News You Can't Use: Why Scientists Think Your Boss Should Play Music While You Work

I love to laugh. I enjoy having fun. I like mainstream popular culture, especially anything on the teevee. I enjoy corporate sporting leagues. I have an average physique (5'3", 270 lbs.). And, lest you forget, music is my life. Despite the fact that I don't play an instrument, can't read notation, am ignorant of even the most basic theory and don't really listen to anything that hasn't been auto-tuned six ways from Sunday. Obviously, taking this deep and abiding love for the auditory arts into the workplace just makes good sense and we've even deployed some lying scientists to prove it.

Companies have done a lot of work to optimize music in retail shops to encourage customers to buy more stuff — think of the smooth, just-quirky-enough tunes quietly playing at any given Starbucks, or whatever sonic garbage the Abercrombie store at the mall is always blasting when you walk by.

Wow and I thought I was a heartless elitist. I've got nothin' on this writer. You hear that "Abercrombie?" You're playing "sonic garbage." What do you mean you can't hear me over the ringing of the cash register?

But there has been less research done on the effect these soundscapes have on employees.

How does it impact the expendable warm bodies and hand-pairs responsible for folding the sweaters and stuffing the register we already mentioned? What do you mean you don't care?

So a group of Cornell PhDs got together and ran an experiment to see how different music types affected the collaborative behavior of different groups of people.

We were, like, just hangin' round at the Big Red and figured we'd, you know, get together and examine music and collaborative behavior or whatevs.

They recruited 188 undergrads to take part in a "voluntary contribution mechanism" (VCM) experiment, a well-established tool that researchers use to measure and manipulate cooperative behavior among research subjects.

Please watch this video of World War 2 atrocities while we play Beethoven and inject you with sickness chemicals.

Here's where things get interesting: Different types of music were randomly assigned to play for different groups of students. A third of the groups listened to a playlist of "happy" music while the experiment ran: "Yellow Submarine," "Walking on Sunshine," "Brown-Eyed Girl" and the theme from "Happy Days."

It's a sin! You can't use Vanny Morr in this! A sin! *vomits*

Another third listened to a playlist of two "unhappy" songs by relatively obscure metal groups: "Smokahontas" by Attack Attack and "You Ain't No Family" by Iwrestledabearonce.

Sorry Attack Squared, you're an obscure group making "unhappy" music.

"We found significantly and persistently higher levels of cooperative behavior by participants who were played Happy music when compared with the other two conditions," the researchers wrote.

It's appears you fragile and disgusting humans have so-called "emotions" that influence your ability to work with your fellow flesh sacks.

 No, this isn't a shampoo commercial for Generation Sissy.

The people listening to thrash metal, on the other hand, were only contributing 40 percent to the group. 

Yeah, trash metal. I honestly thought it was "Exodus" in that hair-care picture above.

It's worth pointing out that the task the students were performing was a fairly abstract one.

So let's not start burning Beatles records just yet.

Is it better to optimize for playlists that can get customers to buy more, or that can get employees to sell better? For that, more research is needed.

And, of course, more funding. 

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Store Owner Accuses Woman Believed to be Ariana Grande of Spitting On, Licking Doughnuts

Talking about bakeries has really been the hot topic lately, there's just something inherently exciting about cakes, six figure fines for the elderly and those long narrow glazed things, whatever you call them. Just when you thought this rich deposit of thick sugary gold was nearing exhaustion we're going to completely flip the script and discuss what happens when the customer is wrong, something I was always assured was impossible during my own smock-wearing days. After all, pop music is all about shocking a stodgy and uptight average person who, simply put, doesn't exist. If the spitting won't do it, well, maybe the licking will.

The Internet is buzzing over reports that pop superstar Ariana Grande was captured on camera licking and spitting on doughnuts at a shop in western Riverside County.

Someone I've never heard of but is allegedly famous is licking the crullers! Drop everything, I've got to get dozens of new hashtags going. #UnsanitaryPopStarBakeryBehavior. #SCARYanaGrande. That sort of thing.

CBS2 obtained its own copy of the video from a source of the incident, which happened Saturday at Wolfee Donut Shop in the Canyon Hills Marketplace in Lake Elsinore. 

Don't ask what we had to do to get it, we're not proud of that.

“She was just like really rude to me,” said Mayra Solis, an employee of shop.

Valley girl stereotype offended by pop diva who acted like a camel, news at eleven.

Solis says she can be seen in the video in a red shirt helping the girl believed to be Grande pick out $5 worth of doughnuts on July 4.

That would be what, six doughnuts? Maybe? Man, the unbelievably decadent lifestyles of the filthy rich superstars. 

“She was just like, ‘I need a doughnut professional,’ and I was just like ‘OK.’ ” Solis said.

Gag me with a spoon, I'm an aspiring actress or Instagram celebrity, not some lame professional doughnut player.

Joe Marin, the owner of the store, says Grande and her male companion are seen doing something nasty to his powdered doughnuts.

Step away from the bear claws and snickerdoodles you sick freaks!

“One of the trays, yeah, she was licking on them and the other trays, she spit on them,” he said.

Studies have scientifically proven that you do not, repeat do not, need to lick it before you kick it. At least when it comes to baked goods that is, I ride the downtown bus like any proper gentleman.

It is hard to make out what really happened on the video, which showed the woman lean down toward the doughnuts and then quickly look at her companion, who also leaned in toward the doughnuts. The girl who appears to be Grande is then seen jumping up and down and laughing.

Every generation gets the Zapruder film it deserves.

Popular culture: glamorous, intellectual, endlessly entertaining.

Marin is concerned those powdered doughnuts Grande was seen hovering over were possibly sold to other customers. 

