- Does it really matter what kind of vessel the bartender
uses for your draught before sliding it across the bar? According to researchers at the
University of Bristol, the shape of a person’s glass actually does make a
difference when it comes to how quickly they down whatever cheap beer they buy
on their night out at the local pub. Dr. Angela Attwood, the lead researcher for
the project, and her team found that people drink more quickly out of curved
glasses than straight ones because curved glasses supposedly make pacing one’s
drinking a much greater challenge. Researchers filmed 159 men and women
drinking either soft drinks or beer, with all glasses containing around half a
pint of liquid. The amount of liquid inside the glasses was the same, but some
of the glasses were curved while others were straight. Participants were told
to drink the entire contents of the glass and the amount of time it took for
them to consume all of the soft drinks in their glass was the same regardless
of the glass’ shape. People drinking from both straight and curved glasses
finished their soft drink after around seven minutes, but the results changed
drastically when the beverage packed a bit more of a punch. For the beer
drinkers there was a large difference between the two groups. Those chugging
from curved glasses finished in seven minutes, while those drinking from a
straight glass needed an average of 11 minutes to finish their beer. Attwood’s
team theorized that curved glasses made it harder to pace drinking because
judging how much was in the glass became more difficult because of the shape of
the glass. To test subjects’ perception of how full glasses were, researchers
showed them a series of pictures of partially-filled beer glasses and asked
them to say whether they were more or less than half full. Subjects were more
likely to judge incorrectly with curved glasses than straight ones and Attwood
believes this lack of accurate perception ties in with how quickly beer was
consumed in straight glasses as opposed to curved ones. "They are unable
to judge how quickly they are drinking so cannot pace themselves,” she said. It
certainly is something to consider when you’re four or five beers into a wild
night out and are doing important things like contemplating the mysteries of
the universe………
- Don’t apologize and never back down. The Museum of New Hampshire History should have
known that before, but museum officials either weren't aware or simply didn’t
have the intestinal fortitude to take a stand when they found themselves face
to face with a legally blind 8-year-old girl and her mother in a showdown over
museum policy. See, Abby and her mother, Penny, visited the museum earlier this
week. Abby Duffy has some ability to see, but she relies on a walking stick to
help lead her around. However, a museum employee smartly confiscated her stick
on the grounds that the museum has had issues with children using canes as
weapons in the past. Anyone who has ever seen an 8 year old with a weaponized
walking stick knows the terror that child can wreak on the world, so the museum
acted correctly when it confiscated the stick. Besides, young Abby Duffy needs
to know that the world isn’t always going to cater to her and go out of its way
to include and accommodate her just because she has a genetic condition beyond
her control that robs her of most of her ability to see. Just listen to the
whininess she exhibited when her walking stick was taken away and she felt, in
her words, helpless. "I couldn't really walk on my own and go anywhere by
myself," she said. "I had to keep following my dad."
Predictably, the incident irritated her mother, Penny Duffy, who just happens
to be the president of the New Hampshire chapter of Parents of Blind Children.
Penny Duffy was irked at the museum for its supposed intolerance and went so
far as to suggest the employee’s actions were illegal. Sadly, Museum of New
Hampshire History executive director Bill Dunlap caved and apologized to the family,
saying the museum “sincerely regrets what happened to Abby and her family when
they visited our museum.” Wrong move, Billy……..
- Sometimes movies actually do matter for something other
than boosting the bottom line of major Hollywood studios and providing
eight-figure contracts for their stars. In the case of Saudi Arabian director Haifaa Al Mansour,
the simple acting of making and releasing a movie has been a statement in and
of itself. Al Mansour is Saudi Arabia's first female director and she with a
socially conscious film examining the limitations placed on women in the
conservative Islamic kingdom through the story of an independent 10-year-old
girl living in Riyadh. According to Al Mansour, her project is the first to have
been entirely shot in Saudi Arabia. In it, she follows the daily life of her
young subject, named Wadjda, as the girl tries to get around restrictions and
break social barriers at school and at home. Wadjda is chastised for not
wearing a veil, listening to pop music and not hiding in front of men, but uses
her quick thinking to get away with it. Another noteworthy scene in the project
sees Wadjda plotting to raise money to buy a green bicycle she wants to race
against a male friend and getting the bike despite her mother’s opposition
because respectable girls do not cycle in Saudi Arabia. To buy the bike, she
makes her teachers believe she has become an obedient, model student by learning
verses from the Koran by heart to enroll in a religious competition at school
so she can win the money to purchase the bike. Al Mansour uses Wadjda’s tale to
illustrate the larger issues surrounding the segregation of women in Saudi
Arabia, where they hold a lower legal status to men, are banned from driving
and need a male guardian's permission to work, travel or open a bank account.
