morality

Morality

Do you pull a lever to rescue 5 people on a runaway trolley, yet in doing so, you will take the life of an innocent bystander? I’m writing my thesis on moral decision making. Basically, I want to investigate if exposure to certain types of media content can shape certain (cognitive) aspects of decision making, [...]

martian-surface

Mars One Mission: Big Brother in Space?

The Mars One mission has the ambition to send a team of humans to Mars on a one-way trip by 2023. CBC News recently reported that Mars One will begin recruiting people for this mission later this year. The first impression is that it sounds awesome. Human beings haven’t left the Earth’s gravitational pull since [...]

European Commission Female Science promo offends all

European Commission Female Science promo offends all

The “Science; It’s a Girl Thing!” campaign was designed to get more females into various fields of science, but instead generated a plethora of angry responses. In less than a few weeks, the negative responses caused the YouTube commercial to be removed. If you missed it: From the description: This video was published by the [...]

CNN blames gaming

Oh CNN, you so silly

As if the Anders Breivik case needed to have headlines beyond the horrific events, CNN decides to shine the spotlight on the evils of gaming: These silly headlines were noticed immediately and accusations of fear pandering started. Soon after, CNN changed the headline ‘Killer Breivik trained on video games for massacre’ to something less sensationalist. [...]

New look for HelloLiefje

New look for HelloLiefje

The beginning of the 2011 – 2012 school year is coming closer and for the event, I’ve decided to update the look of HelloLiefje.com. Things are still a bit under construction so if you encounter any errors, please let me know. Furthermore, there was an issue with the previous theme that people using ie9 would [...]


Features

morality

Morality

Do you pull a lever to rescue 5 people on a runaway trolley, yet in doing so, you will take the life of an innocent bystander? I’m writing my thesis on moral decision making. Basically, I want to investigate if exposure to certain types of media content can shape certain (cognitive) aspects of decision making, [...]

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Tomfoolery

CNN, when are you gonna stop being so silly?

CNN, when are you gonna stop being so silly?

A recently published article on CNN takes a weird spin on pro-gaming, turning something which could have been a wonderful, poetic story into a fear-mongering article about gaming addiction. The article is loosely based around pro Starcraft II player MarineKing (also known as MKP) and the ‘gaming addiction’ he faced, which almost tore his family [...]

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Science

Is ‘Gaydar’ real?

Is ‘Gaydar’ real?

According to a recent experiment published in the PLoS ONE journal, yes, gaydar is real. Through briefly showing faces of people  for 50 milliseconds the data produced statistically significant results. Participants were able to judge sexual orientation through facial features alone (minus hair, ears and colour) with around 60% accuracy. Random guessing would yield results of around 50%, [...]

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Gaming

eSports at the Olympic Games?

eSports at the Olympic Games?

There is currently a petition being circulated in an attempt to get gaming in the Olympic games. Gaming as in eSports. Olympics as in the thing with athletics. Dubbed the “Torch for Gaming”, the manifesto on their website takes the Olympic philosophies and puts them… well… out of context. I just don’t see it happening, [...]

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Recent Articles

Morality

Do you pull a lever to rescue 5 people on a runaway trolley, yet in doing so, you will take the life of an innocent bystander? I’m writing my thesis on moral decision making. Basically, I want to investigate if exposure to certain types of media content can shape certain (cognitive) aspects of decision making, [...]

read more

Mars One Mission: Big Brother in Space?

The Mars One mission has the ambition to send a team of humans to Mars on a one-way trip by 2023. CBC News recently reported that Mars One will begin recruiting people for this mission later this year. The first impression is that it sounds awesome. Human beings haven’t left the Earth’s gravitational pull since [...]

read more

eSports at the Olympic Games?

There is currently a petition being circulated in an attempt to get gaming in the Olympic games. Gaming as in eSports. Olympics as in the thing with athletics. Dubbed the “Torch for Gaming”, the manifesto on their website takes the Olympic philosophies and puts them… well… out of context. I just don’t see it happening, [...]

read more

CNN, when are you gonna stop being so silly?

A recently published article on CNN takes a weird spin on pro-gaming, turning something which could have been a wonderful, poetic story into a fear-mongering article about gaming addiction. The article is loosely based around pro Starcraft II player MarineKing (also known as MKP) and the ‘gaming addiction’ he faced, which almost tore his family [...]

read more

European Commission Female Science promo offends all

The “Science; It’s a Girl Thing!” campaign was designed to get more females into various fields of science, but instead generated a plethora of angry responses. In less than a few weeks, the negative responses caused the YouTube commercial to be removed. If you missed it: From the description: This video was published by the [...]

read more

Gaming can be good for you

Since I rant on about it pretty often enough, I wonder if there are some of you left that still have the impression that gaming isn’t particularly good for you? Due to sensationalist media headlines (like this) we’ve all been led to believe it, but it’s not entirely true. For every reason we are given [...]

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Is ‘Gaydar’ real?

According to a recent experiment published in the PLoS ONE journal, yes, gaydar is real. Through briefly showing faces of people  for 50 milliseconds the data produced statistically significant results. Participants were able to judge sexual orientation through facial features alone (minus hair, ears and colour) with around 60% accuracy. Random guessing would yield results of around 50%, [...]

read more

Yo’ momma’s so fat, you came out dumb!

A new study shows links between pre-pregnancy obesity and lower test scores in students between 5 – 7 years old. Compared to mothers with a healthy pregnancy weight, those who were obese before conception are found to be at a higher risk of producing spawn with lower cognitive functioning. Cognitive functioning was measured through commonly [...]

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Nice try PornHub

Earlier this week, PornHub tried to raise awareness for breast cancer by giving out free breast exams in New York City on board a ‘boob bus’. Why? Because “PornHub cares about your greatest assets”. Porn star Bree Olson did her part to save breasts by promoting the campaign along with her leather-clad Boob Bus Nurse [...]

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Social networking > porn?

At least, that’s what Eric Qualman writes in his book Socialnomics. I found it pretty hard to believe, and I began to hum Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez’ fantastic tune (video below). So I did some digging and actually, I think (technically) Qualman may be wrong. The difference between pornography sites and regular sites is [...]

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