firehose

In March, EU food safety authorities effectively blocked US non-organic apples from import by lowering the amount of diphenylamine (DPA) that the apples can contain.

The EU banned its own farmers from using DPA, a growth-regulating chemical that could be be linked to cancer, back in 2012, but it is still permitted and used widely in the US and Canada.

This isn’t a big issue trade-wise; only 2% of US apple exports go to the EU. However, the news is prompting Americans to wonder if their apples are hazardous. Pressure on the US’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to toughen up its stance is reportedly building among US consumers.

Beyond that, the apple controversy has raised the alarming possibility that US regulators don’t have enough information to make an informed decision and—at least according to a report by a consumer health non-profit called Environmental Working Group (EWG)—don’t seem all that motivated to learn more.

It’s pretty clear that DPA itself doesn’t cause cancer. But that’s not what the European Commission was worried about. When DPA breaks down and combines with nitrogen, it might form nitrosamines, a family of chemicals that cause cancer in lab rats and have been associated with esophageal and stomach cancer in humans (pdf). The possible presence of nitrosamines was the sticking point for the European Commission. An EC task force on DPA couldn’t find any compelling evidence that DPA didn’t form nitrosamines, which prompted the EU-wide 2012 ban.

It now allows DPA concentrations of 0.1 part per million (ppm) on foods. There’s a pretty large disparity between what the EC deems safe and what the US does; the EPA permits 100 times more, or 10 ppm. A 2010 government study found DPA on 83% of raw apples tested (pdf, Appendix K. p.1), with an average level of .43 ppm. That means while US apples aren’t anywhere close to meeting EC standards, they’re well within US standards.

But the research those standards is based on is probably due for an update. The last time the EPA analyzed DPA was back in April 1998, when it classified the chemical as “not likely” to be carcinogenic (pdf, p.22) to humans, based on two studies.

EPA hasn’t updated its research (pdf) since 1998, says the EWG. And because federal law requires the EPA to conduct a scientific assessment of pesticides—a category that includes DPA—every 15 years, that means it’s now a year late.

It’s worth noting that the EWG is a controversial group (for a rundown, see these articles by a fruit industry association and some industry affiliates). But its main point here is pretty unassailable: The EPA should be testing how dangerous DPA might be. After all, it’s the law.

Here's a cool article from about a year ago about "weird" human behavior researcher Joe Heinrich discovered when he played perception and fairness games with indigenous and non-Western cultures. (Here's a link straight to his paper.)


What's Fair?

In the Ultimatum Game, anonymous separate participants play for cash. One player gets all the cash and must offer an amount to the other player, but if the recipient declines the offer, then both players don't get any money. What we would expect is the giver to offer a 50-50 split because it's fair. Anyone greedy enough to offer less than that risks losing the whole pot.

Here is what happened when he played with the Machiguenga, the indigenous Peruvians of Machu Pichu:

Photo Source

"When he began to run the game it became immediately clear that Machiguengan behavior was dramatically different from that of the average North American. To begin with, the offers from the first player were much lower. In addition, when on the receiving end of the game, the Machiguenga rarely refused even the lowest possible amount. “It just seemed ridiculous to the Machiguenga that you would reject an offer of free money,” says Henrich. “They just didn’t understand why anyone would sacrifice money to punish someone who had the good luck of getting to play the other role in the game.”"

Turns out that North Americans have a peculiar set of cultural circumstances that make our cognitive development statistically uncharacteristic compared to the rest of the world. Therefore, the psychology tests, perception tests, studies of fairness, economics, game theory, and all that other stuff we believe to be universal to humanity is in fact just idiosyncratic. Shocking!

Photo: Gold West Prototype, mysterybaer

The Euro-American Binary

Okay, maybe not so surprising to game designers. In the hobby industry, we're already familiar with stereotypical differences between "Ameritrash" and "Euro" games. Those divisions are becoming non-existent, as more North American designers employ streamlined sense of design, while European designers adopt sillier, action-packed themes.

So you might ask why Heinrich's findings matter to you if your audience is typically familiar with American and European sphere. Sure, if you were designing a game for the Machiguenga, you would have to do a bit more research to see which "difficult" choices are actually all that difficult in their culture, but otherwise why look outside of our cultural environment?

To do so ignores how selective the data is in current psychology, with little representation outside of the Western academic context. According to Psychology Today:

•  96% of subjects come from Western industrialized nations, which contain only 12% of the world's population.
• 67% of American subjects and 80% of international subjects are undergraduate psychology students.
• An American undergraduate is 4,000 times more likely to be a subject in a psychology experiment than a random person outside the West.

