think or thwim

Life after people looks wonderful. Where do I sign up?

:: Ursi

If you’re not blocking ads you may have seen one for Kiva at the bottom of every Think or Thwim page. I don’t get paid anything for it. I just think it’s a good idea, and I use it.

Jessica Flannery and her husband Matt started Kiva two years ago. Here’s Jessica describing how it works at PopTech.

They actually had more lenders than borrowers after they appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, but now the balance has shifted back. I noticed that a couple of the people she mentioned are still looking for funds.

Kiva.org

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

That’s from an email that circulated in 2003. Matt Davis is a rscheearcher at Cmabrigde, and here’s his response:

There are elements of truth in this, but also some things which scientists studying the psychology of language (psycholinguists) know to be incorrect. I’m going to break down the meme, one line at a time to illustrate these points, pointing out what I think is the relevant research on the role of letter order on reading…

Read the rest at his webpage.
:: Miscellany

R is the measure of a material’s resistance to heat flow.

What would you do if you found out you were going to live 500 years? It may not be a hypothetical question.

This episode of CBC’s The Nature of Things examines recent discoveries that are changing the way we think about life and death. We are starting understand and control the aging process.

Deborah Gordon studies how the interactions of ants following simple rules can result in the more sophisticated behaviors of the colony without any executive ant in control.