Centives

Amy Webb used her background in data analysis to figure out which female profiles attract the most attention on a popular dating site…and then used that information to write her profile and find the love of her life. Here are some of the things she found that seemed to attract the best male attention:

• The most popular female profiles have a relatively short description – about 500 words – and are full of aspirational language about what they would like to do.
• They also lie about their height, making themselves seem shorter than they actually are.
• Reaching out to male daters rather than passively waiting for attention was an effective strategy.
• The most popular profiles were of females with straight – not curly – hair.

Read more about what a good profile should lead with, how to approach humour, and Webb’s methodology over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Via: Marginal Revolution

The branches of America’s military are waging a battle similar to the one being fought between Apple and Samsung: a battle for style. D.B. Grady wrote:

• In 2002 the Marine Corps introduced a new uniform called MARPAT. Field testing indicated that it was more effective at camouflage than existing uniform designs.
• The army wanted to show that it could compete with the Marine Corps by introducing its own new uniform. Except it decided to settle on the worst performing uniform design available.
• The Navy was willing to put its pride aside and introduced a new uniform that was similar to the Marine Corps’ well-performing MARPAT design. However the Marine Corps spoke out against it, stating that it was too similar to their design.
• The branches of the military seem to be more focused on cultivating a distinct brand identity rather than on more important objectives such as protecting the lives of soldiers.
• By agreeing on one common uniform across all branches not only would all service members get the best possible uniform, there would also be significant cost savings

Read more about some of the other troubles with army and navy uniforms, as well as how the branches could continue their competition in dress uniforms over here.

Source: The Atlantic

Yesterday Facebook previewed graph search – a move into search that many consider to be Google’s worse nightmare since it provides a personalized search experience unavailable on other platforms. Steven Levy had the inside scoop on its development:

• The new search allows you to search for queries such as “friends who like Game of Thrones and microwave Popcorn in California” to allow you to set up a viewing party.
• Facebook itself doesn’t consider it a ‘search’ product – since it leaves most of the standard searching to Bing. In fact executives tried hard to come up with a name for the service that didn’t include the word ‘search’ but were ultimately unable to do so.
• Generally search engines work best when you use broad-level queries to cast the widest possible net. Graph search, however, benefits from you being as narrow, and adding as many criteria to your search field as possible.
• Advertizers can already target you by your age, region, gender, and interests. Facebook is simply making this – and other – information available to users.
• The initial launch will be limited. It will only be available in English and won’t be useable through smartphone apps.

Read more about what this new search can do, why LinkedIn should be scared, and some of the privacy issues involved over here.

Source: Wired

The next time you set up a game of Scrabble you might want to look into changing the amount of points that each letter is worth writes Laura Gray:

• The inventor of Scrabble assigned the values of the letters based on the frequency with which they appeared on the front page of the New York Times in the 1930s.
• Yet language has evolved since then, and the dictionary of legal Scrabble words has expanded. Letters such as Z which are now worth 10 points should only be worth 6.
• Mattel, the maker of Scrabble, refuses to change the value of the letters, stating that this misallocation of points is part of the game and that skilled players can use this to their advantage.

Read more about other letters whose values need to be readjusted, and play around with a calculator that would show you how much words would be worth after the change over here.

Source: BBC

Chris Kirk and Stephen Laniel at Slate have used data from the Centers for Disease Control to create a calculator that looks at the likelihood of Supreme Court justices passing away in the next four years. Centives played around with the calculator and this is what we found:

• There’s a 63% chance that at least one justice will die in the next four years.
• There’s a 45% chance that it’ll be a conservative member that passes away.
• There’s a 33% chance that it’ll be a liberal.
• Justice Anthony Kennedy and Justice Antonin Scalia are the least likely to survive until 2017 with an 18% chance that one of them will pass before then.
• There’s a 0.05% chance that five justices will pass before Obama’s second term is over – giving him the opportunity to stack the Supreme Court with like-minded individuals.

You can try out the calculator yourself over here. (Your numbers might differ as the calculator seems to recalculate the percentages each time. We averaged out ten attempts for each of the scenarios outlined above.)

