– that from a new blog, Margaret and Helen, set up by two octogenarian friends living in different parts of the USA so they could stay in touch. (The pipeline referred to is a $40 billion, Alaskan natural-gas pipeline – about which, surprise surprise, Sarah Palin has been less than economical with the truth.) The language may be a bit blue – and I may be a bit British for saying so. But this, Helen’s polite request, comes with feeling:
Please take your ridiculous hair, your over lipstick-smacking mouth, your Lenscrafter look smarter glasses and your poorly fitted designer jackets back to Alaska. And when you get there, shove a piece of the pipeline up your considerable ass. I’ll be damned if we’ll put our children’s future in your hands.
Helen was taught how to blog by her grandson, and met her friend Margaret sixty years ago in college. That would have been 1948 – the year President Truman authorised the post-WWII Marshall Plan, the Berlin Blockade and the Cold War began, and the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Sarah.
A steaming hot drink may be all it takes to see the world through rose-tinted glasses, psychologists have found.
Holding a warm cup of coffee was enough to make people think strangers were more welcoming and trustworthy, while a cold drink had the opposite effect, a study found.
The warmth of a drink also influenced whether people were more likely to be selfish or give to others, researchers report in the journal Science. A team led by John Bargh at the University of Colorado set about testing whether hot and iced drinks influenced perceptions of others after noting how frequently “warm” and “cold” are used to describe personalities.
In one test, 41 volunteers were asked to hold a cup of coffee while they took an escalator to a fourth-floor lab. Once there, they were asked to read about a fictional character and give their impression of them. The test was then repeated using an iced coffee drink.
The psychologists found the volunteers perceived the fictional strangers as significantly warmer characters after holding the hot drink.
I watched this thanks to Ray Ison, and was mightily impressed with the quality of the animation and the sound effects.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
I found myself wanting more! I’d love to see the team that created this apply their talents to lots more stuff. It strikes me this medium can work incredibly well as a storytelling and educational vehicle. Very nice song at the end.
Now for my critique. On the whole, the narrative was cogent, but the intense relaying of scientific information seemed to cater more for a science-literate audience. I felt the scripting and narration left quite a lot to be desired. The narrator skipped quickly between concepts, leaving non-scientists like myself befuddled and breathless, and needing to rewind the animation to work out what was being discussed and to catch up. It seriously denigrated my experience of what could be a stunning project. I dearly wanted a simpler script and much, much clearer transitions between each science-spiel segment. And less jargon. (Interestingly, the animation’s creator conceived the animation as an old-fashioned piece of unilateral communication.)
I’m curious what you think and how you feel about it. Comments and insights welcome.
Sumptuous World 