Kite Patch

Currently the number one campaign on Indiegogo, the Kite Patch is a patch that allows you "to go virtually undetected by mosquitos for up to 48 hours."

I have no idea what "virtually undetected" means or how effective this patch will be. The patch claims to work by using compounds that disrupt a mosquito's ability to detect human CO2 signatures.

Mosquitos love me, I still have giant welts all over my legs from my recent trip to Kauai, so if this works I will consider it a massive breakthrough.  The campaign uses contributions to send Kite Patches to Africa to help to halt the spread of malaria, so I'm in with fingers crossed.

12 greatest living narrative filmmakers

Richard Brody revisits a topic Jonathan Rosenbaum first wrote about in 1993: who are the twelve greatest living narrative filmmakers? 

This is not a list of the greatest directors in the world, because not all great artists are innovative. Nor is it a list of my favorite living directors, though there’s an inherent element of value judgment. These are the living directors who most changed, for the better, my way of perceiving. Also “influential” may well be the opposite of “imitable.” (I reached rock bottom editing and still had thirteen.) In alphabetical order:

  • Chantal Akerman
  • Wes Anderson
  • Andrew Bujalski
  • Pedro Costa 
  • Jean-Luc Godard
  • Jia Zhangke
  • Abbas Kiarostami
  • Jerry Lewis
  • Terrence Malick
  • Elaine May
  • Jim McBride
  • Alain Resnais
  • Joe Swanberg

Some of the directors from Rosenbaum's list have passed away, like Antonioni. I would concur on Godard, Kiarostami, and Malick.  David Lynch would find a spot on my list. Using innovation as a primary criterion reduces the possibilities quite a bit.

We also live in an interesting age for distribution with the rise of the internet as an alternative or companion medium to the big screen. I've yet to encounter a filmmaker whose vector of innovation capitalizes on that development beyond simple marketing ploys. I suspect we will soon, though. 

That Chanel handbag means "hands off my man"

Scientists have known that purchasing designer handbags and shoes is a means for women to express their style, boost self-esteem, or even signal status.

In a new study, University of Minnesota researchers discovered some women also seek these luxury items to prevent other women from stealing their man.

Researchers used five experiments featuring 649 women of varying ages and relationship statuses to discover how women’s luxury products often function as a signaling system directed at other women who pose a threat to their romantic relationships.

“It might seem irrational that each year Americans spend over $250 billion on women’s luxury products with an average woman acquiring three new handbags a year, but conspicuous consumption is actually smart for women who want to protect their relationship,” says associate professor Vladas Griskevicius.

“When a woman is flaunting designer products, it says to other women ‘back off my man.’”

More here on the research methodology. Perhaps the reason women buy new purses so often is to renew the signal strength, indicating the persistence of both income/status and devotion from the mate. As a guy I have a tough time decoding the price and brands of women's handbags so it seems likely the signal is meant for other women.

It is intriguing to decipher the differing symbols of status among different tribes. On Wall Street it's designer brand suits and wristwatches and street addresses, in Silicon Valley it's Twitter followers, IPO's, and invitations to exclusive conferences. 

Thinking in Numbers

Slate published an excerpt from the Daniel Tammet book  Thinking In Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math:

It seems the Pirahã make no distinction between a man and a group of men, between a bird and a flock of birds, between a grain of manioc flour and a sack of manioc flour. Everything is either small (hói) or big (ogii). A solitary macaw is a small flock; the flock, a big macaw. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle shows that counting requires some prior understanding of what “one” is. To count five or 10 or 23 birds, we must first identify one bird, an idea of “bird” that can apply to every possible kind. But such abstractions are entirely foreign to the tribe.

Lest anyone should think tribes such as the Pirahã somehow lacking in capacity, allow me to mention the Guugu Yimithirr of north Queensland in Australia. In common with most aboriginal language speakers, the Guugu Yimithirr have only a handful of number words: nubuun (one), gudh-irra (two), and guunduu (three or more). This same language, however, permits its speakers to navigate their landscape geometrically. A wide array of coordinate terms attune their minds intuitively to magnetic north, south, east, and west, so they develop an extraordinary sense of orientation. For instance, a Guugu Yimithirr man would not say something like, “There is an ant on your right leg,” but rather “There is an ant on your southeast leg.” Or, instead of saying, “Move the bowl back a bit,” the man would say, “Move the bowl to the north-northwest a bit.”

We are tempted to say that a compass, for them, has no point. But at least one other interesting observation can be drawn from the Guugu Yimithirrs’ ability. In the West, young children often struggle to grasp the concept of a negative number. The difference between the numbers two (2) and minus two (-2) often evades their imagination. Here the Guugu Yimithirr child has a definite advantage. For two, the child thinks of “two steps east,” while minus two becomes “two steps west.” To a question like, “What is minus two plus one?” the Western child might incorrectly offer, “Minus three,” whereas the Guugu Yimithirr child simply takes a mental step eastward to arrive at the right answer of “one step west” (-1).

There is something profound here about how the languages we use constrain the possibility sets we consider: it has a parallel in how the software we design affects the work we produce with it.