Category Archives: Thoughts

Thoughts

That lovely sense of wonder

A kitten’s curiosity is such an endearing quality. They manage to look so adorable while exploring their surroundings, with their tiny, slender bodies, big heads and large ears. They’re so focused on what they’re doing, so concentrated on observing an insect, or why a leaf rustles when they paw it, that you can’t help loving them.

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Thoughts

A neat talk by Peter Tyack at TED, entitled “The Intriguing Sound of Marine Mammals“, in which he explains the effect of human noise on the sounds made by marine mammals, and what’s being done to correct the situation. A few tidbits:

  • Better propeller designs decrease propeller noise by up to 90%
  • Insulating the engine chamber from the hull reduces engine noise by up to 99%
  • Slowing down the ships by 50% decreases overall noise and reduces fuel consumption by 30%

There’s also a cool cartoon at the end of the talk, called “Good Vibrations”, made by Jeremy Clapin.

Marine mammals, underwater sounds and shipping noise

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Thoughts

The pattern behind self-deception

Michael Shermer, the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine and the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, gave a talk at TED about self-deception — how our mind (sometimes) plays tricks on us. A couple of interesting tidbits:

  • Dopamine antagonists decrease the patterns we see
  • Dopamine agonists increase the patterns we see

Wonderful stuff!

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Thoughts

Stats about cigarette companies

The following infographic presents some interesting facts about big tobacco:

  • The largest US tobacco company, Philip Morris International, is the 94th most profitable company in the country.
  • The top three US tobacco companies made over $50 billion in revenues in 2009.
  • China is the largest cigarette producing country in the world. Tobacco companies from that country made over $443 billion dollars last year.
  • Federal tax on a cigarette pack has gone up from 5 cents in 2002 to $1.01 in 2009.
  • Many life insurance companies in America are major stakeholders in tobacco companies.

Cigarette Companies

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Thoughts

Mitzi and Trixie at play

I don’t think there’s anything more adorable than kittens at play, so I couldn’t resist posting more photos of Mitzi and Trixie today. I found a whole series I took when they were playing one day. And as promised, there are more photos of Trixie in this post.

Since this is a series of photos, it’s probably best to view them via the slideshow which is embedded at the bottom of the post. I’ll post a select few as individual photos, but make sure to see them all in the slideshow, it’ll only take a minute.

After tumbling about for a bit, they both took a break and lay on the ground a few feet apart, staring at each other, before pouncing once more.

Kittens love these hit-and-run encounters. They’d pounce, tumble about for a bit, and dash away. Here Mitzi jumped away from Trixie after she ambushed her, then hid between the bushes while Trixie began to play by herself.

Of course, Mitzi couldn’t stay away for long, and she ambushed Trixie again.

When they had enough play, they went exploring together. Ah, kittens! 🙂

If I seem particularly effusive today, it’s because I’m glad Trixie is still with us. She almost died last night. She apparently ate something poisonous, and was in shock through mid-morning. She’s better now, but not completely out of the woods. You can read the details here.

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