Flirting is a learned skill

Flirting is a learned skill

Bad at flirting with others? You may not be alone – only 28% of people realize when they are being flirted with. Women were especially bad at accurately detecting male flirting (only seeing it 18% of the time).

Attractive young couple in love sitting at the cafe table outdoors, drinking coffee

It turns out flirting isn’t innate, it can be learned. Psychology Today tells you about the science and even gives you some fun homework.

  • Women flirted more effectively when they used physical contact and didn’t use hugs or humor because those suggested more of a friendly (vs. romantic) intention.
  • Men were most effective when they focused on having good conversations, giving compliments, and using humor.
  • 77 percent of men perceived a specific expression—head tilted to the side and slightly downward, eyes forward, with a slight smile—as flirtatious
  • Speed-dating studies found that having an expansive body posture—such as taking up more physical space with a wider stance and having your arms open and out to the side (vs. crossed over your body) made both sexes appear more desirable.
  • In a dating context, the easiest way partners can show responsiveness is through being a good listener. Do this by facing the other person, maintaining eye contact, nodding, giving good facial expressions, asking follow-up questions, and giving your thoughts. Showing sincere interest can be extremely attractive

Links:

Experience history in real time

Experience history in real time

We often forget that major historical events were not instantanous with neat summaries and conclusions. They were messy and evolved. It took time to absorb what happened and make sense of it – especially tragedies.

Enter a quiet trend of re-living things in real-time. Some examples I’ve run across were NASA’s realtime Apollo lunar landing missions. Another, even more somber, would be the sinking of the Titanic. I think it’s important to realize that the sinking happened at 2am when people were asleep and were caught off guard. It only took 2 hours and 40 minutes from being fine to the deaths of the majority of the passengers. Experiencing it in realtime was surprising to me. It’s amazing how just about nothing seems really bad until the very end – something that financial markets often mimic. The signs of trouble are there for a long time before a very quick, shockingly violent end.

Rabbit R1 used hard-coded authentication keys

Rabbit R1 used hard-coded authentication keys

Another lesson on why proper security architecture is critical in product design.

Researchers found that Teenage Engineering’s Rabbit R1 used hardcoded API keys, which once known, allow anybody to read every single response the R1 AI device has ever given, including those containing the users’ personal information.

Links:

Govy 500

Govy 500

If you live in Portland and like snow sports, you’ve undoubtably sat in multi-hour lines of cars going too or coming back from Mt Hood.

Some folks have captured that joy by calling it the ‘Govy 500’ – as in Indy 500 but to the mountain.

Their Govy 500 instagram site has lots of pictures of the ridiculous things that people do driving up to Mt Hood.

Check out the Govy 500 website to buy some stickers and merch of the joy.

Commentary on collapsing an economic system

Commentary on collapsing an economic system

When people talk about the “immanent collapse of capitalism”, I think old time videos like this demonstrate that it’s not capitalism that’s necessarily the problem – it’s the greed and corruption of the system that’s gotten us where we are today.

If you look at other economic systems that were destroyed by those same factors of corruption/greed, simply changing the system out or letting it collapse simply enables those doing the worst destruction to have even MORE free reign and control because now there is nobody and no system to stop them. Modern history shows time and again that the people that helped collapse/change an economic system to replace it with another usually ends up being in the first people oppressed and killed by it.

It doesn’t matter if you’re going from capitalism to communism or vice versa. Witness what happened to the resources and industries of the former Soviet Union when it collapsed. They were all taken over by the oligarchs and firmly controlled by the new ruling class.

The French Revolution turned into the Reign of Terror – the wholesale slaughter of whole classes of elites, educated, and soon anyone branded a ‘traitor’ to the cause. Most of those who led the original revolution ended up beheaded by their own movement.

When the old tzars of Russia were overthrown or Mao overthrew China – the first things that happened were millions dying by famine, disease, and very rapid deterioration of even basic goods and services. That even excludes the now open genocide of anyone that opposed them. Communist takeovers of Central and South American countries showed similar stories.

Contrary to current American arm-chair activists think that swapping ‘power systems’ will fix racism/classism/etc, you aren’t going to get rid of the mud by simply swapping the sheets on the bed. You have to go clean the dog or it’ll just jump up there again on the new sheets and keep being who they are.

This is why the Gospel is the only way to change the world – by the conversion of hearts. Even the Soviet Union/China/Cambodia/etc and other countries ruled by coercion learned that at some point, you simply don’t have enough guns to keep pointing at enough heads to keep it going. Jesus’ kingdom has outlived every world government and corrupt member in history by not fighting against oppressive systems – but by changing individual’s hearts.

Odds on the next pope

Odds on the next pope

The College of Cardinals is gathering in the Sistine chapel and soon the papal conclave will convene to elect the next pope. They’ll leave their cell phones behind and go into isolation for prayer, discussions, and voting.

The papal conclave has it’s roots all the way back to how the original bishops were elected by the apostles – but has undergone a long and storied history to fight everything from political meddling to setting age limits of who is to be elected.

For the faithful, it’s a time for prayer and fasting, which is probably why you don’t get quite the media circus of a presidential election. I know I have been praying the Church gets a worthy and wonderful pope in these rocky global times.

For those with a more speculative propensity, Sportsbook Review has the current odds on who the next pope will be. It appears to live update, so check back often if you want to know who’s in the lead.

Here are the odds for the top 10 candidates who could be named the next pope via Sports Interaction in Ontario. Odds as of Thursday, May 1. (If you’re in the U.S., you can make predictions on the next pope via Kalshi)

  • Pietro Parolin (+225)
  • Luis Antonio Tagle (+300)
  • Matteo Zuppi (+550)
  • Peter Turkson (+600)
  • Robert Sarah (+700)
  • Pierbattista Pizzaballa (+1000)
  • Peter Erdo (+1100)
  • Raymond Leo Burke (+2000)
  • Reinhard Marx (+2500)
  • Kevin Farrell (+2500)