Yeah, I suppose there's a chance. Time to install a "licked by talentless music industry slag" disposal bucket so this won't happen again.

“If you drop a doughnut, it needs to be in the trash and especially if you spit on it,” he explained.

"If you've got time to lean you've got time to clean!" he then barked at his child employees.

Marin says he filed a report with the Sheriff’s Department.

If there's one crime that will get the attention of the police it's attacking a doughnut shop.

“She licked two of them and she spit two. So that’s four doughnuts,” he said.

Let me check Google on my phone...he's right! You must be some kind of wizard.

Full Story.

Komment Korner  

These are the kinda pukes we put up with. That's why I'm voting Trump!

Was she in The Dixie Chicks or something?

That is one donut shop I would never visit.
 

You didn't report the rest where she says "I hate America. I hate Americans" to her boyfriend. Why didn't you report that CBS? 

I hope someone is adding this incident to her Wikipedia page.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: New .sucks Domain Stirs Up Storm Over Free Speech

Looking for exciting material on the cobweb related to straws, candy canes and industrial vacuums? Well, you're in luck, because the exciting new "Dot Sucks" revolution is upon us. Think of the amazing lamprey sites! Wait, I've just been told it will be little more than garbled anger directed at broad-side-of-a-barn targets like Google, Facebook and Taylor Swift. Finally a chance to make that "Why thar no not like button on da web book" page that the world is practically begging for. Or maybe not, because it turns out the monied elites that rule over us aren't thrilled with the idea of periods and suck being placed after their names by the new breed of Solzhenitsyns eager to battle the Beast System and also bad pop music.

The new Internet domain .sucks has stirred up a firestorm over free online speech and the potential for extortion against companies and individuals.

Yes, you read correctly, extortion. We have created an AaronZehner.sucks site full of lies and character assassinations. Leave ten million in unmarked bills in a P.O. Box or suffer the full wrath of a new top level domain no one has actually heard of.

The company operating this new domain claims it is "designed to help consumers find their voices and allow companies to find the value in criticism."

We are high-minded and noble heroes who use blowjob language to appeal to humanity's worst impulses. Finally that negative review of Microsoft products will have a home, unlike now where they have successfully scoured any and all criticism from the inner-tubes.

But critics see it as a shakedown scheme designed to force companies and individuals to fork over cash to keep an unfavorable or offensive website offline.

It's so hard to pick a side in this fight, what with everyone being so completely awful.

According to media reports, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other large companies have bought up the domains by exercising their trademark priority rights, presumably with no intent to use them. Music star Taylor Swift reportedly did the same thing.

Wow, she really can turn those tables. Trouble, trouble. Shook this one right off. Thank you lame commercial gym for forcibly exposing me to this garbage to the point where I can reference it effortlessly.

Also, our ruling reptiles seem to be really afraid of a few semi-literate dirt bags creating special "you suck" sites for them. It's almost like this all just a giant house of cards. 18 trillion in debt you say? Huh, how about that.

What has fueled concerns is that the domain registrar, a Canadian-based company called Vox Populi, is charging $2,500 for the website names -- far more than a typical website registration of $10 to $25 -- before the names are opened to the public on June 1.

Oh, Canada. It's the neighbor that seems normal enough, but has a basement full of dope and holds regular wife-swap parties. Anything goes up there, man.

This really is some sleazy stuff, in all seriousness.

The Intellectual Property Constituency, an advisory group to the global Internet domain regulator, complained last month that the "exorbitant sums" are effectively a "shakedown scheme" to get money from companies and others.

They already got their T. Swizzle money, bro. It's a little late for this.

After the June 1 deadline, online trolls or "cybersquatters" could buy up the names and then extort even higher prices, according to the group which includes film, software and music industry associations and other trademark organizations.

Another victory for the free market! Look at all the value that's being created by the invisible hand of human garbage!

The group last month urged the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the domain system, to stop the .sucks domain before it goes live.

Please vaguely defined shadow entity, stop this Canadian evil!

"Break down the cockpit doors, American internet! Assume the controls!"

Atallah told AFP however that as a result of the complaint, ICANN decided to forward the matter to regulators in the United States and Canada.

Regulators. We regulate any stealing of billionaire intellectual property. We're damn good, too. But you can't be any geek from a vaguely defined governing body. Gotta be handy with the domains, earn your keep.

John Berard, chief executive at Vox Populi, told AFP the new domain is something that companies can use to engage with consumers, and that he sees the word "sucks" as "edgy" but not pejorative.

It might have been edgy in 1981. Now with children's programs routinely spewing the foulest of foul words, to say nothing of R-13 movies for preteens, I don't think so.

"We think we're creating an opportunity for interaction that is meaningful," he said.

I'd respect you more if you were honest about your moral leprosy, I really would.

"If a company were to establish its own .sucks site and drive that discussion to a centralized location it might be quite a valuable asset."

Think of the synergy, raised awareness, cross-branding and strategic communication these fellatio-themed sites will allow. 

Berard added that the pricing "reflects what we believe to be the value of the names."

This dot suck site is a valuable commodity! Really!

Asked about ICANN's letter to regulators, Berard said, "I don't think that anyone who takes a look will find a problem."

Please do not "mount up."

The debate comes with ICANN acting to vastly expand the number of so-called generic top-level domains (gTLDs) from the traditional ones like .com and .gov, including some such as .porn and .wine.

Well, at least we have our priorities straight. Please visit my new site at EndtheUnitedNations.wine.

Full Article

Komment Korner  

Voltaire highly influenced our Founders and Framers

Obama.sucks is already taken

www.hillary.sucks

Free speech free speech for the dumb. Free speech free speech for the dumb.

Why not ".sux?"

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.