James Kenneth Rogers

1. Serenity Parenting. Going along with my previous post, “Sensible Parenting”, about Brian Caplan’s book “Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids”, this is a good quote from his book: Once I became a dad, I noticed that parents around me had a different take on the power of nurture. I saw them turning parenthood into a chore—shuttling their kids to activities even the kids didn’t enjoy, forbidding television, desperately trying to make their babies eat another spoonful of vegetables. Parents’…

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1. Photos of skyscrapers in different cities in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Wealthy and middle class Brazilians often live in highrise apartments in their city’s downtown area. The effect of this is that even smaller Brazilian cities often have beautiful skylines. The posts on this forum thread have a lot of cool pictures of modern Brazilian cities in São Paulo, Brazil (Brazil’s richest state). I’ve been to a lot of these places — pretty cool! 2. We’ve Become…

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1. Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census. This has been out for a few weeks, but it is still worth looking at if you haven’t heard about it yet. The New York Times has created a neat tool which visualizes the results of the U.S. census. You can zoom in at different levels (states, counties, census tracts) to see all sorts of demographic information about any place in the United States. 2. Earth Is Not Random. A summary of a scientific…

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1. Justice is served, but more so after lunch: how food-breaks sway the decisions of judges. A study of Israeli judges holding parole hearings found that “the odds that prisoners will be successfully paroled start off fairly high at around 65% and quickly plummet to nothing over a few hours. . . . After the judges have returned from their [food] breaks, the odds abruptly climb back up to 65%, before resuming their downward slide. A prisoner’s fate could hinge…

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1. Scientifically Proven Tips For a More Productive Office. This summarizes some easy ways (which have been confirmed with scientific research) to increase productivity: bluer lights, bringing nature into the office, having a highly adjustable chair, and maintaining a comfortable (or slightly cold) temperature. 2. Cell Phones Track Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know. A German politician obtained the data his cell phone provider’s records about his movements. They had six month’s worth of data about everywhere…

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1. Periodic Fasting May Cut Risk of Heart Disease, Diabetes. A study comparing Mormons who fast once a month with Mormons who don’t fast indicates that “[o]ccasional water-only fasts may lower your risk of heart disease and diabetes.” 2. Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School. Research shows that spontaneous, exploratory learning encourages children to “look for a much wider range of information and consider a greater range of options” than when children learn from a teacher giving instruction. This has…

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1. Avoid News: Towards a Healthy News Diet (via Bryan Caplan at Econlog). I’ve been realizing more and more how much of my news reading is just a waste of time. I now spend more time reading non-fiction books and bigger-picture articles from smart people about ideas, rather than articles about politician X visiting country Y or bill Z which is being considered by Congress. This article gives some good explanations why spending too much time on news is a…

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1. Brazilians, more European than not? This blog post summarizes a recent genetic study of the ancestral background of Brazilians from different regions of the country: “black Brazilians have a much higher load of European ancestry than black Americans, while white Brazilians have a much higher load of Amerindian and African, than white Americans.” 2. Religious fundamentalism is in the genes. This summarizes a study done to compare identical and fraternal twins to examine how much of the subjects’ religious…

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1. Is a cow a silo of option value? A good argument, perhaps, against vegetarianism. 2. The Best Questions For A First Date. Dating site OK Cupid has data-mined the answers given by site users, and has come up with some interesting correlations between personal attributes and seemingly-unrelated questions. The upside is that you can use this to ask innocuous questions to possibly get some insight into a person’s personal attributes that you probably couldn’t normally ask of an acquaintance….

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1. Tools never die. Almost any technology from our past still exists, and is being used today somewhere in the world — even steam powered car engine parts. 2. Study shows that genes causing religiosity will dominate society. 3. The haves and have-nots. A very interesting chart showing income inequality in the United States, Brazil, China, and India as compared to the rest of the world. The poorest five percent of Brazilians are among the poorest people in the world,…

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