Mac Envy

We loved the Urban Dictionary definition of the day yesterday. The word phrase was "Mac envy." Defined as, "a state of mind in which a PC owner realizes his computer sucks, then is immediately jealous of all his Mac-owning friends."

Brilliant!

Sexpresso, really?

This is what selling coffee looks like in Washington state?!?

What won't they do to sell something to the American public? We came across this item in the Nation's Restaurant News earlier in the week. "Baristas Coffee Company Inc., a small chain of drive-thru espresso stands featuring female employees in skimpy costumes, opened its new flagship store in Kent, WA...BCCI has a total of six company-owned locations in Washington state."

Apparently, they are part of an existing Sexpresso industry in the Pacific Northwest. There is also Cowgirls Espresso of Arlington, WA which offers bikini and theme-costume-wearing female employees at twelve stands operated by Cowgirls Franchising LLCA and another ten by franchisees. There are also three Chicka Latte Beautiful Coffee of Seattle, which partners with a clothing company to sell the lingerie and provocative costumes worn by its staff.

Some of the Sexpresso industry has gotten in trouble. In September 2009, local law enforcement officials in Everett, WA arrested five female baristas from Grab-N-Go Espresso and charged them with prostitution and violations of the city’s adult entertainment ordinance.

This is not to mention the dangerous combination of skimpy clothing and burning hot beverages.

Baby Talk

This is something the intuitive have known for a long time. Baby's brains are ready and open for business from a very young age. Baby talk is the foundation of language. It is how babies practice and imitate the adults around them. Ask a smart parent, they will tell you.

The scientists are catching on, too. M.D. Perri Klass in the New York Times, "Babble is increasingly being understood as an essential precursor to speech, and as a key predictor of both cognitive and social emotional development."

What is more interesting is first-year babies all over the world babble in similar ways, but during their second year, toddlers mold their sounds into the words of their native tongues.

This has implications for linguistics that stretch from the Biblical Tower of Babble story to the co-development of the human species.

For parents this is a reminder to talk to your kids even from the youngest age. Scientists' research indicates that babble has cognition in common with questions. Babies' brains are open for reception when they are babbling along in baby talk. Research also suggests that the television and the computer don't substitute for human interaction when it comes to language learning. Babies are picking up on facial clues and gestures as an essential part of their language skill development.

The New York Times reports that a baby hears much of language and is able to differentiate well before it can reproduce the same range of sounds. The experiments argue that a baby’s vocalizations signal a state of focused attention and a readiness to learn. When parents respond to babble by naming the object at hand babies are more likely to learn words.

This kind of linguistic and neurological digging is a wonderful nexus for people to understand our common humanity. And a great reason to start talking to your kids as early as you can.

OK Cupid Sex Survey

Not sure how many of you, dear readers, are familiar with the on-line dating service called OK Cupid. It is definitely a popular alternative, especially among the younger set, to Match.com and E-Harmony.

One of our newest Durhamanians recently emailed us a link to a fascinating OK Cupid blog piece about gay sexual mores and gay relationships versus straight sexual mores and straight relationships. The data is clearly not scientifically perfect. All data has bias, and this is no exception. What is fascinating about this piece is the huge pool of data OK Cupid had to work with period. 3.2 million users, 4 million match searches and 669 million user answered questions- that is a lot of data.

Read the survey and the accompanying blog piece here at their blog, OK trends.

What are they watching...Episode XIV

Our look at what the teens and tweens of America are watching. You may have caught some of our earlier episodes, if not, follow this link and [scroll down]. This one is a remake of the soon to be classic Miley Cyrus tune, "Party in the USA."

These boys really get into the spirit of things.

Jersey

People wonder why folks from Jersey have an attitude that can sometimes seem a little harsh, maybe even defensively aggressive, accompanied by bouts of lashing out and attacking, necessary or not...

It is because of videos like this. Jay-Z does a New York song, an inspired masterpiece about a New York state of mind. And some goofball parodies it as a way to knock Jersey.

Cool, outer space

Think it is too hard to figure out anything fun to do with you kids? Well you have got to watch this captioned video from the Brooklyn Space Program!!! These young folks and their parents rigged up a weather balloon with an i-phone and a camera, and you will not believe the footage they got. The balloon made it to approximately 100,000 feet before it burst. The camera survived impact and was recovered.

The seven minute video, found here, is breathtaking. The countdown to launch may be the best part!

Duke tops $200 million in stimulus grants

Duke University has reached $200 million in grants from the federal stimulus package, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). According to a Duke University press release, through the end of September Duke had won 360 competitive grants for research and construction totaling $202 million from seven federal agencies. Of course, the lion's share of this money has gone to Duke's hospitals, Duke's Schools of Medicine and Nursing account for $166.3 million of the total.

Duke established a team of four grant administrators to help process more than 1,100 ARRA applications rapidly, and set up special websites and a phone hotline to answer faculty questions.

Duke continues to bring money to Durham. The press release quoted James Siedow, Duke's vice provost for research, "The stimulus funds are doing two things. Near-term, it's about creating jobs and economic activity. Longer term, academic R&D is an investment in American competitiveness." For example, one of the grants awarded $718,000 to Duke to set up a new research center and hire two new faculty to study the biology and culture of addiction and how it might be addressed through public policy. The Department of Energy has given David Beratan's work on solar fuels and next-generation photovoltaics one year of support at $210,000. Computer scientist Jeffrey Chase has received four years of support from the National Science Foundation ($627,000) to improve the reliability and trustworthiness of "cloud computing."

