Category Archives: Neat Stuff

Try Getting Bias Out of Your Mind Now

Brilliant

… internal marketing. I don’t know how effective it will be at anything other than impressing other people in the industry, though.

This video was prepared by the UK branch of Dorling Kindersley Books. Originally meant solely for a DK sales conference, the video was such a hit internally that it is now being shared externally.

Of course, everything really clever has already been done:

The second-place in AARP “U@50” contest, in 2007, itself explicitly inspired by an award-winning ad made in Argentina for candidate Lopez Murphy.

Great Moments in Science

Wonderful embroidery portraits from Naomi Cayne. She also touches on koalas, robots, and bicycles.

It’s Fake

This is a fun reel, showing how heavily chroma keying is used in productions. It also has a very soothing score, a song called “Lionheart,” from Emancipator’s album “Soon it will be cold enough.”

One of the things I like about this video is that the creator, Stargate Studios (who has made effects sequences for dozens of television shows, films, and other commercial video projects), makes it so easy to find the music. Also that Emancipator makes it so easy to buy their albums and individual songs from their own website. You know, and that the effects house is called Stargate.

Caddis Art

Hubert Duprat provided caddis flies with flakes of gold and semiprecious stones to use for building their larvae cases. They usually use grains of sand, particles of mineral or plant material, or bits of fish bone or crustacean shell, but they will use whatever is nearby and suitable to incorporate into their silk-bonded cases (although some are more flexible than others in what they will use). Here is a video and more information about the project, including some remarks by critic and philosopher Christian Besson about behavior and intent.

Placebos for Better Healthcare

Ben Goldacre discusses results of different placebo studies and ways that the placebo effect can be harnessed – ethically – to improve healthcare.

Why So Few Women in Magic?

A roundup of comments from a survey of more than 200 magicians (fewer than 5% of whom were female).

Women have to invent for themselves ways to do things that men do not. Most magic instruction is designed for men with jackets. Women’s clothes don’t have pockets and women can’t reach into their breast pockets.