Reality Upgrade

Ever wonder just who your second cousin, twice removed is?

Maybe not, but if you are wondering just how you are related to your Cousin’s Cousin’s Niece’s Grandfather, Wolfram Alpha is your key to success.

Check it out here at the Wolfram Alpha Blog.

Now you can go to Aunt Merideth’s fifth wedding with no fear. Well, except that you might have to dance with Aunt Merideth.

This is a fascinating article from the Washington Post about hoarding. It is the story of a man (Michael S. Rosenwald) who’s extreme hoarding was beginning to ruin his marriage, so he went on a quest to understand why he feels compelled to hoard.

It is a rather long article, and is more of an autobiographical tale than a scientific study, but it is interesting to see the world from the point of view of someone who has a hard time getting rid of stuff. As he mentions in the article, we see people who are buried in their possessions on television, but it is rare to see it from the inside. Enjoy!

Jonas out.

There are a multitude of hangover “cures”, embedded in old wives’ tales and frat house legends, but which ones really work?

Today, Reality Upgrade turns to science to find out which ones actually do the job.

The list is depressingly short.

The simplest and most effective hangover cure is to simply not drink in the first place, but lets face it. That’s no fun.

Other than that, there are essentially only 3 real things that help with a hangover:

• Food
• Water
• Time

See, I told you it was depressingly short.

Food

Eating well before starting to drink is a surprisingly effective hangover prevention tool, but not for the reason that is given in the general hangover lore. Rather than a literal alcohol sponge, a full meal is a figurative one.

When you eat a full meal, your stomach will focus on slowing the progress of food and liquids through the stomach so that the digestive process can happen. This has the useful side effect of slowing the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, because your intestines are busy absorbing other things as well.

Stretching out the absorption of alcohol over a longer period of time lets your body deal with the alcohol in smaller amounts over a longer period of time,  which in turn reduces the pain of your hangover. (See the bit on Time, below)

Water

Water is the magical elixir of life that keeps everything in your body running smoothly. Dehydration can cause headache, dry mouth, dizziness when standing, and and lethargy. Sound familiar anyone?

Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it encourages your kidneys to create more urine by suppressing your body’s levels of the antidiuretic hormone vasopressin, which in turn drains water out of your body more quickly than normal.

The best way to prevent dehydration is to drink plenty of water before, during, and after drinking alcohol. A good rule of thumb is to make sure you drink at least 1 tall glass of water for every shot, glass of wine, or cup of beer you drink. If you forget to drink water while you are out at the bar, at least remember to chug some before you hit the sack. This will keep you body hydrated, and fend off some of the worst effects of the hangover.

Time

As the liver breaks down alcohol, a whole bunch of nasty chemicals are created, all of which contribute to the hangover.

In the liver, ethanol is converted to acetaldehyde by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, and then from acetaldehyde to acetic acid by the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. Acetaldehyde (ethanal) is between 10 and 30 times more toxic than alcohol itself.

A bunch of other complicated chemical stuff happens as well, but one of the major effects of these chemicals is to prevent the liver from properly regulating the levels of glucose in the blood. Glucose is the major energy source for the brain, so a lack of glucose can cause symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, mood disturbances, and decreased attention and concentration. Again, does  any of that sound familiar?

Because you just dumped a whole bunch of nasty into your bloodstream all at once, getting rid of it all causes your liver to run out of  glutathione and other detoxification agents. Your liver will produce more of these cleaning agents, but it takes…well, time. Until your liver can produce more, your body has to deal with a bunch of poisons floating around in your bloodstream, and the only thing you can do is wait.

Other Somewhat Useful Tips

Headache Medicine

One other thing that helps, but is not really a cure, is ibuprofen. It does not really fix anything, but it is the least damaging of the the three major over the counter headache medicines. Aspirin and acetaminophen work as well, but tend to irritate the lining of the stomach. In normal situations, this is not a big deal, but if your stomach just had to deal with a bunch of alcohol, anything else that irritate it is probably a bad idea.

Incidentally, if you don’t have any ibuprofen available, go with acetaminophen. It is slightly less rough on your stomach than aspirin.

Drink Clear Liquor

There are several things that can exaggerate the symptoms of alcohol, including other types of alcohols and congeners. Both of these can be side products of some types of fermentation, and some are also added to sweet liquors to enhance their flavor.

A 2009 study provided evidence that darker-coloured liquors, such as bourbon, cause worse hangovers than lighter-coloured liquors, such as vodka. The higher amount of congeners found in darker liquors compared to lighter ones was indicated as the cause.

So avoid the darker liquors, and stick with silver tequila for a somewhat smaller head in the morning.

