Jesse

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The question is, which cards do you turn over to test the truth of the statement? Try to select the fewest cards that will do it. The Wason Selection Task was developed by English psychologist Peter Wason to study how people think. They often don’t think rationally.

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I found the most difficult part was finding my answer among the multiple choices, because there are a lot of them. More than 90% of Wason’s original subjects selected the wrong answer. Maybe we are doing better in the 21st century, because when I snagged this video, 20,626 people had viewed the puzzle video, and 5393 had viewed the correct answer. However, that number may have been skewed by people checking out all the answer videos. I didn’t bother checking the incorrect answers. You can read about Wason’s research into the human tendency to select irrational paths at Nautilus. -via Digg

Update: Oh, okay, I clicked a wrong answer, and the video it went to gives you the option of seeing the correct answer video. That explains why the correct answer had much more than 10% of the views of the original.

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Keith Carmouche encounters an alligator while driving his Nissan truck to his camping spot in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. The gator angrily strikes, and Carmouche tells the animal "Hey, watch my truck." Later, the man likely wishes that he had backed off and left the gator alone.  -Via Tastefully Offensive

Congratulations! You just bought a new Chevy, GMC, or Cadillac. You really like driving it. And it’s purchased, not leased, and all paid off with no liens, so it’s all yours… isn’t it? Well, no, actually: according to GM, it’s still theirs. You just have a license to use it.

At least, that’s what an attorney for GM said at a hearing this week, Autoblog reports. Specifically, attorney Harry Lightsey said, “It is [GM’s] position the software in the vehicle is licensed by the owner of the vehicle.”

GM’s claim is all about copyright and software code, and it’s the same claim John Deere is making about their tractors. The TL;DR version of the argument goes something like this:

• Cars work because software tells all the parts how to operate
• The software that tells all the parts to operate is customized code
• That code is subject to copyright
• GM owns the copyright on that code and that software
• A modern car cannot run without that software; it is integral to all systems
• Therefore, the purchase or use of that car is a licensing agreement
• And since it is subject to a licensing agreement, GM is the owner and can allow/disallow certain uses or access.

The U.S. Copyright Office is currently holding a series of hearings on whether or not anyone other than the manufacturer of a car has a right to tinker with that car’s copyrighted software. And with the way modern design goes, that basically means with the car, at all.

Folks who like to tinker with their cars, as well as independent (non-dealer) mechanics say they need the copyright exemption in order to be allowed to continue repairing their own cars, or keeping their businesses open. Manufacturers, like GM, say that it’s a safety issue: if people who aren’t authorized mess with any one piece of software, they could make the entire ecosystem of connected code unsafe.

An attorney from the Electrnnic Frontier Foundation also testified at the hearing, telling the Copyright OFfice that restricting access to onboard computers in vehicles drives up costs, hurts competition, and stifles innovation. It also prevents third party researchers from conducting independent safety and security research without becoming lawbreakers.

The first of the two sessions of hearings started yesterday in Los Angeles. The other will take place next week, in Washington, DC. The Copyright Office is expected to issue a ruling in July determining just what you can and can’t do with the things you thought you bought.

General Motors says it owns your car’s software [AutoBlog]

With more fuel-efficient vehicles and hybrid cars hitting the roads every day and requiring less gas, some states are looking into how they can still collect enough money from drivers to keep maintain their roads and bridges. Oregon is one such state, with a new test program that allows volunteers to pay the state not for the amount of fuel they buy at the pump with a gas tax, but for how many miles they drive.

Greater fuel efficiency in cars means less revenue is generated for the state, prompting Oregon to seek alternatives to make up for that loss of cash from gas taxes. Starting July 1, up to 5,000 volunteers will be allowed to sign up to drive with devices that collect information about how much they’ve driven and where, reports KGW.com.

Those drivers will agree to pay $0.015 per mile traveled on public roads — with private property and out-of state miles not included — instead of the current tax they pay for gas. Fueling up will still mean paying that tax at the time, but drivers in the program will then either get a credit or a bill to pay the difference at the end of the month.