Not exactly the most representative sample, eh?

Photo Source

Design from the World

No culture is monolithic, and strains of differences thread through any community. Certainly on an individual level, people have different senses of fairness and equitable trade. That makes games fun!  That also makes Heinrich's findings all the more pertinent for all game designers.

There are many logical fallacies and behavioral trends we might consider universal elements in ludology, including loss aversion, sunk cost fallacies, prisoner's dilemmas, and so on. How much of our understanding of these phenomena are compromised because their source data comes from a tiny American sub-population?

I look forward to the days to come when game designers outside of the Euro-American binary bring a fresh perspective to our craft . We already see inroads...

• ...from Japan in the form of Seiji Kanai's Love Letter and Lost Legacy.
• Masao Suganuma's Machi Koro should prove to be a big hit when it finally gets an official translation stateside.
• Taiwan's Ta-Te Wu has published a handful of card games through Z-Man Games, including Mountain of Inferno.
• And of course perennial party game Mafia was designed by Dimitry Davidoff in Moscow way back in the '80s.

I'd love to hear about any more designers from outside Europe or North America. Any to share? What new insights into game design and player behavior are coming from around the world?

FullBandwidth writes: "Two Virginia aerospace players, Arlington-based Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and Dulles-based Orbital Sciences, are merging to create a $5 billion venture. The companies announced the merger in a joint announcement Tuesday. ATK is also spinning off its lucrative hunting gear segment into a separate company. 'The move is mutually beneficial, company executives said, as ATK looks to bolster its aerospace business and Orbital Sciences hopes to boost the scale of its existing operations as well as gain a foothold in the defense sector. ... Another beneficiary of the merger is NASA, a client of both companies. Last year, Orbital successfully completed a supply run to the international space station using its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft. Orbital’s expansion after the merger will make it a bigger player in the commercial space sector as it competes with the likes of SpaceX, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company, said Howard Rubel, an equity research analyst at Jefferies.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

magicmaxxy:

whatjanesays:

STOP EVERYTHING YOU’RE DOING.

THIS IS A VIDEO OF JOSH KEATON (VOICE OF SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN) READING A SELECTION OF SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MEMES.

#everyone go home the internet is over

IM FUCKING CHOKING. I CANNOT BREATHE

americangothgirl:

During WWII, Irena got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive.

Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried. She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck, for larger kids.

Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazi’s broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she had smuggled out, In a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and tried to reunite the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. 
She was not selected. 
Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.

firehose shared this story from XKit.

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worksforwhiskey:

No I don’t know anything about that

For the latest mission, 40 members of Improv Everywhere surprised employees and shoppers at the Gap store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan by disguising themselves as extra mannequins. Gap security broke up their fun very quickly. The video was directed by Charlie Todd and produced by Deverge.

Performers entered the store wearing white Morphsuits under Gap-style clothing. At the exact same second they zipped up their suits and froze in place next to the store’s actual mannequins. Customers and employees laughed and took photos of the performance, but Gap security reacted by dialing 911. The police arrived and handcuffed many performers, but after assessing the situation, everyone was allowed to leave the store.

photos by Arin Sang-urai

music by Tyler Walker

Three years ago, we shared an absurd exchange between a lawyer and an IT professional that took place before the Ohio Supreme Court in 2010. The case concerned a county office charging $2 per page for copies of public data. An attorney was questioning the IT administrator for the Recorder’s Office when all of a sudden it seemed that the IT guy forgot what a photocopier is.

Now director Brett Weiner has made a short film with actors reenacting the lines from the legal transcript word for word so we can enjoy just how hilariously ridiculous the conversation was…

A new Harris Poll finds that Ayn Rand just isn't cutting it with American readers anymore. "Gone with the Wind" is still going strong, though.

Cynical voters have long suspected that if you're rich enough, you can buy your way into national political office. Now a new analysis of Federal Election Commission data by the Brennan Center for Law and Justice provides some evidence to support that idea.

What animal is the most dangerous to humans in the world? Is it snakes? No. Sharks? Not even close. Other humans? Getting warmer, but not quite.

Read more...

I hate activist journalism. But last week, I was responsible for the death of a startup. It was probably the fastest death in the history of the tech industry: four hours from launch to deadpool, by my reckoning.

Have you ever listened to the "Game Of Thrones" theme song and thought to yourself, "Man, this could really use more Peter Dinklage." If so, this is for you.