"It's
easy to say it's a difficult, conservative place for a woman and do nothing
about it, but we need to push forward and hope we can help make it a more
relaxed and tolerant society," she said after her film premiered in
Venice. Al Mansour is hopeful that signs of change in Saudi society and younger
generations were challenging the system of beliefs and norms will continue and
even be spurred on by projects like hers. "It's opening up, there is a
huge opportunity for women now," Al Mansour said. "It is not like
before, although I can't say it's like heaven. Society won't just accept it,
people will put pressure on women to stay home, but we have to fight." The
fight is far from over and even during filming, Al Mansour still had to take
serious precautions while filming because in more conservative areas of Riyadh,
many men disapproved of a female filmmaker interacting with men on set………..
- Oh, how irony is smacking the people of Tunisia in the
face right now. The country where the rebellious spirit of the Arab Spring
began in earnest appears to be in need of another revolt as Tunisian
prosecutors press forward with charges against two sculptors for artworks
deemed harmful to public order and good morals. For some odd reason, free
speech and human rights activists views this sort of legal action as part of a
clampdown on free speech in the country. Human Rights Watch criticized the
prosecution of artists Nadia Jelassi and Mohamed Ben Salem as a blatant
violation of the right to freedom of expression because the works did not
incite or discriminate. In a country where protests against the longtime dictator
helped set off similar uprisings across the Arab world, them are fightin’
words. "Time and again, prosecutors are using criminal legislation to
stifle critical or artistic expression," declared Eric Goldstein, deputy
Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, in a written
statement. "Bloggers, journalists and now artists are being prosecuted for
exercising their right to free speech.” Jelassi and Ben Salem displayed their
works in a show in La Marsa in June and their mixed-media art provoked protests
during the exhibition, which of course left the government with no choice but
to wrongfully imprison them and prosecute them to placate the masses. La Marsa
is a coastal town north of the capital Tunis and everyone knows that if La
Marsa isn’t happy, then no one in Tunisia can be happy. Both artists face up to
five years in prison if convicted, which would seem to be excessive by most
rational standards. Jelassi's contribution was a work titled "Celui qui
n'a pas …" ("He who hasn't …") and features sculptures of veiled
women amid a pile of stones. Ben Salem’s offensive work showed ants coming out
of a child's schoolbag to spell the word "Allah," or God, which may
seem benign but obviously was a reason to go for those who protested outside
the gallery and those who damaged several works at the exhibition in protest. The
investigative judge of the First Degree Court of Tunis informed Jelassi and Ben
Salem in August that they would face charges under an article of the penal code
that makes it an offense to "distribute, offer for sale, publicly display,
or possess, with the intent to distribute, sell, display for the purpose of
propaganda, tracts, bulletins, and fliers, whether of foreign origin or not,
that are liable to cause harm to the public order or public morals.” Nothing
harms morals more than ants who can spell, so thankfully the Tunisian legal
system acted quickly on this one. Do any of these people even remember the
violent uprising that forced out dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January
2011………
- Their season my be slipping away, two division rivals may
be closing in, but the New York Yankees need not panic. A 37-year-old admitted
steroid user who plays third base for them and to whom they are paying $25
million a season as he has one of the worst years of his career is back in the
lineup. That’s right, panicking Yankees fans, A-Rod is back in the New York Yankees lineup after missing six weeks
due to a hand injury. Rodriguez returned to the lineup and was listed as the DH
and batting fourth in the manager Joe Girardi's lineup for the first game of a
crucial three-game series in Tampa against the Rays, one of the two teams right
on New York’s heels in the American League East race. In mid-July, the division
lead was 10 games for the Yankees, but it’s now a mere two games over Baltimore
and 3.5 games over the Rays. Their pitching has struggled and been a major
point of concern, but oddly enough, even with Rodriguez having a career-worst
year of 15 home runs, 44 RBI and a .276 average, the Yankees are 19-18 without
their regular cleanup hitter in the lineup. Rodriguez has been out since breaking
his left hand July 24 and as he has worked his way back into playing shape over
the past few days, he hasn’t exactly looked like a game-changer ready to revive
his fading team, not unless going 0 for 7 in two rehabilitation appearances for
Class A Tampa counts as ready to play. On a positive note, if the Yankees
finish off their meltdown and miss the playoffs, at least their loyal (and
vociferous) fans will have one more person to pile the blame on……….
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