Men Take More Risks When Pretty Women Are Around
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Being around a pretty woman can make men take more risks, a new study finds. Researchers looked IWC watches at the risk-taking behaviors of 96 young adult men, with an average age of nearly 22, by asking them to do both easy and difficult tricks on skateboards.
First, the young men performed the tricks in front of another man, then in front of a young, attractive female. (The attractiveness of the woman was independently assessed by 20 male raters.)
The testosterone levels of the skateboarders were measured after each trick. Testosterone is a male sex hormone that fuels sexual interest, arousal and activity, and is also associated with increased competition and risk-taking.
When skateboarders attempt tricks, they make a split-second decision about whether to abort the trick or try to land it, based on a mid-air evaluation of the likelihood of success and on the physical costs that failure might bring — such as falling flat on their face.
It was that moment the researchers sought to examine, because it resembles the type of risky decisions that young men make when behind the steering wheel of a car or when in physical confrontations with each other. As a group, young males are at the highest risk of early death of any group in industrialized countries in part because they are the biggest risk-takers.
As the researchers expected, the skateboarders took greater risks in the presence of the attractive female, even when they knew there was a greater chance they could crash. Along with this increased risk-taking, the young men had higher testosterone levels when they performed in front of the female than when they did their jumps in front of another guy.
"This experiment provides replica watches evidence for an effect that has existed in art, mythology, and literature for thousands of years: Beautiful women lead men to throw caution to the wind," wrote the authors of the study, Richard Ronay and William von Hippel, of the University of Queensland in Australia.
"These findings suggest that, for men, the adaptive benefits gained by enticing mates and intimidating rivals may have resulted in evolved hormonal and neurological mechanisms that facilitated greater risk-taking in the presence of attractive women," they added.
The results of the research are detailed in the first issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Trendspotting 2010: What’s the Color of the Year?
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As a person who follows fashion, I’m always surprised at how trends materialize. I sometimes suspect that one winter night in 2003, all the shoe designers IWC watches banded together and said, “From now on, everything will be pointy.” Or perhaps all the women’s-wear designers had a secret conclave where they decided that 2008 would officially be the Year of the Leggings. It’s amazing that from such a diverse bunch of designers, there seems to come an eerily similar group of styles, patterns, colors, and cuts.
Enter Pantone, a company that mostly provides color-matching services to makers of fabrics and textiles, printers, clothing manufacturers, and other design professionals. Its swatches allow designers to compare and standardize colors on products that were made on different equipment from different dye lots. At the end of 2009, Pantone announced that the 2010 Color of the Year would be turquoise. Or rather, it would be Pantone’s 15-5519 Turquoise. “Combining the serene qualities of blue and the invigorating aspects of green,” gushed the press release, “Turquoise [is] a languorous, effective escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of well-being.”
So Pantone has decided what color we’ll be wearing this year? Well, I’m glad that’s settled. But ladies, don’t rush out and buy a closet full of turquoise just yet.
Trickle-Down Fashionomics
Every year since 2000, Pantone has named a single color as the “it” color for the coming year. Drawing inspiration from designers, lifestyle trends, and other sources, the company has forecasted the success of colors such as True Red in 2002, Chili Pepper in 2007, and Mimosa in 2009.
But top-tier designers don’t usually get their inspiration from press releases. In fact, it’s the other way around. Pantone predicts the hot color of any given year or season by surveying designers’ upcoming collections and evaluating what’s already out there.
In the fashion industry, trends start at the top and work their way down. When a couture designer features a particular color or style, it inevitably finds its way from the runway in Paris to other designers’ showrooms. Soon it trickles down to ready-to-wear lines in department stores and mass-market retailers like Gap or Zara, and eventually the trend finds its way into discount stores like Target and Wal-Mart. When a particular color or style dominates the runways one season, it’s safe to assume that the same color or style will take at least six to nine months to dominate store shelves.
Top designers work too far in advance to be swayed by Pantone’s Color of the Year pronouncement, but designers of mass-market brands and other accessories heed what Pantone predicts will be popular, and the color tends to show up in everything from knickknacks like key chains to interior paint colors. Magazine editors look for garments in the right shade to feature on their pages, and home decorators push design schemes with turquoise walls, mimosa accent pillows, or textiles in the year’s hot hue.
Not only does Pantone put out its choice for Color of the Year, it also pays attention to seasonal trends. It publishes the Pantone Fashion Color Report after surveying the designers at Fashion Week, taking note of color motifs in various collections. Once the company has learned what the hottest designers are using, it lets the rest of the world know so that the mass-market designers can catch up. If you’ve ever wondered why department stores tend to feature garments of the same color during any given season, it’s because the designers likely used the inspiration Pantone gathered, and the store’s buyers probably did, too, paying attention to what’s most likely to be fashionable and in demand. The Fashion Color Report for fall 2010 predicts that in a few months we’ll all be wearing Purple Orchid, Chocolate Truffle, Oyster Gray, Rose Dust, and Living Coral.
The Wed Effect
Pantone’s yearly color choice has a huge effect on the bridal industry as well. Since many brides use Pantone swatches to color coordinate their ceremony, reception, and wedding party, the choice for the year’s hot color is not ignored by fashion-forward brides looking to create a modern and trendy affair. Bridal magazines are already full of turquoise inspirations for bridesmaids’ dresses, jewelry, paper products, and other accents.
One of last year’s hot colors was yellow—paired with grey, fuchsia, and a number of other bright hues. This year, wedding-style experts are already predicting that punchy colors, including turquoise, will be what’s hot in 2010. The Wedding Report, a market-research firm specializing in weddings, has already predicted that blue color schemes will be most popular this year, and Perfect Wedding Guide lists turquoise as its number one color trend for 2010.