All Dead Girl Shows begin with the discovery of the murdered body of a young woman. The series’ lead characters are attempting to solve the (often impossibly complicated) mystery of who killed her. As such, the Dead Girl is not a “character” in the show, but rather, the memory of her is.

As you know, Jay-Z and Drake have been throwing shade at each other on their last couple of releases. And now the lax bros of the world are involved.

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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modmad:

sawkinator:

princeowl:

i want to take a moment to talk about the movie ‘khumba' because i just noticed its been added to netflix 

EVERYONE NEEDS TO CHECK OUT THIS MOVIE!! i watched it a few months ago and i loved it, here’s the synopsis 

Rejected by his superstitious herd, a half-striped zebra embarks on a daring quest to earn his stripes but finds the courage and self-acceptance to save all the animals of the Great Karoo

some cool stuff about this movie

• the studio behind this movie is triggerfish animation, based in cape town south africa. it’s a pretty new studio, they did that movie ‘adventures in zambezia’ in 2012 (the one with the birds) i think it’s awesome to see a movie made in the same place it’s set 
• it’s BEAUTIFULLY animated and the art direction is pretty good too especially considering it wasn’t made by any big name studios. the character designs are more interesting and varied than a lot of cgi animated stuff disney has put out i’ll say that
• the movie was inspired by and dedicated to the quagga project, which was an effort to save the quagga (which looks kinda like a half striped zebra) from extinction 

the cast is really impressive for a 20 million budget movie too btw

CHECK KHUMBA OUT ON NETFLIX!!! REALLY WORTH A WATCH 

OMG LOOK AT THE SECOND PICTURE

HE’S STANDING IN THE SHADOWS SO IT LOOKS LIKE HE HAS STRIPES ON HIS BUTT

THAT’S REALLY ADORABLE AND KIND OF SAD HHH

And is that a fucking African Wild Dog in the first? Omg they’re like the coolest canine ever I’m gonna watch this it looks hella cute

as someone who works in animation I am both confused and mortified that I haven’t heard of this before now

hmmmm

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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tastefullyoffensive:

[buckwheatwaffle]

Constitution Daily

Scalia set to play key role in Supreme Court smartphone case NEWS.GNOM.ES WASHINGTON — Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's new champion of the 4th Amendment, is likely to play a crucial role Tuesday when the court hears this year's most important search case: whether the police may routinely examine the digital ... Will cops be free to search your phone?CNN all 7 news articles »

A new study reveals that men are often the victims of sexual assault, and women are often the perpetrators.

The dismissed Missouri star was reportedly expected to give an FCS team a big talent boost.

Update, May 27: CBS Sports' Jeremy Fowler reports dismissed Missouri wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham could sit out the 2014 season instead of transferring to Eastern Illinois. That would mean a similar route to the NFL Draft as the one traveled by former LSU defensive back Tyrann Mathieu.

Green-Beckham was named one of Mocking the Draft's top 64 prospects for the 2015 Draft, but sitting out a full season could change things quite a bit.

Original, April 29: After being dismissed from the Missouri football team earlier this month, wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham has reportedly found a new home. According to Josh Newberg of 247 Sports, Green-Beckham will "likely" transfer to FCS Eastern Illinois next season, meaning he would be eligible to play immediately.

Green-Beckham was dismissed after forcing his way into an apartment and allegedly pushing a woman, who fell down the stairs.

The move is still unsettled, however, according to Green-Beckham's family:

Texted John Beckham to ask if Dorial Green-Beckham is going to Eastern Illinois. He texted back: "No."

— David Morrison (@DavidCMorrison) April 29, 2014

The former No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2012, Green-Beckhman had a breakout season as a sophomore last year, finishing with 883 yards and 12 touchdowns on 59 receptions. Landing the former top recruit would obviously be a coup for an FCS program, but according to Newberg, another former SEC player may join Green-Beckham in Charleston, Illinois — former Kentucky quarterback Jalen Whitlow could be EIU-bound.

The Panthers were the second seed in the 2013 FCS Playoffs, and although they were upset by Towson in the quarterfinals, they finished at the top of the NCAA computer rankings at the end of the regular season.

The team loses star quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo — a solid NFL Draft prospect — and head coach Dino Babers, who left for the Bowling Green job. However, with the potential influx of SEC talent, EIU would have some nice weapons to make a run at the FCS title.

Dying for a cup of coffee? Created by design shop Hundred Million, these ghastly sugar skull spoons are equal parts fun and functional. Now available in the Colossal Shop.