Designer Labels Will Make You Rich and Powerful?

Everyone knows people who buy designer clothes are shallow assholes. 
But it looks like everyone is a shallow asshole. People apparently hold 
other people in higher regard simply if they're wearing clothes with a designer label.

In a new study in Evolution and Human Behavior, researchers found that 
labels act as a status-boosting talisman. They showed a picture of a man 
with a luxury logo like Lacoste and a picture with the logo digitally removed 
to volunteers. The volunteers judged the man with the logo to be wealthier 
and of "higher status."  This translated to real-world benefits. 

 

 Wearing Designer Labels Will Make You Rich and Powerful

one of their female assistants asked people in a shopping mall to stop
and answer survey questions. One day she wore a sweater with a designer
logo; the next, an identical sweater with no logo. Some 52% of people agreed
to take the survey when faced with the Tommy Hilfiger label, compared with
only 13% who saw no logo.

These results don't only show that we're evolutionarily wired to love logos,
as the Economist suggests. It's also a signal of the fashion industry's radical
success at turning consumers into irrational, Pavlovian shopping bots, salivating
over tiny scraps of brightly-colored fabric. This might backfire once people skip
the clothes altogether and just get Chanel logos tattooed directly on their foreheads.
[The Economist, Image via Getty]

(via gawker.com)

> Link to this page:
http://j.mp/RichAndPowerful

Twitter's Great Grandpa

How the electric telegraph switched on the connected world

IM.1108_el.jpeg

 

In 1837 William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented their telegraph, starting a new era of instant, long-distance electrical communication that culminated in the internet, email, Facebook, Twitter ... Mark Brandon of the Open University spoke to John Liffen of London's Science Museum about this 20th Century Icon in a video interview in The Guardian.

quotemarksright.jpgTwo hundred years ago, people had to wait days, weeks or even months for letters to arrive by horse and ship. The electric telegraph changed all that. In the space of a few years, anyone in a large town could send a message hundreds of miles in just a few minutes.quotesmarksleft.jpg

Beth Lovell, Information Desk Assistant of The Science Museum.

(via textually.org)

> Link to this page:
http://j.mp/Grandpa-Twitter 

Mobile Phone Subscriptions To Hit 5 Billion

On a planet with around 6.8 billion people, we're likely to see 5 billion cell phone subscriptions this year.

Reaching 4.6 billion at the end of 2009, the number of cell phone subscriptions across the globe will hit 5 billion sometime in 2010, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The explosion in cell phone use has been driven not only by developed countries, but by developing nations hungry for services like mobile banking and health care.

"Even during an economic crisis, we have seen no drop in the demand for communications services," said ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Toure at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, "and I am confident that we will continue to see a rapid uptake in mobile cellular services in particular in 2010, with many more people using their phones to access the Internet."

Along with the surge in cell phones, demand for mobile access to the Internet has skyrocketed. The ITU expects the number of mobile broadband subscriptions to surpass 1 billion around the world this year, a leap from 600 million at the end of 2009. The organization predicts that within the next five years, more people will hop onto the Web from laptops and mobile gadgets than from desktop computers.

People in developing countries are increasingly using their cell phones for mobile banking, even those who have no bank accounts. But it's in the area of health care that cell phones have made a difference in developing regions, believes the ITU.

"Even the simplest, low-end mobile phone can do so much to improve health care in the developing world," said Toure. "Good examples include sending reminder messages to patients' phones when they have a medical appointment, or need a prenatal check-up. Or using SMS messages to deliver instructions on when and how to take complex medication such as anti-retrovirals or vaccines. It's such a simple thing to do, and yet it saves millions of dollars--and can help improve and even save the lives of millions of people."

(via reviews.cnet.com)

This article is over a year old... I just came across it and found it fascinating.

Currently there are 2 Billion people world wide who have access to the internet,
and 5 Billion people who have mobile phones!  As the internet become more and
more mobile... business and communication will also continue to change.

> Stats from:
http://j.mp/Mobile-Internet-Users 

> Link to this page:
http://j.mp/5Billion-Mobile 

Charlie Sheen: 2011 Tiger Blood Tour Quotes

(via nj.com)
10. On his toddler sons, currently living with him, to E!:
“They run around and they’re as fun as you can imagine. They say ‘Dada’ and run into walls. And Dada is cool, but when they run into walls I say, ‘Don’t do that, that’s retarded.’”
9. On a long-ago alleged altercation with an ex-girlfriend, to Piers Morgan:
“Women are not to be hit. They're to be hugged and caressed ... She was attacking me, though, with a small fork — like a cocktail fork. And she had it with her; that was the weird part. What was she doing with, like, a shrimp fork in her purse? She stole it, clearly. From a buffet.”
8. On his “Two and a Half Men” producers, to E!:
“They can’t hang with me, their bones would melt like wax.”
7. On how “hot” ex-wife Denise Richards helps him, to ABC:
“Shows up looking the way she does. Look at her. Wow! Everybody’s winning. Boom!”
6. On when his kids get old enough to learn about his escapades:
"I hope they say, 'Dad, fill in the blanks.This [bleep]'s gnarly."
5. On his battle with CBS and Warner Brothers, to NBC:
"They're trying to destroy my family, so I take great umbrage with that. And defeat is not an option. They picked a fight with a warlock."
4. On his carefree spending, to TMZ:
"Blame the studio for giving me this much dough knowing who they were giving to."
3. On his otherworldliness, to NBC:
"I'm tired of pretending like I'm not special. I'm tired of pretending like I'm not a total bitchin' rock star from Mars."
2. On sobriety, to ABC:
"I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available, because if you try it once, you will die and your children will weep over your exploded body. Too much?"
1. When asked by NBC whether he's sober:
"Look at me! Duh!"

> Link to this page:
http://bit.ly/TigerBlood