Good things are percolating at Duke.

Not using our bathrooms

The Marine Corps Marathon is in Washington D.C. on Sunday, October 31st. John Stewart and his Comedy Central cohorts "Rally to Restore Sanity" will be using the same area of the National Mall in D.C. the same weekend. Reportedly, this has caused the Marines to put their bathrooms on lockdown.

According to the New York Times, Rick Nealis, the race director for the marathon, said that on October 30th he would put metal padlocks on about 100 portable toilets he was setting up around the Mall for the race day. He was quoted in the NY Times, "I understand that they were having problems ordering Porta Potties, that they might have to go as far as Baltimore to get them, but I just didn’t want to share. It will cost me a few extra pennies, but it’s worth it to know that my runners won’t run out of toilet paper."

Stewart and his team will no doubt get much comedic mileage out of the situation, although they may have to go as far Baltimore to get their own Porta Potties, 217 of them in total, which are required by law to obtain the rally's permits.

West Durham development continues apace

According to this report on the blog The Bull City Rising, West Durham's development, especially in the area around Duke Hospital, continues to move forward. BCR reports that the land across the street (Kangaroo Drive) from Durham's 27705 Post Office will be developed into an apartment complex adjacent to the Millenium Hotel and the Sandy Creek Greenway.

What they are watching...Episode XII

Our look at what the teens and tweens of America are watching. You may have caught some of our earlier episodes, if not, follow this link and [scroll down]. This, our latest episode, is more than a little different.

The rumor circulating is that the YouTube hosted video was made by two teens who secretly recorded their friend. Which in light of the recent tragedy at Rutgers University, is a sketchy premise.

In this video, the friend was allegedly tripping on acid and sitting in a closet. His pals recorded his ramblings and wrote some animation to go with the spew. Intriguing and hard to characterize. Edgy. One has to wonder about the consent (even subsequent) of the party involved. Or whether it could have been staged.

Safe for work save for a couple of f-bombs.

Duke F*ckbook follow-up

Just a brief follow-up about the PowerPoint sexual conquest list published (allegedly accidentally) by a graduating Duke Senior. As we noted in our original piece, several days before the national media descended on Duke and Durham to write their version, the story is so much bigger because the Duke F*ckbook was written by a woman.

There is a double standard for male and female sexual conquest. American society has yet to stop placing women on a pedestal that somehow demands different and more chaste behavior. One might hope in this day and age that we had come further than that. A New York Times piece today recalls a similar scandal that took place at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1970's. In this case two women at MIT published a similar rating of the sexual methods and prowess of thirty-six male undergraduates. The report appeared in an alternative campus newspaper as a, "Consumer Guide to M.I.T. Men." The idea was to "turn the tables" and show men how it feels for women to be objectified. The double standard in the guise of the university reared its ugly head and the two women were put on academic probation for 10 months.

Will Duke sanction Karen Owens? We sincerely hope not.

Some things should not be changed

While staring, befuddled at the new ribbed shape of the Mountain Dew 20 oz. plastic soda bottle today, it occurred to the Clarion Content that some things should not be changed. This is especially true if they worked wonderfully in their status quo format.

The goofy Mountain Dew bottle reminded us of this axiom. But the case in point also comes from the convenience store, it is the king size Snickers bar. Now in two pieces?

What???

Some company executive decided that you should pre-break our candy bars in two for us? Hey genius, people return broken candy bars as defective. What are you doing trying to preempt Super Size Me style class action lawsuits? "Oh no, your honor, our candy bar isn't designed to be eaten all in one session. It is two pieces."

Keep it real. First of all, it is designed to be eaten in one sitting whether you break it in half our not. You just make your loyal clientele feel worse about it by breaking it into two pieces. Plus, it creates an underlying sense of being defrauded. Is that two piece candy bar really the same size as the old king size Snickers? You can tell us it is all day, but it sure does not look or feel like it.

Mr.Mars Executive, quit trying to sell us broken candy bars! Fix the Snickers king size. Things which work really well, should not be changed.

Duke F*ckbook

This is a surprise. It is emblematic of the multiplier effect of the internet. A Duke student, class of 2010, named Karen Owens created a Power Point presentation detailing graphically the guys she hooked up with in college. She says that she never intended for it to go public. She only forwarded it to three friends. But it has gone viral!

It is all over the internet.

The Clarion Content is headquartered here in Durham, NC. We know from Shooters.

It is our belief that people have collated lists of folks they have had carnal relations with since the beginning of time. Ms. Owens' list is such a salacious scandal because of the prestigious Duke University name attached. (Note: she did not get with any of Coach K's ballplayers.) Duke lacrosse's slimy history and well-deserved reputation also made this story bigger. (Several of her conquests were lacrosse players.)

What should not make the story bigger or more scandalous is the fact that it was conceived of and carried out by a woman. The double standard of women are sluts and men are studs should crumble in the face of this kind of brazen attitude. Women talk about sex, too, her Carrie Bradshaw like manner and voice was the best part of the story.

See the whole Power Point (names redacted) here.