Though critics of the OreGo program, including electric and hybrid car owners who say such a tax would be unfair and perhaps deter others from purchasing green vehicles, state officials think it’s only fair for owners of such vehicles to chip in for maintaining roads like everyone else.

“We know in the future, our ability to pay for maintenance and repair… will be severely impacted if we continue to rely on the gas tax,” said Shelley Snow with the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Amid privacy concerns over the digital devices that track miles, the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon said the state built protections into the program, such as drivers being able to opt out of the program and install an odometer device that doesn’t use GPS tracking.

If your device does use GPS, the state and private vendors that supply the devices will destroy records of location and daily metered use after 30 days. Law enforcement won’t be able to access that information either, unless a judge gives approval.

After the test program, it’ll be up to the state legislature to decide whether to adopt a mandatory road usage charge.

So far Oregon is the only state to try this kind of program, though California created a committee last year to research alternatives to the gas tax and possibly develop a pilot program and Washington state also set money aside for something similar. A bill in Indiana is currently in the works that would direct the state to look at alternatives and come up with a test project along those lines as well.

Oregon to test pay-per-mile idea as replacement for gas tax [KGW.com]

Andy Stewart and friends equipped a DJI Phantom drone with a pair of Roman candles and proceeded to light and fire said candles at two men running around in the snow without shirts. The project was inspired by a video of a similarly equipped drone from earlier this year.

via Tastefully Offensive

(Photo: Alastair Scarlett/The Guardian)

You may have seen a mermaid show at an aquarium. What sets this sport apart from those performances is that this kind of mermaid swimming is combined with freediving: swimming into very deep ocean waters for extended periods of time--without dying.

Freediving looks beautiful, but it's also dangerous. Highly skilled, trained swimmers without breathing equipment reach depths of up to 253 meters. Ian Donald, a freediving instructor in Cornwall, UK, teaches people how to do this while wearing mermaid fins over their legs. Susan Greenwood of The Guardian describes the training:

The key to being happy under water for long periods is, I discovered – after panicking – not to panic, to keep the heart rate low by “breathing up” or belly breathing for two minutes before submersion, and to know that humans take a breath long before we need to. It’s the rule of thirds: for the first third of the time underwater, people are happy; the second brings the urge to breathe and it’s at this point most of us surface. But, resisting this urge means entering the third phase – the spleen will release more red blood cells, the diaphragm will stop juddering and this is followed by the discovery that the body has more oxygen than imagined. […]

Just as things were getting serious, Lissie lined up the mermaids’ tails, handed me a seashell necklace and informed me my name was now Sue-Sea. And this is when things got gnarly. Professional mermaids wear tails that can weigh up to 40kg and cost over £2,000. Have you tried swimming with a small child holding onto your legs and making it look effortless?

-via Nag on the Lake

"Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."

New York-based artist Jenny Acosta created a delightful series of illustrated food puns in gorgeous colors featuring witty wordplays.

She describes: "Food is a universal language that flows through many cultures. I love the poetic yet utilitarian qualities that food has. This series is a lighthearted ode to my love of food puns and witty combinations of words. What started as a Valentine's Day note is growing into a lasting, healthy relationship between me, my paintbrush, and my tastebuds."

Emily McDowell is an illustrator, greeting card designer, and a cancer survivor. Now she’s put her experience to work in creating a line of greeting cards that cancer patients and survivors say really hit the mark. The line of eight greetings are called Empathy Cards.

The most difficult part of my illness wasn’t losing my hair, or being erroneously called “sir” by Starbucks baristas, or sickness from chemo. It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn’t know what to say, or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it.

You can order yours here. And continue reading to see the rest of the collection. One contains NSFW language.

The last one is my personal favorite. -via Metafilter

WOW Sports produces what it calls the Aqua Table. It’s an inflatable bar with a big central cooler. You can put ice in and drain the cooler through a port. It would be ideal for a pool or lake party. Just add ice and drinks in the center.

There’s an anchor and anchor line. That could come in handy once if you’ve had a bit too much and get swept away down to the deep end of the pool.