What Not To Do

There are tons of hangover cures that don’t really help at all, and for a fun list and the debunking of most of them check out this fun article by Lifehacker.

Also for a more detailed look at the science behind the hangover, check out this article on hangovers on my favorite website ever, Wikipedia.

If you have ever wondered where money comes from, you are not alone. Until recently, I did not understand the theory of money at all. I knew that once upon a time, our currency was backed by a “gold standard,” and I assumed that this simply meant that if someone took a dollar to the Federal Reserve, they could get a dollar’s worth of gold out of the national gold reserve. I figured that it was just easier to carry around paper money.

However, for my whole life, there has been no gold standard. Our currency is backed by faith in the United States Government. I never really understood how that worked.

Until yesterday, when I watched the videos below. There are 5 videos, about 10 minutes long each, and they are by far the best explanation of the way money actually works that I have ever seen. In the last couple of clips, the video talks a little about monetary reform, and I try to stay away from anything political here, but the information is great whether you agree with the author’s ideas about reform or not.

Everyone should watch these videos. After all, you use money every day. You have a responsability to understand it.

Gmail recently added a feature called “Undo Send”, which actually holds your email for 5 seconds before it sends it. In the mean time, you can press the “Undo” button, and potentially save yourself some embarassment.

As it turns out, 5 seconds is just long enough for most people to realize that they made a mistake, and hit the Undo button.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a Undo Send button in real life?

Well, maybe we do. All you have to do is wait five seconds to respond to something, especially if you are upset. In the typical conversation, a five second pause is just that, a pause. It won’t seem strange to the person you’re talking to, and it might just prevent you from telling your boss where to shove it.

(continue reading…)

This awesome website by the New York Times has a flash chart of what Americans are doing with their time, by hour of the day. It is also broken down into categories, like male and female, enployed and unemployed, etc.

Check it out here.

Sight and hearing are easy. But in order to really connect on an emotional level with someone, you need to do more. Memories are usually connected with a particular sensory input, and that type of sensory input will most easily trigger that memory. Since the goal of branding is to be remembered, and stand out, the more senses you can attach to your brand, the higher the chance you will be remembered.

Also, if you pay attention to the “other” senses, (touch, smell, taste) you will have more control over what you are remembered for. You may have the best presentation, and a great product, but if your clients only remember you body odor, or even only that you shake hands strangely…well, you missed your goal. By thinking about all five senses, you can make sure that your clients’ entire experience with you is reinforcing your brand.

The sense of smell, in particular, has an incredibly powerful effect on memory and emotion, and is often overlooked when marketing.

(continue reading…)

What makes us happy? Not happy in the I-just-got-some-chocolate temporary way, but really, truly happy in the long term. The kind of happy where you die at 87, with your great-grandchildren around you and think, “I had a good life, and wound not change anything.”

Is there some formula, some magic mix of psychology, upbringing, career, and love that lead to a good life?

For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been trying to find out. (continue reading…)

There are five major car companies in Germany, and to the outside world they could easily seem very similar. After all, they are all “German Engineering,” they are all luxury models, high quality, and stylish. In fact, they all have rather similar symbols, all of them based around a circle in some way.

However, each different manufacturer has a different brand. BMW is about sporty, classy, and fast. Mercedes is also classy, but more about luxury then sport. Audi is young and hip, but with sophistication. Volkswagen is a more affordable brand targeted at young people. And there’s Opel, which I had never even heard of until I started looking into German car manufacturers. (continue reading…)

You have 8 seconds. No, I’m not kidding.

Continuous Attention Span

The average continuous attention span on an adult human is 8 seconds. This is how long a human can focus on an object without any lapse at all. After this amount of time, it is likely that an individual’s eyes will shift focus, or that a stray thought will briefly enter consciousness.

This means that you have 8 seconds, and only 8, to get across your brand message.

That does not mean you have to give an entire presentation on what you do in 8 seconds, but your brand message - the “Just Do It” - has to fit there. Any longer, and something else will distract the audience from your message. After all, how effective would “Just Do - huh, how’d that bug get in here - It” be?

General Attention Span

The average attention span of an adult human is about 20 minutes - this is how long a person can stay concentrated on one general thing without needing a break or some kind. That means that if you are making any kind of presentation, you must keep it to under 20 minutes, or your audience will stop paying attention, without even noticing that it is happening.

You can get around this time limit by giving the audience “breaks”, but in general your should keep it to under 20 minutes. Anything you really need to say, you can say in that amount of time.

And in the spirit of keeping it short, see you next week.

Step 1 - It’s all about them

Step 2 - Hearts, then minds

Step 3 - Keep it simple

Step 4 - Keep repeating it