The "close-door" button in the elevator, the crosswalk button at the intersection, even the thermostat in your office — there's a good chance that they're all placebos. Over the last 20 years or so, many (though, weirdly, not all) of these buttons have become technically useless, but are left in place both because it's expensive to replace existing equipment and because, psychologically, they still serve a purpose.
/
/
9:23 am Fri
Aug 2, 2013
Placebo buttons
How to watch the peak of the Perseid meteor shower tonight
Watch the skies! The peak of the Perseid meteor shower takes place overnight tonight! The bright quarter Moon will limit the number of shooting stars you'll see but you can still expect around 15-20 per hour depending on where you're at. The meteors are debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle burning up in Earth's atmosphere at speeds […]
READ THE REST
'Most Americans now know someone who has been infected with COVID-19'
"The U.S. has reached a landmark of sorts in its so far not very successful battle with the virus that causes Covid-19 — most Americans now know someone who has been infected," writes Justin Fox at Bloomberg, about coronavirus social data from Navigator Research, shown above.
READ THE REST
Scientists revive 100-million-year-old microbes buried in the ocean floor
Researchers successfully revived ancient microbes, some more than 100 million years old, that were buried in the seafloor. During an expedition to the South Pacific Gyre, the scientists from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and their colleagues drilled into the ocean sediment almost 6,000 meters below the surface. "Our main question […]
READ THE REST
If you've never written a screenplay before, here's what you should know first
Everybody's got a story. Unfortunately, not everybody has the tools to tell that story the right way. That's especially true for someone looking to produce their first screenplay. Just as with any type of writing, penning a script for the screen has a set of rules all its own. Understanding that structure, as well as […]
READ THE REST
These 20 home theater must-haves might make you forget the cineplex
Even as the world takes tentative steps toward reopening against the ebbs and flows of COVID-19, movie theaters remain in a netherworld limbo. High-profile film releases continue shuffling as theater chains, studios and filmgoers grapple with the fact that an enclosed theater may not be a safe place to be for some time to come. […]
READ THE REST
PliimPRO eliminates the panic of sharing your screen with a single click
The year 2020 has basically kicked down that door and dragged us all into the Zoom age, whether we like it or not. And now that we're basically inviting our boss, co-workers and other business associates into our homes via video, we've unwittingly stumbled into all kinds of new potential for embarrassment. Like when you're […]
