• Adventures in the Ransom Trade
  A look inside the interesting and thrilling K&R industry. What’s K&R? Why Kidnapping & Recovery, which apparently rich people pay insurance premiums for.

  Those feeling particularly kidnap-prone can buy in insurance from both sides. You can buy the conventional plan at annual premiums ranging anywhere from $10,000 to more than $150,000 per person. One South American billionaire has insured 90 members of his family; many insure their mistresses. Or you can buy a vacuna, or vaccination, directly from the kidnappers. In Bogota, a $60,000 vacuna will protect you from a half-million -dollar kidnapping. This saves both sides wear and tear.

• The Notorious MSG’s Unlikely Formula For Success
  The history of MSG with a slight pro-MSG bias.

  The simple fact that has perpetuated the MSG stigma in our culture more than any other is that food high in MSG is almost always bad for you. Almost all of Ajinomoto’s MSG is bought by the processed foods industry — upward of 21 million pounds per year, according to one estimate. Only in poorer countries that lack industrialized food infrastructure is the sale of “over-the-counter” MSG for use in home kitchens significant, Smriga says. Simply put, the foods that provide an average American his or her FDA-estimated half-gram of MSG daily are not healthy. But not because of MSG.

• Auto Correct
  A look inside the world of self driving cars, with a focus on Google’s initiative.

  It knows every turn, tree, and streetlight ahead in precise, three-dimensional detail. Dolgov was riding through a wooded area one night when the car suddenly slowed to a crawl. “I was thinking, What the hell? It must be a bug,” he told me. “Then we noticed the deer walking along the shoulder.” The car, unlike its riders, could see in the dark.

• Inside the World of Competitive Laughing
  What the heck is competitive laughing? Well it’s a sport that held a competition in Toronto!

  The first challenge is the Diabolical Laugh. Nerenberg demonstrates the technique for the audience with an apt and villainous impersonation that resembles a melding of Dr. Evil and Gary Oldman’s Dracula.

  This laugh can best be categorized in three stages: the initial giggle, followed by an increase in pitch and animated body language, and then finally a near-maniacal crescendo, complete with floor strikes, yelping, and, in some cases, pelvic thrusting. The laughs range from several seconds to more than a minute, but if they seem prolonged or feigned a nearby referee steps in to end it.

• Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops
  This article talks about sensors in our daily lives and how feedback loops are going to be used to change behaviour. It’s already starting (with products such my Fitbit Force), and this area will just continue to grow. Here’s a good starter

  A feedback loop involves four distinct stages. First comes the data: A behavior must be measured, captured, and stored. This is the evidence stage. Second, the information must be relayed to the individual, not in the raw-data form in which it was captured but in a context that makes it emotionally resonant. This is the relevance stage. But even compelling information is useless if we don’t know what to make of it, so we need a third stage: consequence. The information must illuminate one or more paths ahead. And finally, the fourth stage: action. There must be a clear moment when the individual can recalibrate a behavior, make a choice, and act. Then that action is measured, and the feedback loop can run once more, every action stimulating new behaviors that inch us closer to our goals.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: food, google, pocket