fact, it forms less than 2% of all the bacteria that cause caries, and a little over one in seven people with caries do not have S. mutans in their mouth. There is even a scientific paper on dental caries literally titled “Beyond Streptococcus mutans”!... scientists have been able to detect 800 different species of bacteria in the human mouth."
Meme - *Joe Biden as Fëanor sniffing the hair of an uncomfortable as Maggie Coons as Galadriel looks uncomfortable*
Meme - *Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli in Fangorn Forest*
"LOTR" Fans: "It cannot be.."
*Peter Jackson as Gandalf*
Meme - "Beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid!"
"And Titanic will answer"
*Titanic as Rohirrim*
*scared Gothmog*
By coddling Islamism, Canada sleepwalks into a crisis of extremism - "Canada has now earned the unwanted distinction of becoming a hub for Islamist terror financing. A March report by the online publication Focus on Western Islamism noted that five groups with Islamist ties in Canada received at least $42 million in taxpayer funds from government departments between 2018 and 2022... Many argue that because there have only been six successful jihadist attacks in Canada between 2000 and 2020, the country is much safer compared to most of its western peers. This illustrates a deeply flawed and complacent sense of security and a clear lack of understanding of our ideological enemies. There’s an African saying: “Don’t think there are no crocodiles just because the river is calm.” Many Islamist groups are playing the long game, biding their time as they work to undermine and weaken their adversaries in the West. Conducting sensational terror attacks is by no means their sole or ultimate objective. The true international aspirations of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and al-Qaida are genocidal and long-term — to destroy western societies, wage a global jihad, create a global caliphate and achieve the total annihilation of homosexuality, Judaism and Christianity. Aiding their goals are their Islamist sympathizers in the West who resort to the use of transnational criminal gangs, social media, universities and questionable charities to conduct clandestine hybrid tactics such as spreading hateful propaganda, fundraising to support foreign armed militancy, radicalizing and recruiting youth, manipulating voters and threatening critics. Thanks to their well-established networks, Islamists are able to quickly mobilize resources and capitalize on the social tensions that erupt in the wake of global conflicts such as the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The rampant anarchy on our streets and the recent arrests of youth in Ottawa and Calgary on terrorism charges prove their disruptive efforts have certainly succeeded. Yet, the Trudeau government remains wilfully blind to the dangers of youth radicalization and homegrown terrorism, even though there are obvious signs that Canada is struggling with them. Canada’s lax attitude contrasts with that of Europe, where authorities have been warning about Islamist extremism — deemed to be an acute threat to the continent — even before the Oct. 7 attacks, foiling at least a dozen attack plans last year. A Hamburg-based “pop-Islamist” group with tens of thousands of western followers is being monitored by German intelligence for advocating for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. France has raised the national security alert system to its maximum level amid rising concerns over ISIS’s recruitment of French youth to conduct attacks in the country. In the United Kingdom, nearly 50 per cent of Muslims sympathize with Hamas. Among those recently arrested in the counter-terrorism context, 20 per cent were children under the age of 18. Australian police arrested seven radicalized teenagers for their involvement in a knife attack in Sydney. One report released this year by the United-States-based Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy unearthed billions of dollars of illicit funding of American universities by foreign governments such as Qatar and Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which promote anti-democratic and antisemitic ideologies and have connections to terrorism. Notwithstanding the controversial appointment of Amira Elghawaby as Canada’s Islamophobia czar, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s deafening silence on the Islamism threat — along with his reluctance to quickly and forcefully condemn the antisemitic mobs ruling our streets — is a barefaced dereliction of duty to Canadian citizens and a betrayal of the Jewish community. From the glorification of terrorism and cheering for the destruction of Canada, Israel and the U.S., to the Islamist mob’s total disregard for law and order, it is clear that Canada is sleepwalking towards an impending crisis of extremism. During the early years of the Afghan War, after the Taliban lost multiple battles to the militarily superior forces of the U.S.-led coalition, a Taliban commander nonchalantly remarked: “You have the watches, but we have the time.” Sure enough, he was proven right when western troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban again seized power... Time after time, our enemies have told us who they are and what they intend to do to us. It’s time for the Trudeau government to take appropriate countermeasures to prevent Canadian soil and taxpayer money from assisting an evil ideology that patiently but ardently seeks our demise."
