Dr. Drew Pinsky has a new book out about celebrity narcissism — and after three seasons of Celebrity Rehab and Sober House, I’d say he’s as much an authority as any doctor can be. This exam, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, is how Pinsky measures an individual gage on the problem:

The average score for the general population is 15.3. The average score for celebrities is 17.8. Pinsky says he scored 16.

I feel like I demonstrated my own narcissism by simply taking the test, which probably explains why I scored a 17. (via)

Rex Sorgatz interviews the founder of 4chan who is, remarkably, only 21 years old and answers a question about the “most demented” thing he’s ever seen on his own website by saying, “I’ve seen some horrible shit. I like to think that I’ve grown as a person, but at the same time I think a little piece of me continues to die every year.” Dream job!

Get ready for this: A large chocolate and Oreo shake from Baskin-Robbins has 135 grams of fat, 263 grams of sugar, and 2,600 calories. That’s 600 calories more than the recommended daily intake for an average adult. Even worse, this article points out, it “usually takes less than 10 minutes to sip through a straw.”

As an aspiring wordsmith, lists like these always shock and awe me. For example, did you know the creases on the inside of your wrist are called rasceta? Or that the metal band on a pencil is called a ferrule? My new favorite word, however, is “phosphene” — which describes the lights you see when you close your eyes real hard. (via)

The psychology of advertising has already been well documented, but this recent piece in the Economist takes your brain into the aisles of a supermarket — where your experience is quite deliberately designed:

In the Sainsbury’s of London, it takes a while for the mind to get into a shopping mode. This is why the area immediately inside the entrance of a supermarket is known as the “decompression zone.” People need to slow down and take stock of the surroundings, even if they are regulars. In sales terms this area is a bit of a loss, so it tends to be used more for promotion. Even the multi-packs of beer piled up here are designed more to hint at bargains within than to be lugged round the aisles. Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, famously employs “greeters” at the entrance to its stores. Whether or not they boost sales, a friendly welcome is said to cut shoplifting. It is harder to steal from nice people. But those on a serious mission will keep walking ahead — and the first thing they come to is the fresh fruit and vegetables section.

For shoppers, this makes no sense. Fruit and vegetables can be easily damaged, so they should be bought at the end, not the beginning, of a shopping trip. But psychology is at work here: selecting good wholesome fresh food is an uplifting way to start shopping, and it makes people feel less guilty about reaching for the stodgy stuff later on.

In spite of the synaesthesia and Asperger’s syndrome that make him technically autistic, Daniel Tammet set a record for the largest number of digits of pi recited from memory (22,514 digits in 5 hours and 9 minutes) and has taught himself ten different languages — including Icelandic, which he learned in a week. “I am lucky that the autism I have is mild,” he says, “and that I was born into a large family and had to learn social skills, so I am able to speak up.”

To further this communication, Tammet also became the architect of his own language, Mänti, which features several words without English equivalents:

I like the word “kellokult”, which means “clock debt.” It’s a way of emphasising that when you are late for something, it incurs a debt, you owe someone that time. There is also “rupuaigu,” which means “bread time.” It’s a period of time, roughly an hour, that is the time it would take for bread to bake in an oven. What I like is that it is the same for everyone in the world. It’s a more intuitive way of thinking about an hour.

(via)