Things I Think Are Kinda Cool

The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce) has a new video lecture series called RSA Animate that adds a layer of clever hand-drawn animation to their most compelling talks…if all my college lectures were animated like this, my GPA would have taken me out for a drink to thank me.

This talk, by Professor Philip Zimbardo, is titled “The Secret Powers of Time” – he explains how shared time perspectives can characterize a nation. For example, in Sicilian dialect, future tense verbs (like ‘will be’) simply don’t exist – Zimbardo says this is because Sicilians are more focused on traditions of the past instead of the future.

I think I’m a “Present Hedonist” – so I want to watch this video NOW, and I’ll be ANGRY if I have to wait more than 5 secs for it to load.

-Check out more RSA Animate talks here. (via Unique Daily)

Humans associate the color black with ‘evil’, and red with ‘passion’, no matter where in the world their culture exists. But things aren’t always so unanimous…click on this infographic by designer David McCandless and explore some of the differences.

Some observations:
-Re: ‘death’, Western/American cultures think of black, Hindu and Asian cultures think of white, Muslims relate to silver, and South Americans see green.
-Some cultures associate green with ‘luck’, while others think of red.
-Muslim and African cultures link silver to a ‘truce’, while the rest of the world thinks of ‘white’ (ie, a flag of surrender)
-Other concepts like ‘love’, ‘peace’, and ‘mourning’ have completely different color associations around the world.

-via Information Is Beautiful (via Neatorama)

YOU:  You’ve been quiet lately…everything ok?

BRAIN:  Yeah, just thinking.

YOU:  About the Icelandic volcano?  Or maybe the SEC’s charges against Goldman Sachs?

BRAIN:  Um…not exactly.  You know what, actually, let’s just drop it.  You have any articles for me?

YOU:  Come on, you can tell me anything.  We’re friends.

BRAIN:  …Fine…I…uh…I just can’t get this image out of my mind:

YOU:  What the – is that Betty White holding a flaming chainsaw while riding a Jon Ritter centuar?

BRAIN:  Um…yeah.  DON’T say anything – just give me those articles…
—

* It’s impossible to walk out of a Costco empty-handed, no matter how much we don’t need that 20 lb tub of peanut butter.  There’s actually some serious scientific stuff going on in our brains that explain this phenomenon. – Science Blogs

* Humans are superstitious animals…especially when we’re playing & watching sports.  Why can’t sportscasters (and the rest of us) resist finding meaning in completely random events? - Skeptic

* Every single tweet ever tweeted (even this one) will now be saved and stored by the Library of Congress…it might sound laughable, but it actually makes sense. – The Atlantic

* Accidentally leaving a child in the backseat of a car is a terrifying mistake.  But is it a crime?  The answer is more complicated than you might think…this Pulitzer prize-winning piece explores the thorny issue. - Washington Post

* It was once thought that artistic globalism (and Evil Hollywood) would suffocate and homogenize local cultures around the world.  But in reality, new D.I.Y. hyper-local cultures have thrived. – NY Times

* The obsessive need for kids to be constantly connected online shouldn’t be discouraged or ignored.  It’s actually made younger generations more empathetic, and has shifted the emphasis from individualism to collaboration. – Huff Po

(crazy Betty White / Jon Ritter image from Neatorama)