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Scientific American: Why does fat deposit on the hips and thighs of women and around the stomachs of men?
We all do tend to fatten up with age, although there are interesting differences based on age and gender. Hormones drive the deposition of fat around the pelvis, buttocks, and thighs of women and the bellies of men. For women, this so-called sex-specific fat appears to be physiologically advantageous, at least during pregnancies. But it has a cosmetic down-side as well, in the form of cellulite. The potbelly, on the other hand, is a typical male form of obesity that has no known advantage and can be life threatening.
Men, never mind the thunder thighs.. let us worry about our beer belly first! -_-;
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You’re the Top: Magnum Photos - Slate
Slate’s Today’s Picture tributes to Empire State Building: 75 years old this month.
Famed bookstore’s last chapter — Cody’s on Telegraph to close
Cody’s Books, the venerable independent bookstore that has served generations of UC Berkeley students, has announced that it will close its flagship store on the south side of campus because of declining sales and competition from chain stores and the Internet.
The store, on Telegraph Avenue, will close its doors on July 10 after 43 years.
That’s too bad. I remember wandering around Telegraph as a freshmen, and finding this nice clean, air-conditioned bookstore, which was very much unlike any other stores on Telegraph Ave.
On a related note, this article on Slate discusses whether these independent bookstores are important.
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Should you buy rental car insurance? By Tim Harford
It’s an age-old dilema. Also, you’re never sure whether you’re supposed to accept or decline CDW/LDW (Collision/Loss Damage Waiver) because it’s already covered by your credit cards.
The correct response is to insure yourself only against the big risks, such as your house burning down. As for the dent in the rental car, you will simply have to tell yourself that in the scheme of things, it’s not that important. That is the closest that economics will ever come to Taoism.
BTW, you’re supposed to decline CDW/LDW.
Premshree’s (品速力) Personal Weblog: Comparing eating out patterns in different cities: normalized graph
Someone who works at Yahoo! created this interesting graph of people’s eating out patterns in different cities based on Flickr tags. Not sure how good of an indication that is, but pretty interesting idea nevertheless.
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Magnum Photos - Slate Celebrates Mother’s Day
(pictured, Ingrid Bergman with Isabella and Isotta Rossellini)
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers :-)
Improv Everywhere Mission: Best Buy
This is little old, but still pretty amusing. A “mob” of people dressed up like BestBuy employees swarm into BestBuy store in Manhattan, causing lots of confusion (and hilarity). Article is long, but video is worth watching.
Here are few more good improv’s, LOL:
(Thanks Scott!)
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Worldmapper: The world as you’ve never seen it before
“Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.”
Edward Tufte would be so proud. Some maps of interest:
(via Guy Kawasaki)
Also, check out the awesome Tufte’ic charts linked from that blog)
‘Fat Man’ Finishes Walking Trek in NYC - Yahoo! NewsGuess “The Fat Man” completed his trip.
He began the 3,000-mile trek from his Oceanside, Calif., home to Manhattan on April 10, 2005, when he weighed 410 pounds and was suffering severe depression after accidentally killing two pedestrians while driving 15 years ago.
He ended the journey Tuesday — about 100 pounds lighter.
Along the way, he slept in tents and motels and went through 15 pairs of shoes, more than 30 pairs of socks and six backpacks. But he didn’t measure mileage or the food he ate, and he said he aimed to change his behavior, not just his weight.
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Y! Cool Thing of the Day » Blog Archive » Right Click, You’re There
Ok, here’s something that Y! Maps have that no other maps do (that I know of). They just released a new feature which allows one to right-click on a place on the map and choose it as the source or the destination of travel. It could be useful if you know where you want to go, but don’t konw the address. Pretty snazzy! Nice to see Y! Maps lead for a change.. :D
A Star Is Made - New York Times
In this week’s Freakonomics column, Dubner/Levitt tries to explain why leading soccer players of the world are born in the earlier months of the year.
the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers — whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming — are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect. These may be the sort of clichés that parents are fond of whispering to their children. But these particular clichés just happen to be true.
But I ask, how do they explain savant (like Rain Man)?
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