Comedian, magician, and ventriloquist Andy Gross (a.k.a. “SplitMan“) recently scared the life out of random strangers on an elevator by grunting and wobbling toward them while looking like he is cut in half. The reactions to his clever illusion and prank, which we have written about in the past, are quite hilarious.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Even though we live in an age full of electronic gadgets, apps for every occasion and products designed to make our modern lives easier the old cliché “necessity is the mother of invention” still rings true.

People who are faced with a problem technology can’t solve get crafty and invent a new way to make their lives more livable...and more fun!

Need to get to work on a car that has only three tires? If you’ve got a push cart and a buddy around you’ve got all you need to get back on the road like a boss

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Are you fresh out of clean bowls yet desperately in need of your nightly ramen fix? Use your melon!

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Living on a street that’s constantly flooding can make getting around town a real pain, but if you follow this guy’s example and strap tiny stools to your shoes you can rise above the rainfall.

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A bicycle can’t help you cross a raging river, but if you strap some inflatable paddle tires to the front of your bike no body of water will ever stand in the way of your dreams!

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Split screen gaming can be a real eyesore, but clever gamers can come up with a simple solution off the top of their heads

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It’s tough to find time to bathe after work, but if you’re working on a jobsite with an earth mover and some scrap wood then you can whip up a nice, warm bath so you can soak your buns before date night!

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Having your electricity shut off due to non-payment means growing accustomed to eating cold beans out of a can, unless you’re a crafty cook with plenty of candles on hand.

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Who needs tires when you’ve got six pairs of sneakers and a bicycle frame? Certainly not this guy!

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Holding your book open can make your thumb mighty sore, and it tends to get stuck in the crack between the pages. Instead, you should skip the thumb pain and use a wooden wing thingy to hold those pages in place.

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It takes a really long time to get drunk when you have to pour beers down your throat one at a time, but follow this guy’s example and you'll be hammered in one fourth the time.

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Biking through the mean streets of the urban jungle doesn’t have to be a dangerous affair- simply slip a barbecue around your body and consider your grill protected!

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Most people have a laptop these days, but not everyone can afford an mp3 player. So how can a music lover keep the tunes flowing into their earholes? Just tuck your laptop into your pants and the musical vibrations will make you want to shake your buns!

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If you have to wash a sink full of dirty dishes just to get a glass of water from the faucet then you’re liable to die of thirst, so forge your own tinfoil trough and stay hydrated.

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It’s hard to compete with ultra-butch biker gangs when you’re riding around town on a piddly little dirtbike, but when you combine a motorcycle with a tractor you've got a gargantuan vehicle guaranteed to crush the competition.

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Next time you find yourself stuck in a situation without an electronic solution take a note from these crafty people and slap something together on the fly!

Neuroscientist Greg Gage demonstrates in a recent TED Talk how one person’s brain can be used to control another person’s arm. With the help of two volunteers on stage, Gage uses an inexpensive setup to read the nerve impulses from his first volunteer, Sam, and relay those impulses through a “human-to-human interface” into the arm of his second volunteer, Miguel. Once the setup is properly configured, whenever Sam moves her hand it causes Miguel’s hand to move involuntarily.

A video on Gage’s site Backyard Brains demonstrates the human-to-human interface in more detail, including what items are needed to construct the device, and how to properly connect it to the test subjects.

Ringly is a smart and stylish cocktail ring that connects wirelessly with a smartphone and sends notifications to the wearer through light and vibration alerts. Founder Christina Mercando spoke with Elle about how she came up with the idea.

It was never a reaction to wearable tech: I was just always missing calls and texts because my phone was in my purse, and my family was getting frustrated with me [to the point that] it became a running joke. And I was looking at my hands, and I thought, “You know, I wear some big rings. I wonder if I can make a technology that would fit into the things I wear every day that would help solve this problem and be useful?” And so that’s where the idea came from. It was always about wanting to make beautiful things. It was never, ‘How can we make technology beautiful?’ I wanted to make beautiful things and put technology into them. And I think that’s very different from the way a lot of technology companies work, because they start with the technology first and then design around it. We’re using a very different approach by starting with the style and design.