If turquoise isn’t the replica watches best thing for your skin tone, fret not, because Pantone releases a new Color of the Year every December. Perhaps next year’s will be Pistachio, Posie, or even Electric Blue. Check out this season’s designer collections to get a jump on next season’s hot colors.
A Simple Way to Recharge Your Life
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There’s an interesting talk at TED by Stefan Sagmeister titled The Power of Time Off. In the talk, Sagmeister shared his experience of how he takes one full year off every seven years to recharge his creative life. During the sabbatical year, he closes his design company and IWC watches doesn’t accept any design request. It might seem strange to take one full year for sabbatical, but he argued that it gives him more than what it costs.
Recharge your lifeThere are at least three things he gets from his sabbatical years:
1. He gets fresh ideas for his creative work. Referring to one sabbatical year of his, he said that all the ideas in the following seven years came out from that one year.
2. It benefits him financially. Though he didn’t accept any request for one year, the improved quality of his work allowed him to ask for higher prices in the following years. He could eventually make more money than what he lost.
3. It made his work a calling again. This is my favorite of the three. In the talk, Sagmeister talked about three levels of work: job (when you do your work just for money), career (when you pursue advancement and promotion), and calling (when you do your work simply because it’s fulfilling). Even if your work is something you love to do, the daily routine could make it a job. Sagmeister said that taking a sabbatical year makes his work a calling again.
As you can see, these three things solve three common problems that many people have at work:
If you had any of these problems, here is a simple way to recharge your life: take time off. Of course, it doesn’t have to be one full year since most people (including me) can’t afford it without any serious consequences. But taking even short periods of time off is useful. Here’s what I suggest you to do:
1. Take time off every day. You should set aside time in your day where you can be away from your routine. Cut your communication with the outside world for a while. Use the time to get a sense of clarity of your life and work. Reconnect with your life purpose and look at the big picture of your life. Are you on the right track? Are you doing the right things? You can do this by meditating, praying, walking in the garden, or any way you like. The important replica watches thing is that you to reflect on your life with a clear mind. You don’t have to spend much time on it. Half an hour is enough, in my experience. Doing this helps you live your daily life with clarity.
2. Take a few days off every now and then. During that time, try not to do your routine that might introduce noise into your life. For me that means not connecting to the Internet. Though it’s not necessary, going out of town could be helpful. I can attest from personal experience that such time is really rewarding. I often see my life and work from a new perspective. I can see the forest rather than the trees. This, of course, will happen only if you spend time to reflect on your life and work.
It reminds me of the story of two woodcutters. One of them sawed down the trees all the time without ever sharpening his saw. The other person spent time to sharpen his saw and only then did he saw down the trees. Which one do you think would cut more trees at the end?
Don’t let the busyness of your life lead you to the wrong direction. Allocate time to reconnect with your purpose and calling. Allocate time to see the big picture of your life. Taking time off helps you stay sharp.
How big is the Facebook economy?
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Investors are pumping more and more money into web services that are heavily reliant on Facebook. So how big is the economy around the world's most popular social network?
An email came through to me last night that, in many respects, is the stock-and-trade of the startup world: a team of entrepreneurs company has received some funding.
In this case, the site in question is the Paris-based Smartdate, and its received $2.2m from investors to try and build its idea of using Facebook data as the basis of a matchmaking service.
So far, so normal. We've heard a great deal of this over the years; venture capitalists and investment funds putting money into companies that are building web services.
But there's something else going on here. From the swathes of press releases and funding announcements I trawl through each day, it feels to me like we're hearing much IWC watches more recently about sites specifically and publicly built using Facebook as a platform. In many cases, they are almost entirely reliant on Facebook to provide their link to users.
Now, in part, that's no surprise: building up an ecosystem around Facebook is something that the company has tried very hard to do with F8 and Facebook Connect - and it's a smart move, because they know that when lots of people are invested in your success, you are less vulnerable to competitors.
But if so many people are pumping into companies that are almost entirely reliant on the world's largest social networking site, exactly how big is the economy around Facebook?
Let's see if we can work it out.
We know from a number of reports and internal estimates that Facebook itself is due to post somewhere upwards of $1bn in revenue for 2010, but I'm more interested in what the other companies are doing.
What levels of investment are going? How many companies rely on Facebook to keep themselves going? The conservative estimate must stretch into several billions of dollars worth of business at least.
After all, the headline sites who make the most from this business are worth hundreds of millions - and some are even looking to launch on the stock market. Even if they don't entirely base their business on Facebook (in many cases, they are available on - or partner with - other social networks too) the spread of users suggests that they're heavily invested in it.
Back in November, Electronic Arts bought social gaming site Playfish, in a deal we are now told was worth around $275m.
Meanwhile Zynga, another developer of replica watches popular games (like ) has already taken more than $200m of venture capital.
Other companies making applications include Slide (also closely linked with MySpace but funded to the tune of $78m); Mindjolt (recently bought by MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, funding not public); and of course FriendFeed (bought by Facebook for around $50m).
On top of that, there's a huge number of companies like the aforementioned Smartdate, Plancast ($800,000); and a whole bunch of companies pushed forward by Facebook's own $10m fbFund.
That's just the start.
What other companies do you know that are reliant on Facebook? How big do you think the Facebook economy really is? Stick any information you know in the comments - once we've got an idea how big this is, we can start thinking about whether it's a viable ecosystem, a bubble or a house of cards.