flynn002

The tap is a simple but genius piece of design. You turn a handle one way and water flows. You turn it the other way, and the water stops. The bathplug is even simpler. You find a pliable, waterproof substance and cut it to fit exactly into the hole out of which the water flows, and you equip it with handle or chain on top that you can grasp to remove it. Hotels the world over, however, are not satisfied with such simplicity. They conspire to make the task of producing water and containing it ever more baffling. I had wondered whether they were just more focused on appearance than function, but this website makes it clear that it's deliberate: It's worth quoting the blurb in full: " A lot of attention in the design world is focused on creating products that are intuitive and easy to use, but sometimes a little ambiguity can be a good thing. Designed for use in restaurant and hotel bathrooms these taps embrace ambiguity to create a sense of intrigue to provide a more engagi...

Psychology encompasses a wide range of subject areas, including social, clinical and developmental psychology, cognitive psychology and neuroscience. The costs of doing different types of psychology vary hugely. If you just want to see how people remember different types of material, for instance, or test children's understanding of numerosity, this can be done at very little cost. For most of the psychology I did as an undergraduate, data collection did not involve complex equipment, and data analysis was pretty straightforward - certainly well within the capabilities of a modern desktop computer. The main cost for a research proposal in this area would be for staff to do data collection and analysis. Neuroscience, however, is a different matter. Most kinds of brain imaging require not only expensive equipment, but also a building to house it and staff to maintain it, and all or part of these costs will be passed on to researchers. Furthermore, data analysis is usually highly tech...

© www.CartoonStock.com Here's an interesting test for those on Twitter. You see a tweet giving a link to an interesting topic. You click on the link and see it's a YouTube piece. Do you (a) feel pleased that it's something you can watch or (b) immediately lose interest. The answer is likely to depend on content, but also on how long it is. Typically, if I see a video is longer than 3 minutes, I'll give up unless it looks super-interesting. Test #2 is for those of you who are scientists. You have to give a presentation about a recent piece of work to a non-specialist audience. How long do you think you will need? (a) one hour; (b) 20 minutes; (c) 10 minutes; (d) 3 minutes. If you're anything like me, there's a disconnect between your reactions to these different scenarios. The time you feel you need to communicate to an audience is much greater than the time you are willing to spend watching others. Obviously, it's not a totally fair comparison: I'm willi...