Ringly is currently available for pre-order, with delivery expected in summer 2015.

images via Ringly

via Elle, Design Milk

RKD Architects have sent us photos of the “Valhalla Residence” they designed, located in the Sierra Mountains, near Truckee, California.

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Bondic is a welder of liquid plastic that hardens under an LED ultraviolet light. The liquid plastic is capable of fixing a variety of issues or simply providing a layer of plastic. One applied and cured with the LED ultraviolet light, further layers can be added to strengthen the bond. Bondic is currently available via Amazon.

image via Amazon

via This Is Why I’m Broke, The Awesomer

HTML5 Drum Machine is an easy-to-use, web-based emulator that allows folks to create and download sick beats. The whole thing is pretty straightforward with a variety of labeled buttons and knobs for everything from “SNARE” to “SHAKE” and more.

via Boing Boing

Japanese pencil sharpener brand Nakajima Jukyudo recently released Tsunago, an ingenious pencil sharpener that joins old pencil stubs together to form a new, usable pencil. The clever manually-operated sharpener joins pencils in a three-step process: First, a hole is bored into the back end of a pencil stub A. Next, the tip of pencil stub B is specially sharpened, leaving a “stepped” tip. The stepped tip is cleaned (neatness counts!) before pencil B is nested in the back end of pencil A.

images via Nakajima Jukyudo

via Spoon & Tamago

"A good listener is usually thinking about something else."

Just yesterday McDonald’s new CEO Steve Easterbrook claimed that he was in the midst of developing a turnaround plan for the once unstoppable fast food force. However, it appears his ideas on how to reverse sagging sales and criticism of labor practices comes a bit too late for about 700 locations that have already closed or are slated for closing this year.

Fortune reports that the Golden Arches shuttered 350 poorly performing stores in the U.S., Japan and China in the first part of 2015. Those stores are in addition to 350 other stores that were already targeted for shutdown in the first three months of the year.

McDonald’s CFO Kevin Ozan told analysts on Wednesday that these shuttered restaurants were chosen after comparable sales for the locations fell between 2.3% and 4.8% in the first quarter of the year.

Although the closure of 700 stores seems like a lot, it’s only a small fraction of McDonald’s 32,500 stores worldwide.

Analysts tell Fortune that the unexpected closures signify one way in which McDonald’s is attempting to aggressively address slumping sales.

McDonald’s announced Wednesday that same-store sales were down 2.6% in the first quarter, despite the company’s massive media push with its “lovin’” campaign, which briefly allowed random customers to pay with non-currency like hugs. The marketing, which included prominent Super Bowl advertising, increased brand awareness of McDonald’s but failed to improve sales or consumers’ feelings toward the company.

Other measures to bring the company back to its glory days included a Turnaround summit that some franchisees called a farce, and recently announced pay hikes for employees at certain company-owned stores.

Still, as Consumerist reported Wednesday, Easterbrook will provide actual details on new plans to turnaround the fast foot giant during a May 4 strategy call.

McDonald’s is closing hundreds of stores this year [Fortune]

Truth is stranger than fiction. [ more › ]

Surrounding an exhibition at Maker City LA, artist Paige Smith A.K.A. a common name (previously), began to install new crystalized rock formations around the streets of LA. The geodesic rock formations which she refers to as urban geodes are created mostly with paper and spray paint or cast resin in random cracks and crevices around the city. She’s also installed geodes in Spain, Istanbul, Jordan, South Korea, and elsewhere around the world over the last few years. For the most up-to-date news on her geological street art you can follow smith on Instagram.

OK, this is ridiculous, but in the best way possible. Spending too much time describing this short film by French animator Nicolas Deveaux would ruin it, so it’s probably best to just watch it. Created over a period of 1.5 years 5 Mètres 80 is a follow-up to a shorter animation he made 10 years ago about an elephant on a trampoline. Deveaux is widely known for his realistic animation of animals for both film and commercials, many more of which he shares on Vimeo. 5 Mètres 80 has toured film festivals around the world since 2013 picking up numerous awards and nominations including the Best in Show Award at SIGGRAPH Asia. (via Vimeo Staff Picks)

Ascreen Interactive Media has captured a beautiful demonstration of the brand-new kinetic chandelier that they helped install at the Leningrad Center in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The chandelier, composed of 1,089 light bulbs hung at 10-meters high, is controlled by software, and it can be choreographed to take on a number of different shapes and forms in accordance with each performance.

