Studying human behavior

I loved this outline of the book Predictably Irrational, and I also love the idea of a Book Outlines Wiki.

I'm convinced that human society has let technology and science get way ahead of our understanding of human behavior. Far more engineering projects fail because of human foibles than because we don't have sufficient technical skills or resources to solve the problem at hand. Likewise, I bet more money is wasted due to ignorance of our own nature than due to technical inefficiencies in the market itself. So I'm always glad to learn more about my own biases and psychological inefficiencies.

Birds probably killed by non-stick pan

Wow. I've never been too keen on non-stick pans. For good reason, apparently.

BYU excises photo exhibit of gay/straight portraits

BYU has always had to deal with a lot of dissonance as it tries to be taken seriously as a university and simultaneously a PR showcase for church values. Here's a rather bigoted take on a recent photo exhibit that BYU took down which featured unlabeled portraits of gay people and their straight friends, and a more apologist take from the Deseret News.

Picking quarterbacks and teachers

Interesting article on the difficulty of predicting who will make a good teacher.

Salary by profession, bachelor's degree only

Survey results for how much people make mid-career, broken down by college major. Fascinating! Chemical engineering tops the list, and the engineering degrees in general seem to dominate the top spots.

An interrogator speaks about torture

Interesting washington post op-ed on torture, from an ex-military interrogator.