Farhad Manjoo's page on the Internet

I rarely want to leave San Francisco, but Central Park in the summer sure sounds fun. http://bit.ly/LWljb

July 15, 2009, 8:20pm   Comments

These hearings are completely worthless. It’s like listening to potheads discuss philosophy—sounds high-minded but illuminates nothing.

July 15, 2009, 3:13pm   Comments

If summer’s got you down, make your own air conditioner. http://bit.ly/pCX4H

July 15, 2009, 1:28pm   Comments

Just heard this for the first time: The Streets “Dry Your Eyes” is pretty great. http://bit.ly/BXoZr

July 15, 2009, 11:38am   Comments

Are you in the UK? DM or e-mail me, would like to ask a quick favor. (farhad.manjoo@slate.com)

July 15, 2009, 11:38am   Comments

» Add a baby picture to your wallet to make sure it's returned if you lose it

An experiment:

Hundreds of wallets were planted on the streets of Edinburgh by psychologists last year. Perhaps surprisingly, nearly half of the 240 wallets were posted back. But there was a twist.

Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, and his team inserted one of four photographs behind a clear plastic window inside, showing either a smiling baby, a cute puppy, a happy family or a contented elderly couple. Some wallets had no image and some had charity papers inside.

When faced with the photograph of the baby people were far more likely to send the wallet back, the study found. In fact, only one in ten were hard-hearted enough not to do so. With no picture to tug at the emotions, just one in seven were sent back.

According to Dr Wiseman the result reflects a compassionate instinct towards vulnerable infants that people have evolved to ensure the survival of future generations. “The baby kicked off a caring feeling in people, which is not surprising from an evolutionary perspective,” he said.

July 15, 2009, 11:18am  Comments

» Wikipedia debates showing the world Rorschach inkblots

Editors on Wikipedia are in a battle over whether to post the famous what-do-you-see-here inkblot tests. The argument against: If everyone sees them, the test will no longer be effective.

July 15, 2009, 10:21am  Comments

I got Spotify to work for me in the US. I don’t hear any ads. Am I supposed to? What am I missing?

July 15, 2009, 9:53am   Comments

» How to get people to follow you on Twitter

This guy tried out several different ways to ask people on his site to follow him on Twitter. The most effective: “You should follow me on Twitter.”

July 15, 2009, 9:45am  Comments

State Dept. staffer asks Hillary Clinton why the department doesn’t use Firefox. Turns out it’s too expensive! http://bit.ly/5eX2W

July 14, 2009, 8:54pm   Comments

» State Department workers want Firefox!

At a Q&A session with State Department staffers, someone asks Hillary Clinton why the department doesn’t use Firefox. Turns out the free program is too expensive!

MS. GREENBERG: Okay. Our next question comes from Jim Finkle: Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called Firefox? I just – (applause) – I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn’t use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don’t understand why State can’t use it. It’s a much safer program. Thank you. (Applause.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, apparently, there’s a lot of support for this suggestion. (Laughter.) I don’t know the answer. Pat, do you know the answer? (Laughter.)

UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: The answer is at the moment, it’s an expense question. We can —

QUESTION: It’s free. (Laughter.)

UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: Nothing is free. (Laughter.) It’s a question of the resources to manage multiple systems. It is something we’re looking at. And thanks to the Secretary, there is a significant increase in the 2010 budget request that’s pending for what is called the Capital Investment Fund, by which we fund our information technology operations. With the Secretary’s continuing pushing, we’re hoping to get that increase in the Capital Investment Fund. And with those additional resources, we will be able to add multiple programs to it.

Yes, you’re correct; it’s free, but it has to be administered, the patches have to be loaded. It may seem small, but when you’re running a worldwide operation and trying to push, as the Secretary rightly said, out FOBs and other devices, you’re caught in the terrible bind of triage of trying to get the most out that you can, but knowing you can’t do everything at once.

SECRETARY CLINTON: So we will try to move toward that. When the White House was putting together the stimulus package, we were able to get money that would be spent in the United States, which was the priority, for IT and upgrading our system and expanding its reach. And this is a very high priority for me, and we will continue to push the envelope on it. I mean, Pat is right that everything does come with some cost, but we will be looking to try to see if we can extend it as quickly as possible.

It raises another issue with me. If we’re spending money on things that are not productive and useful, let us know, because there are tens of thousands of people who are using systems and office supplies and all the rest of it. The more money we can save on stuff that is not cutting edge, the more resources we’ll have to shift to do things that will give us more tools. I mean, it sounds simplistic, but one of the most common suggestions on the sounding board was having better systems to utilize supplies, paper supplies – I mean, office supplies – and be more conscious of their purchasing and their using.

And it reminded me of what I occasionally sometimes do, which I call shopping in my closet, which means opening doors and seeing what I actually already have, which I really suggest to everybody, because it’s quite enlightening. (Laughter.) And so when you go to the store and you buy, let’s say, peanut butter and you don’t realize you’ve got two jars already at the back of the shelf – I mean, that sounds simplistic, but help us save money on stuff that we shouldn’t be wasting money on, and give us the chance to manage our resources to do more things like Firefox, okay?

Yeah.

July 14, 2009, 4:44pm  Comments

Sotomayor defends her nunchuck ban. I hope Michelangelo doesn’t get wind of this. http://bit.ly/7q0N6 (Yes, I mean the Ninja Turtle.)

July 14, 2009, 2:35pm   Comments

Bittman calls this “possibly” the best pea soup recipe. I disagree. It is the best. Make it tonight. http://bit.ly/vvE0k

July 14, 2009, 2:35pm   Comments

If you’re near the Ferry Building in SF, @dcpatterson is giving out free lunch at the new Cane Rosso.

July 14, 2009, 12:50pm   Comments

» Cats control humans with high pitched purr-cries

Researchers at the University of Sussex played back different kinds of cat cries to human subjects, some of whom didn’t own cats. They found that a particular kind of cat meow—” a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry,” as LiveScience describes it—was very difficult for people to ignore:

They found that humans, even if they had never had a cat themselves, judged the purrs recorded while cats were actively seeking food - the purrs with an embedded, high-pitched cry - as more urgent and less pleasant than those made in other contexts.

When the team re-synthesised the recorded purrs to remove the embedded cry, leaving all else unchanged, the human subjects’ urgency ratings for those calls decreased significantly.

McComb said she thinks this cry occurs at a low level in cats’ normal purring, “but we think that cats learn to dramatically exaggerate it when it proves effective in generating a response from humans.” In fact, not all cats use this form of purring at all, she said, noting that it seems to most often develop in cats that have a one-on-one relationship with their owners rather than those living in large households, where their purrs might be overlooked.

July 14, 2009, 10:08am  Comments