Age that kids acquire mobile phones not linked to well-being, says Stanford Medicine study - "Parents fretting over when to get their children a cell phone can take heart: A rigorous new study from Stanford Medicine did not find a meaningful association between the age at which kids received their first phones and their well-being, as measured by grades, sleep habits and depression symptoms. The study, which appeared recently in Child Development, is unusual because it followed a group of more than 250 children for five years during which most of them acquired their first cell phones. Instead of comparing phone-using kids with those who don’t have phones at a single point in time, the scientists tracked the participants’ well-being as they transitioned to phone ownership... The research team followed a group of low-income Latino children in Northern California as part of a larger project aimed to prevent childhood obesity... Also, the scientists note, the study did not give children completely unfettered access to phones, as their parents were making decisions about their technology use."
Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media - "The relationship between social media use and life satisfaction changes across adolescent development. Our analyses of two UK datasets comprising 84,011 participants (10–80 years old) find that the cross-sectional relationship between self-reported estimates of social media use and life satisfaction ratings is most negative in younger adolescents. Furthermore, sex differences in this relationship are only present during this time. Longitudinal analyses of 17,409 participants (10–21 years old) suggest distinct developmental windows of sensitivity to social media in adolescence, when higher estimated social media use predicts a decrease in life satisfaction ratings one year later (and vice-versa: lower estimated social media use predicts an increase in life satisfaction ratings). These windows occur at different ages for males (14–15 and 19 years old) and females (11–13 and 19 years old). Decreases in life satisfaction ratings also predicted subsequent increases in estimated social media use, however, these were not associated with age or sex."
Derek Thompson on X - "New paper from Norway: Banning smartphones in school
- significantly decreased doctors visits for psychological symptoms and diseases among girls
- reduced bullying among both genders
- improved girls’ GPA and attendance rates
- largest effect sizes were among the poorest kids"
Smartphone Bans, Student Outcomes and Mental Health
Chamath Palihapitiya on X - "As a parents with teenagers, being the bad guy by limiting their social media has been a path to exhaustion and constant bickering (at least in my home). So having the gvt back me up and do the obvious and sensible thing will give me, as a parent, more reinforcement when not giving my kids social media until 16. Frankly, I’m going to try and limit it until they are 18. The ability to point to the gvt backing me up, ideally rooted in research and mental health gives me a shot at framing the long term effects of social media like other impactful products/technologies - there’s positives and negatives so take your time. Gvt action isn’t the solution to everything, or most things for that matter, but limiting social media is definitely an obvious one and will result in healthier kids."
Claire Lehmann on X - "A lot of kids in my son's year have or are getting phones. Because we've followed @JonHaidt 's work for a long time, my husband & I have had no qualms about saying 'no' to our kid. We know its in his best interests. When our son first started catching public transport my husband gave him a paper map, paper bus timetable, a list of important phone numbers (on paper) and trained him to use payphones (which are free in Australia). Our son is so confident he will go into random shops and ask to use the landline to call us. 😂 People always comply. Other parents nervously joke about how we let our kid "bush bash" around town. But we can tell that underneath the parental anxiety they are secretly envious."
Crémieux on X - "The latest meta-analysis of experimental social media effects on mental health found a null result: Experimentally, the relationship between social media use and mental health netted out to roughly a correlation of 0.04 (p > 0.05)."
Craig Sewall on X - "Ignoring uncertainty allows for easier storytelling, but it's more misleading: One thing that's bothered me about @JonHaidt 's work in The Anxious Generation and his After Babel blog is how all of the plots only include point estimates. For example, here's a plot from this post (https://afterbabel.com/p/the-girls-are-not-alright-responses) by @ZachMRausch on Haidt's After Babel blog:
By ignoring the uncertainty inherent to these point estimates, this plot conveys a very clear signal: hospitalizations for self-harm among US girls 10-14 has risen drastically since 2008. The story is very clear. It's urgent. There's no noise to distract from the signal. However, here's what that same plot looks like when you include the uncertainty intervals: The signal isn't nearly as clear now, right? The uncertainty in the estimates increase along with the slope (after 2008). And there are many different trend lines that you could fit in the shaded region that don't necessary scream "there's been a humongous increase in hospitalizations for self-harm among pre-teen girls!" This is just one example of many from Haidt's book and blog posts. I would urge @JonHaidt and @ZachMRausch to include uncertainty intervals in their plots going forward as, though it makes the story harder to tell, it's more reflective of the uncertain reality of the data."
Meme - Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt: "Some of my critics say that the global decline of suicide over the past 20 years contradicts my claims. When you mix everyone everywhere, it looks that way. When you break groups out by age and sex, it supports my claims. Something changed in early 2010s:"