New Scientist has a fascinating article about honesty in the office coffee room. Offices across America commonly have baskets or “honesty boxes” where employees can pay for the coffee and tea they drink. And there’s often a sheet with a price list next to the drinks. So a psychologist at Newcastle University in the UK decided to see if putting different pictures at the top of the price list would affect how much was received in those honesty boxes. Some days she’d put a picture of flowers on the list and other days she’d put a photocopy of a real pair of human eyes (which were always looking directly at the observer). And on the days she used the eyes, she found 2.76 times as much money as the flower days! The mental_floss staff is now freaked out by all the eyeballs I’m taping inside the refrigerator in the office kitchen.

Continuing on today’s trend of posting on all things Pimp, I found these amazing sneakers on the Dada site, via PopGadget. Quite frankly, I’m not a “shoes guy” so I don’t have the best eye for fashion, but for just $199 you can get your hands (or feet) into these multitasking silver trainers which double as MP3 players! Sounds like a steal to me. The shoes, which were designed to be used while exercising (they come with hands-free wireless headphones), also have speakers on the side in case you want to “kick it” with your friends. Of course, Dada isn’t stopping there. Plans for future shoe lines include integrating cel phones, GPS and potentially video games technology into the system, all to make exercising more fun and/or convenient. On the downside, however, they don’t look like they’ll be very helpful in getting through metal detectors.

According to CNN (your daily source for pimp and ho news), Iowa Senator Charles Grassley is trying to put the squeeze on the sex trade by getting the IRS involved. His so-called “pimp tax” will require workers in the sex trade to pay taxes, and will designate $2 million dollars to help prosecute any tax violators. More specifically, the article states, “under Grassley’s proposal, a pimp could get up to 10 years in prison for each prostitute for whom the pimp hasn’t filed a W-2, which means a pimp caught with 10 unregistered prostitutes faces a century in prison.” What’s curious to me, however, is that requiring pimps to file taxes seemingly legitimizes their professions. Grassley’s measure, however, doesn’t intend to legalize the activity, just tax people on their illegal incomes.

Or at least it’s about to be. Vancouver is in the process of becoming the first city to enable drivers to make meter payments via cell phone. Once you sign up for an account, you can pay for any amount of parking and then as the time is running out, you’ll receive a text message and you can add minutes without having to go back to your car. Verrus Mobile Technologies is the company behind the project and they make their share through a 30 cent surcharge.

Found via Slashdot

According an article in today’s New York Times, the Smart car, which we’ve all marvelled at on our trips across the pond, may be coming to a dealership near you as soon as 2008! According to the article:

DaimlerChrysler, which shelved an earlier plan to bring its Smart mini-car brand to the United States, plans to announce on Wednesday that it will introduce the tiny, two-seat vehicle to the American market early in 2008, according to several executives at the company.

Since it’s appearance in The Da Vinci Code, Steven Schneider, CEO of ZAP, a Santa Rosa firm that markets alternative-fuel cars, says “We have 53,000 e-mails (from prospective buyers) that we’ve not been able to get back to.”
So what’s so smart about the little bugger, other than its size? Here’s the skinny:

Will, Mangesh, David, John, AJ, Greg: I’m sure all of you are respectful, polite, gentle souls who would never dream of undressing a female stranger with your eyes while making strange hissy/kissy/lip-smacking noises at her. (Actually, I’m not sure about Greg.) But in case I’m wrong, consider yourself warned:

Guy walks up behind me, lets out a wolf whistle. Walks around in front of me and says: “Lady, has anyone told you that you have a beautiful a–? It’s beautiful, and so big!” … So I looked him in the face and said: Not as big as the a– standing in front of me.”

Alas, that’s not my story. It’s from Holla Back New York City, a newish blog that ensures that any man who says such a thing will find himself utterly unable to score a date with any girl who knows how to use the Internet. There are sister sites for Boston, DC, Texas, and (I suppose in the spirit of casting a wide net) Canada and Europe. And yes, someone did once try that “angel” thing on me.

According to this story on CNN.com several Indian companies have been disappointed with the internet traffic on their homepages. And because they’ve already tried spending tons on flashy solutions, and still watched their traffic rankings drop, many a company is trying a different tack – Feng Shui. That’s right, modern corporations are hiring Feng Shui and Vaastu Shastra (an Indian design philosophy based on balance) experts to help balance their web pages, bring harmony between man and the environment, and of course, rake in the dough. Of course, it isn’t just Vaastu which the companies are doling out for; consultants also advise on how to set up your navigation bar, the size and colors of graphics, and the sounds to place behind your webpage based on astrology, numerology, and other “ancient sciences.” And while many clients seem happy with the results (Brijesh Agarwal of Indiamart reported that the traffic on 3 of his sites went up by 60%), mental_floss isn’t planning on using Feng Shui to guide the magazine’s web page relaunch. Instead, we’re consulting a slightly different group: 3 multi-national soothsayers, a Haitian witch doctor, and a tea leaf reader with rheumatoid arthritis. And if our traffic rankings still don’t go up, we won’t hesitate to get Ms. Cleo on the line.

If scientists at the University of Cambridge are on the right path, your facial expressions will soon help a computer decide when to sell you a new product over the Internet. Your eye twitch or yawn might help detect boredom or tiredness as you sit behind the wheel of your car. Check out the article over at the BBC for the full story and if you happen to be passing through the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition next week, you could even help them train their computers by letting yourself be filmed.

Sounds like a YAWN of a good-time!

The Chronicle of Higher Ed doesn’t publish all its material online, but when it does, it chooses doozies like this:

Jesus is Not a Republican

… Corporate interests are treated with the kind of reverence and deference once reserved for the deity. The Bible contains something like 2,000 references to the poor and the believer’s responsibility for the poor. Sadly, that obligation seems not to have trickled down into public policy. …

I’m sure the author would be horrified, but this reminds me of nothing so much as another classic essay in which the writer compared and contrasted the Republican Party with the Empire from Star Wars — and, seeing as how the essay was published by the Weekly Standard, it argued that the comparison was far from insulting:

The deep lesson of Star Wars is that the Empire is good. … Palpatine believes that the political order must be manipulated to produce peace and stability. When he mutters, “There is no civility, there is only politics,” we see that at heart, he’s an esoteric Straussian.

While fumbling around for some additional research for our Law School in a Box project, I was looking for some tips on how judges keep lawyers on both sides of aisle smiling, and came across the work of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judge Michael Eakin, who’s infamous for his, well, “poetic” justice. Take for instance the seven stanza ruling he delivered in a case where a wife claimed that her hubby’s lie about her wedding ring should invalidate their prenup. Eakin ruled:

“A groom must expect matrimonial pandemonium,
When his spouse finds he’s given her a cubic zirconium
Instead of a diamond in her engagement band
the one he said was worth twenty-one grand…”

Of course, not everyone digs the justice’s lyrical rulings, to which Eakin has a ready response: “You have an obligation as a judge to be right, but you have no obligation to be dull.”