What leads cultural tastes and practices to be abandoned? (.pdf) A new PNAS paper by marketing professor Jonah Berger and organizational psychologist Gael Le Mens argues that the faster a trend rises, the faster it's likely to fall, at least as regards longitudinal data of first names given to American children. (Via the Baby Names Blog.) Berger has written before on the drive to non-conform; a 2007 joint paper with Emily Pronin and Sarah Molouki (.pdf) shows that "people see others as more conforming than themselves.... placing more weight on introspective evidence of conformity (relative to behavioral evidence) when judging their own susceptibility to social influence as opposed to someone else's."
posted by escabeche on May 5, 2009 - 42 comments

Burning Man 2005 ... 100 photos by Scott London. (note: some nudity. may not be safe for work.)
posted by crunchland on Jan 8, 2006 - 65 comments

Why does everyone want to be a pimp? Somewhere in America a pimp is just getting out of his pimp bed. He drinks some pimp juice out of his pimp cup, slips into his pimp suit, and grabs his pimp hat and pimp watch on the way out of his pimp house. Crossing the street (careful to avoid any pimp-beating karate masters), he slides into his pimp ride and heads off to get his genome pimped.
posted by selfnoise on Aug 26, 2005 - 75 comments

Su Doku. Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. That's all there is to it. It doesn't sound like much, but it's as addictive as hell. The Times is one publication with a daily puzzle (may be unavailable to overseas readers.) There a tuturial and sample puzzle here (flash).
posted by salmacis on Dec 10, 2004 - 6 comments

Mutual Funds - Out, Google's IPO - In. Letting Your Boyfriend Videotape It - Out, Letting A Major Network Videotape It - In. Segway - Out, Honda Ruckus - In. A sampling from the Washington Post's List for 2004...
posted by bluedaniel on Jan 2, 2004 - 21 comments

Damn La Difference! Europe (and apparently Japan) seem to be going through a Dickies craze. You say work wear; we say American blue-collar chic. You pay $20 for an industrial shirt; we pay $100. Should we call the whole thing off? [More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Oct 21, 2002 - 38 comments