August 21, 2013: Afternoon
- Astronaut recruits asked to compose a haiku, limerick, or Twitter post as part of their NASA application.
- French language purists should note the first article of the 1789 Declaration of Human and Civic Rights is the perfect length for a tweet.
- Roundtable debate over e-cigarettes—e.g., do they simply prolong addiction? How should they be regulated?
- "Attention schema theory" contains "a very simple idea at its heart: that consciousness is a schematic model of one’s state of attention."
- Mandy Patinkin used to be the most temperamental of actors—"not quite Cher, but close"—but not anymore.
- According to new study, dates find penny-pinching more attractive than costly displays of affection.
- Unrelated: Photographs of water being gracefully tossed.
- Barnes & Noble reverses decision to axe Nook, claims failure was due to too much inventory rather than poor sales.
- Round-up of common knowledge particular to workplaces that's typically surprising to outsiders.
- No surprise that Maria Sharapova will not be changing her last name to “Sugarpova” for the U.S. Open.
- Dispatch from the first international football match played in Afghanistan in 10 years.
- Based on data from Twitter, map shows New York City's happiest and angriest areas.
- Related: Ex-pats compare areas of other big cities to areas of New York.
- London transit authority advises people to avoid Leicester Square due to One Direction movie premiere.
- Rumor that 42 One Direction fans committed suicide agitates Twitter users.
- "Moviegalaxies" creates constellation graphs depicting the relationships of characters in a movie.