““We’re built to be wary of something novel, but once it’s not novel, we can develop new food preferences into old age,” said Gary Beauchamp, an expert on the science of taste at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. Precisely as a child’s diet broadens, so can a 40-year-old’s or a 50-year-old’s, because in every instance, Dr. Beauchamp said, “it’s not about something that’s going on in the mouth or the taste buds but something that’s going on further up in the brain.” Our palates matter less than our perspectives, and over those we have some control.”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
shared content
“By refusing to acknowledge the advocates or his fellow-Justices, Thomas treats them all with disrespect. It would be one thing if Thomas’s petulance reflected badly only on himself, which it did for the first few years of his ludicrous behavior. But at this point, eight years on, Thomas is demeaning the Court. Imagine, for a moment, if all nine Justices behaved as Thomas does on the bench. The public would rightly, and immediately, lose all faith in the Supreme Court. Instead, the public has lost, and should lose, any confidence it might have in Clarence Thomas.”
shared content
“Over at Snapchat, Mr. Spiegel, who is 23, apparently thought $3 billion was not enough for a company that, as yet, does not turn a dime of profit. But here’s another question: When is your number big enough? The most expensive homes in the Bay Area top out at around $30 million. Pick up a few fancy cars at $100,000 a pop. Throw in a Bentley for $175,000, a weekend place in Sonoma for $5 million, a modest pied-à-terre in Manhattan for around $5 million — fine, make it $10 million. And a top-of-the-line private jet for around $50 million. With expenses, taxes and what not, you’re barely past $100 million.”
shared content
“
Data brokers organize and sell that information to retailers, lenders and other businesses that pitch their products to people grouped in categories like “rural and barely making it” and “ethnic second-city strugglers.”
Some of the information is highly personal, if clearly irrelevant to any marketing campaign. A Chicago-area man recently received a marketing offer from OfficeMax that included the line “Daughter Killed in Car Crash” between his name and address, a reference to an accident that took place a year earlier. The company says that the phrase was included in error, but it offers a clue into the kind of data being collected.
”
shared content
“
In a federal court in Detroit starting Tuesday, in the first trial of its kind in years, the social science research on family structure and child progress will be openly debated, with expert testimony and cross-examination, offering an unusual public dissection of the methods of sociology and the intersection of science and politics.
Scholars testifying in defense of Michigan’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage aim to sow doubt about the wisdom of change. They brandish a few sharply disputed recent studies — the fruits of a concerted and expensive effort by conservatives to sponsor research by sympathetic scholars — to suggest that children of same-sex couples do not fare as well as those raised by married heterosexuals.
”
shared content
“The study, by Balazs Kovacs of the University of Lugano and Amanda Sharkey of the University of Chicago, compared online reader reviews for 32 pairs of books that either won or were nominated for a major literary prize. They found that winning a prestigious award not only garners more attention for a book, but also more negative reviews.”
shared content
“
Only a few hours had passed after the $45 billion merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable was announced last week when an early voice emerged endorsing the giant deal.
“Win-win situation for American businesses,” said the statement from the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
It was the start of what Comcast executives acknowledge will be a carefully orchestrated campaign, as the company will seek hundreds of such expressions of support for the deal — from members of Congress, state officials and leaders of nonprofit and minority-led groups — as it tries to nudge federal authorities to approve the merger.
But what the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce did not mention in its statement praising the transaction was that it had collected at least $320,000 over the last five years from Comcast’s charitable foundation, which is run in part by David L. Cohen, the Comcast executive who oversees the corporation’s government affairs operations.
It is a hint, critics say, of just how sophisticated Comcast’s lobbying machine is, an enterprise that, like the company itself, reaches across the United States and has more than 100 registered lobbyists in Washington alone.
”
shared content
“
The tragedy is that the technology industry is not a meritocracy. Making great products is often not sufficient for success, and sometimes it’s not even required. In tech, marketing, branding, partnerships and timing can be as important as how well your product works.
What’s more, how a company’s product works is largely dependent on the company’s position in the market. Microsoft and Nokia’s consumer businesses are governed by the vicious rules of network effects — the economic idea that products get better as more people use them. The more people who use a particular operating system, the more likely an app developer is to build for that system. And the more apps that are developed, the more the operating system appeals to consumers. The cycle builds on itself.
”
shared content
“Paradoxically, a format that hasn’t changed since Mr. Carson codified it (monologue, celebrity, musical guest), is ideally constituted for the cut-and-paste ethos of YouTube and Twitter. Far more than a drama or a reality show, a joke or musical number can be plucked and posted online as a stand-alone. There is no need to DVR: Why record the cow when the Internet and social media can give viewers the milk free?”
shared content
“
The divergent public views on pay are particularly odd, since today’s excesses are more often in Silicon Valley. When the sequel to the movie “Wall Street” was filmed a few years ago, it was in Eric Schmidt’s apartment, not at a Wall Street executive’s. Mr. Schmidt, by the way, was reported by Business Insider to have a “fabulous life” with a Gulfstream V, a 195-foot yacht and multiple homes across the country including a new $22 million Hollywood mansion. You could write similar things about Google’s co-founders.
Imagine if Mr. Dimon or Mr. Blankfein lived so ostentatiously? Wall Street is certainly known for its high-end consumption, but it is also a place where being conspicuous about it is frowned upon. In Silicon Valley, however, the superwealthy can flaunt their toys and no one says a word.
”
shaun james bockert 