Very nice animated short, The Lost Thing:

Matt Hartley's points are true to my experience. Point is, not to believe the rumors, rumors about rumors, and counter-rumors!

http://itmanagement....ions-about-Linux.htm

Most people are familiar with the idea of the "Placebo Effect", where a pill with no medical benefits can make people feel better.

But many people are unaware of the deep and fascinating study that has gone into this effect, and the fascinating and subtle discoveries made about how things like shape, color, context, delivery device, etc. effect how well it works.

Here's a great video taking you on a tour of some of the strangeness of it all.

http://www.wired.com...-really-really-fast/

Fascinating article on the recent unmasking and collapse of the security firm HBGary..

On November 16, 2009, Greg Hoglund, a cofounder of computer security firm HBGary, sent an e-mail to two colleagues. The message came with an attachment, a Microsoft Word file called AL_QAEDA.doc, which had been further compressed and password protected for safety. Its contents were dangerous.

http://arstechnica.c...-the-government.ars/

Very cool history of the word "Hello" that most of us take for granted..

The Oxford English Dictionary says the first published use of "hello" goes back only to 1827. And it wasn't mainly a greeting back then...

http://www.npr.org/b...ort-history-of-hello

According to this study, the more Facebook friends people have, the more stressed out you are by the site.  I believe it.

http://www.webpronew...riends-causes-stress

Psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University surveyed 200 students on their use of Facebook, and found that a for a significant number of users the negative effect of the social network outweighed the benefits of staying in touch with friends and family.

Dr-Kathy-Charles “The results threw up a number of paradoxes,” said Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study. “For instance, although there is great pressure to be on Facebook there is also considerable ambivalence amongst users about its benefits.”
 
“Our data also suggests that there is a significant minority of users who experience considerable Facebook-related anxiety, with only very modest or tenuous rewards.And we found it was actually those with the most contacts, those who had invested the most time in the site, who were the ones most likely to be stressed.”

 Highlights of the study include:

*12 percent of respondents said that Facebook made them feel anxious.  Of these, respondents had an average of 117 'friends' each.  The remaining 88% of respondents, who said that Facebook did not make them feel anxious, had an average of 75 'friends' each.

*63 percent delayed replying to friend requests

*32 percent said rejecting friend requests led to feelings of guilt and discomfort

*10 percent admitted disliking receiving friend requests