Saturday, April 27, 2013

Lies, Damn Lies, and BP

A Must-Read: What BP Doesn't Want You To Know About The 2010 Gulf Spill

In a nutshell, sweet crude wasn't poisonous enough, so they added "Corexit" to make it more poisonous, but invisible.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Happy Birthday, Ben Bridwell! (Band of Horses)

Great sound quality for the back of a cab! (Seriously, I'm impressed.)



Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Monday, April 1, 2013

TMI: Leamur has moral "tastes"

In graphs! Graphs, people!

Leamur has a moral foundation, and can now prove it with a graph:


Leamur is more satisfied with life than most Liberals or Conservatives:


Leamur is less psychopathic than you are, but just as deviant anyway:
The idea behind the scale is that psychopathy is thought to be continuously distributed in the population so that individuals have varying degrees of psychopathic traits which can be measured. In addition, the concept of psychopathy is often separated into two factors, each with emphasis on a different aspect of psychopathy.

The first type, primary psychopathy, more closely resembles the prototype description of a psychopath and emphasizes a lack of emotion as well as other personality features. Primary psychopaths are often described as glib, superficially charming, grandiose, lying, conning, manipulative, lacking empathy or guilt, emotionally shallow, and callous.

The second type, secondary psychopathy, describes individuals characterized mostly by deviant behavior. Features include a need for stimulation, proneness to boredom, impulsivity, irresponsibility, risk-taking, and poor behavioral control. Overall, psychopathy is often thought of as the epitome of immoral behavior....

Please note that psychopathy has been found to correlate positively with other personality traits such as extraversion, adventure-seeking, and other traits which are often valued in leadership and competitive environments, so higher scores may not necessarily reflect deviant or immoral behavior, but instead reflect more outgoing personality styles.


Leamur has a stronger preference for furniture over drugs than either Liberals or Conservatives:
Positive scores indicate a greater implicit preference for Drugs relative to Furniture, and negative scores indicate an implicit preference for Furniture relative to Drugs.

Your score appears in the graph below in green. The score of the average Liberal visitor to this site is shown in blue and the average Conservative visitor's score is shown in red.


[If I could digress for just a moment here: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAA!!!!! Cripes that's probably true. I am so effing OLD. OK, back to the graphs.]

Leamur is less Hedonistic and more Benevolent than you are. (But not more modest.)
The idea behind the scale is that there is an internal order and structure to values. Using various statistical techniques, Schwartz has found that the ten basic human values show a pattern of relationships... Political liberals have been found to endorse the "openness to change" values, while conservatives are more likely to endorse the "conservation" values."

The values are described by Schwartz as follows:
POWER: Social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources
ACHIEVEMENT: Personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards
HEDONISM: Pleasure or sensuous gratification for oneself
STIMULATION: Excitement, novelty, and challenge in life
SELF-DIRECTION: Independent thought and action - choosing, creating, exploring
UNIVERSALISM: Understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature
BENEVOLENCE: Preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact
TRADITION: Respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that traditional culture or religion provide
CONFORMITY: Restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms
SECURITY: Safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self


That was fun. But seriously, this article about what this all means in the context of The Culture Wars in the U.S. is excellent reading and has the links in it to the fun & games above.

[Yes, Leamur really is making you click through to the article to get to the fun & games. Such a Puritan!]