(translated) In St. Petersburg opened a new multi-format space Leningrad Center, where you can see fantastic kinetic chandelier. 1089 lamps, which change color and position in space. Specialists Group Ascreen directly participated in its installation. As part of an international team, our fitters and engineers worked for almost 3 weeks at a height of 10 meters. Chandelier moves for a given scenario, the control is using a special software. So for each performance spelled out its own dynamics and color chandelier. Leningrad Center is already open to the public, so that the magic of LED light and chandelier, which may take the form of a jellyfish, available to residents and visitors.

via mikl em

France-based photographer and designer Sylvain Viau has used a bit of digital magic to transform a variety of vintage and contemporary European cars into futuristic flying cars. The modern cars make for sleeker, more aerodynamic flying cars, but the hovering vintage autos have a wonderful retro-futuristic look.

photos by Sylvain Viau

via designboom

In his latest video, Engineer Guy Bill Hammack (previously) examines the remarkably complex engineering in the design and manufacture of the humble aluminum can. As Hammack explains, the design of the pull tab is particularly clever.

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

Because no one wants to arrive in their hotel room and find used soap awaiting them in the shower, guests are always given a fresh bar upon checking in. While many of those partially used bars surely end up wasted in the trash, one non-profit group is collecting a bunch of leftover hotel soaps to help people in need.

Clean the World started seven years ago, founded by a tech company worker who traveled often. He tells the Associated Press he was hit with a thought one night while staying at a Minneapolis hotel.

“I picked up the phone and called the front desk and asked them what happens to the bar of soap when I’m done using it,” recalled Shawn Seipler, the group’s CEO. “They said they just threw it away.”

He did some research and found that millions of used bars of soap from hotels around the world end up in landfills every day. Meanwhile, people in developing nations are dying from illnesses that could be prevented simply with better access to personal hygiene products.

That’s how Clean the World began, and it has now expanded to include industrial recycling facilities in Las Vegas, Orlando and Hong Kong, places where there are plenty of hotels and used bars of soap can be collected by the thousands. Heck, they’ll even take half-used bottled shampoos and the like as well.

Though people in the U.S. and other developed countries might take hygiene products for granted due to their ubiquity, soap and other items aren’t as plentiful in many other nations.

“A lot of people are surprised to find out that one of the most effective ways to prevent many deaths is actually just hand-washing with soap,” Global Soap director Sam Stephens said. “We’re hoping to make a difference.”

Clean the World announced this week that it’s teaming up with another initiative called Global Soap to step up production, hygiene education and delivery to those in need.

Together, they say they’re now collecting used soap from more than 4,000 hotels, and have delivered about 25 million bars to 99 countries, as well as homeless shelters right here in the U.S.

Here’s how it works: The soap is collected, shredded, run through machines that get rid of any residual bacteria another guest may have left, and then get shaped into new bars and packaged up. People get soap to wash their hands and possibly prevent the spread of common infectious diseases, and everyone wins.

Group hopes recycled hotel soap helps save lives worldwide [Associated Press]

Disposable Camera App is a new mobile app by Photojojo (previously) that’s designed to bring the simplicity of disposable cameras to a mobile device. Users take 27 photos with the app and then Photojojo prints them and mails them out. The photos can’t be edited or previewed through the app, so the first time the photo taker actually sees them once they’re printed and delivered.

images via Photojojo

The USB MixTape is a USB flash drive created by Sydney, Australia product designer Tiffany Roddis that’s designed to look like vintage blank cassette mixtape, right down to the label, which states, “I’ve made you a mixtape” in faux handwriting. The tape drive has 8GB of built-in storage for sharing digital mixtapes and other media. The drive is currently available through the artist’s Etsy store.

images via Tiffany Roddis

via Visual News