Cool linkspam of the day

[firecat]

via andrewducker

http://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/your-body-wasnt-built-to-last-a-lesson-from-human-mortality-rates/
"This startling fact was first noticed by the British actuary Benjamin Gompertz in 1825 and is now called the 'Gompertz Law of human mortality.' Your probability of dying during a given year doubles every 8 years." The article goes on to explain what we can conclude from this statistic: "By looking at theories of human mortality that are clearly wrong, we can deduce that our fast-rising mortality is not the result of a dangerous environment, but of a body that has a built-in expiration date." (Also, the law refutes the popular notion that thin people don't die.)


via onyxlynx

Face-recognition camouflage: http://www.cvdazzle.com/

Four rhetorical techniques the media or government can use to increase fear and hatred in the populace: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2011/12/05/new-lse-research-the-psychology-of-security-threats-evidence-from-rwanda/

Comments

[flarenut]

The Gompertz thing is interesting, but doesn't actually seem to match the data until fairly late in life (and even then at upper ages there's another bend in the curve). Mortality is higher in the first decade of life than the 2nd, and then about even for a couple of decades. It's not until some point on the 40s or 50s that the rule starts seriously kicking in.