The Old New Thing

News flash - The Old New Thing

News flash: Big houses cost more to maintain

August 18, 2014 Aug 18, 2014 08/18/14
Raymond Chen
In 2005, we learned that big houses cost more to heat. In 2006, we learned that big houses cost more to cool. But then the research into big houses seems to have stalled. No worries. The research journal The Wall Street Journal recently released a paper concluding that big houses cost more to maintain...

From the research journal Duh: To lose weight, eat less

January 9, 2012 Jan 9, 2012 01/9/12
Raymond Chen
Researchers have determined that the key to losing weight is to consume fewer calories. Okay, it's actually more interesting than the summary suggests. The researchers compared a variety of different popular diets and found that it didn't matter what diet you were on; the weight loss (and regain) was the same. The controlling factor was how...

News flash: Wearing clothing keeps you warm

January 13, 2010 Jan 13, 2010 01/13/10
Raymond Chen
Every so often, I'll run across a statement of the obvious disguised as news and post it to the News flash tag, but the ones I've found have nothing on this collection of the 11 Most Painfully Obvious Newspaper Articles Ever. Just click through and slap your forehead. Bonus News Flash: Mark McGwire used steroids. I can't wait to see what ...

News flash: Doing something that requires your attention reduces your ability to do other things at the same time which also require your attention

September 22, 2008 Sep 22, 2008 09/22/08
Raymond Chen
The New York Times points out that if you engage in an activity that requires your attention, then it reduces your ability to do other things at the same time which also require your attention. For some reason, however this is news when one of those things is sending text messages. I wonder if, had contemporary news editors existed back in ...

News flash: Online drug sales are shady!

July 16, 2008 Jul 16, 2008 07/16/08
Raymond Chen
In what I'm sure is a fantastic surprise to everybody who has visited the Internet, according to a report in the New York Times, researchers at Columbia University have discovered that there are prescription drug pushers on the Internet who will sell you prescription drugs without a prescription. From what I can gather, they didn't ...