Source: Slate

Visua.ly produced an infographic that examined the economics of girl scout cookies. Highlights include:

• Thin mints are by far the most popular with 50 million boxes sold each year. Caramel deLites and Peanut Butter patties take second and third place.
• Packages of the cookies sometimes taste a little different from one another. This is because two bakeries are licensed to make the cookies and they use slightly different methods.
• Last year 3 million girl scouts sold $714 million worth of cookies. That’s $238 worth of cookies sold per girl scout.
• During World War Two the girl scouts sold calendars instead of cookies due to shortages.
• The record for most cookies ever sold is held by a 15 year old who sold 17,328 boxes.

Read more about the girl scouts, their connection to the government, which of the cookies are the worst for your health and more in the infographic over here.

Source: Visua.ly

Steve Kolenberg dispelled some of the most common myths about the Middle Ages:

• Knights weren’t particularly honourable. As professional warriors they didn’t quite understand the concept of ‘peace-time’ and would slaughter the inhabitants of rival villages.
• Sex was rampant. Most marriages were loveless political agreements between families which meant that extramarital affairs happened relatively often. Prostitution was so common that even the Church licensed some brothels.
• The Church did not hold back science during this period, it actually saved it. Universities such as Oxford and Cambridge were established by the Church and helped it to encourage literacy and progress.
• People didn’t die young. While the average life expectancy was low, this was because of high child mortality rates. Once an individual survived childhood they were expected to see their 70s.

Find the entire list here and see why women didn’t have it too bad then, why life was kind of a party, and why things didn’t smell too bad back then.

Source: Cracked

Ultra-HD Televisions were all the rage at the Consumer Electronics Show. These sets have four times the resolution of 1080p high definition – putting the image quality in IMAX territory. Yet Eric Bangeman believes that they’re not going to be popular anytime soon:

• The price, which can be as high as $20,000 for an individual set, is not the primary concern since prices will decline over time.
• However there’s not much of a value proposition. At reasonable viewing distances there’s no distinguishable difference in picture quality between Ultra-HD and HD.
• There’s also a scarcity of Ultra-HD content and this isn’t going to change anytime soon. Cable providers don’t have the infrastructure in place to provide Ultra-HD content and Ultra-HD movies are too big to realistically be streamed over the internet.
• The fate of 3D televisions is a foreshadowing of what will happen in the market – a year ago manufacturers believed that 3-D televisions would be the next big thing, but consumers haven’t been interested in buying them.
• The featured comment points out that Ultra-HD might be at the point where music was a few years ago. People no longer care about the highest quality music formats because the standard music format we’re exposed to is good enough. Standard HD might have been that point for television.

Read more about the uphill battle that Ultra-HD faces, why people are unlikely to purchase new sets after having bought HD ones, and why the lack of the equivalent of a Blu-Ray player might make things even more difficult for the format over here.

Source: ArsTechnica

“Little Emperors” is the term given to children who were born after China’s one-child policy was enacted as these individuals didn’t have to vie with a sibling for the resources and affection of their elders. But growing up an emperor has developmental consequences according to a study reported on by Steve Connor:

• Children born after the policy was enacted are more risk-adverse. This might mean that China’s current and future generations will be less entrepreneurial than the previous one.
• They also suffer from “sibling deprivation”. This makes them more self-centered and less cooperative.
• The study also found that those born after the legislation was passed are more pessimistic, less trusting, and less trustworthy.

Read more about some of the other effects of being born into the one child only era, why this research contradicts some of the findings from the west, and what the authors of the study have to say over here.

Source: The Independent

In 2014 the FIFA World Cup will draw thousands of tourists to Brazil. The prostitutes have begun preparing for the influx writes Shasta Darlington:

• To work out financial deals and communicate “sensual words and fetishes” it will be important for Brazilian prostitutes to understand English.
• To facilitate this, some English teachers are expected to offer their services for free, in the same way that healthcare workers also offer free services to individuals in the sex trade.
• Prostitution itself is legal in Brazil and the World Cup is expected to draw additional workers from surrounding areas to cope with the demand.

Read more about the phenomenon over here.

Source: CNN