Kevin Kelly asks how much data a person generates during their lifetime, and what happens to it after the person dies? (Conceptual Trends and Current Topics)
Monthly Archives: April 2008
Linking spiral arms…
![//apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0804/arp272_hst_c800.jpg' cannot be displayed]](http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0804/arp272_hst_c800.jpg "Arp 272")
“…two large colliding galaxies are featured in this Hubble Space Telescope view, part of a series of cosmic snapshots released to celebrate the Hubble’s 18th anniversary. Recorded in astronomer Halton Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 272, the pair is otherwise known as NGC 6050 and IC 1179. They lie some 450 million light-years away in the Hercules Galaxy Cluster. At that estimated distance, the picture spans over 150 thousand light-years. Although this scenario does look peculiar, galaxy collisions and their eventual mergers are now understood to be common, with Arp 272 representing a stage in this inevitable process.” (APOD)
Dumb as We Wanna Be
Thomas Friedman: “It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks.” (New York Times op-ed)
One of Denver’s ‘Most Wanted’
“Following Rush Limbaugh’s broadcast calling for violent riots in Denver, city officials issue a warrant for his arrest. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper called Limbaugh a ‘dangerous domestic terrorist’ that should be locked up.” (Unconfirmedsources.com)
Why Things Cost $19.95
“What are the psychological ‘rules’ of bartering?” (Scientific American)
Bush pokes fun at his successors
“US President George W Bush poked fun at his potential successors during his last White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.” (BBC) And the petty little man’s jibes don’t display an ounce of wit.
Light at the End of the Tunnel?
| Howard Dean: Obama Or Clinton Must Drop Out In June (Huffington Post) | |
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| (depictions by Julia Suits) |
Scientists link 17 living people to an aboriginal man found in glacier
PBS breaks ‘media blackout’ of NYT story on Pentagon propaganda
“On Sunday, The New York Times published an explosive report exposing the Pentagon’s secret campaign to use analysts in order to “generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.” Since that time, TV news organizations have largely been silent on their role in the propaganda. Ari Melber notes that last night, PBS’s Newshour finally broke this blackout, but couldn’t convince the other networks to participate.” (Think Progress)
Does the Earth’s magnetic field cause suicides?
Study shows geomagnetic activity correlates with self-destructive behavior in Kirovsk, Russia. Speculation that magnetic flux contributes to depression by desynchronizing human circadian rhythms. (New Scientist)
R.I.P. Albert Hofmann
‘Father of LSD’ Dies at 102: “Dr. Hofmann first synthesized the compound lysergic acid diethylamide in 1938 but did not discover its psychopharmacological effects until five years later, when he accidentally ingested the substance that became known to the 1960s counterculture as acid.He then took LSD hundreds of times, but regarded it as a powerful and potentially dangerous psychotropic drug that demanded respect. More important to him than the pleasures of the psychedelic experience was the drug’s value as a revelatory aid for contemplating and understanding what he saw as humanity’s oneness with nature. That perception, of union, which came to Dr. Hofmann as almost a religious epiphany while still a child, directed much of his personal and professional life.” (New York Times)
![//graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/30/world/hoffman190.jpg' cannot be displayed]](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/30/world/hoffman190.jpg "R.I.P. 'father of the problem child'")
R.I.P. Jimmy Giuffre
Adventurous clarinetist, composer and arranger dead at 86. His “50-year journey through jazz led him from writing the Woody Herman anthem “Four Brothers” through minimalist, drummerless trios to striking experimental orchestral works…Among the half-dozen instruments he played, from bass flute to soprano saxophone, it was the clarinet that gave him a signature sound; it was a dark, velvety tone, centering in the lower register, pure but rarely forceful. But among the iconoclastic heroes of the late ’50s in jazz, he was a serene oddity, changing his ideas as fast as he could record them.” (New York Times)
![//graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/25/obituaries/giuffre-190.jpg' cannot be displayed]](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/25/obituaries/giuffre-190.jpg "R.I.P. Jimmy Giuffre")
Parts Unknown
As in, “I’m off to…”. My family and I will be out of the country and I will not be posting or responding to comments for the next two weeks. See you at the end of April, and thank you for your continued visits here.
White House Torture Advisers
Dan Froomkin: “Top Bush aides, including Vice President Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement, according to an ABC News report aired last night.
Discussions were so detailed, ABC’s sources said, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft.” (Washington Post op-ed via dangerousmeta)
The Greenest Way to Die
“Cremation uses somewhere on the order of 250 kWh of power, and is anything but emission-free; most burials in the western world involve a big clunky coffin sporting plenty of metals that aren’t going to break down anytime soon; it’s essentially littering! But the awesomely-named Magnus Hølvold over at Ecogeek just turned me on to a new way to die: resomation.” (Mental Floss)
Text Alerts to Cellphones in Emergency Are Approved
“Federal regulators approved a plan on Wednesday to create a nationwide emergency alert system using text messages delivered to cellphones.” (New York Times )
The Great Outdoors
Is that a nude woman reflected in Cheney’s mirror shades? (Official White House Vice-Presidential Site)
Su last year
“Sudoku has furrowed the brows of a generation of commuters, but will it be replaced by a new puzzle from Japan? …Like sudoku, the smaller kenken consists of a numbers square where the figures cannot be duplicated within rows and columns.
But with the new puzzle, there’s the added dimension of having to reach certain target numbers inside smaller blocks by adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing the numerals in the cells within…” (BBC)
Whisky and Soda Man
Thomas Jones on JG Ballard: “When I was 12, I read a story by J.G. Ballard about a boy who has lived all his life in a vast city. One day, he decides to take a train out of the metropolis, to find a wide open space where he can fly a kite. But after many days on the train, he starts to recognise landmarks from the window that he has seen earlier in the journey: he has travelled all the way around the world without leaving the city. There are no wide open spaces left.” (London Review of Books)
Calling Al Gore
“Any number of top Democrats have attempted to step in and bring some order to this process, but none possess the stature to help the candidates, the superdelegates and the rest of the party structure come together. Former President Bill Clinton is compromised, of course, former nominee John Kerry has been marginalized and most other high-level Democrats have already endorsed a candidate, undermining their credentials as impartial brokers.” — Dan Schnur, who was the national communications director for John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2000 (New York Times op-ed)
Clinton Praises Gordon Brown for Beijing Boycott
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“Hillary Clinton just reacted to the announcement from London that British prime minister Gordon Brown will not attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics. She said she ‘congratulated’ Brown on what she termed ‘an important decision’ and called on Barack Obama and John McCain to join her in urging President Bush to also boycott the ceremony.” (The New York Observer)
(Emphasis added.) ‘Beijing boycott’, I mouthed excitedly after reading the headline… Kudos to Clinton for getting out in front on this, but skipping the opening ceremony alone is an empty gesture. The call should be for an outright boycott of the entire Olympics. [The piece is accompanied by what has to be one of the most unflattering pictures of the unphotogenic Clinton I have seen in awhile. Zombified, no?]
Aryan ideals, not ancient Greece, were the inspiration behind flame tradition
“There is a two-word answer to those who think the Olympic torch is a symbol of harmony between nations that should be kept apart from politics – Adolf Hitler.” (Independent.UK)
Olympic regret
“Why China is the only world government scared of Bjork: …In the span of a few weeks, as international protest movements have grown louder and more pointed, the mood around the Olympics has notably changed. A source of undiluted pride has become a source of insecurity, even in the heart of the capital.” (The Boston Globe)
MRI Magnet Madness
A discussion of how insanely powerful the magnets in MRI machines are, including discussion of the effects of either unwittingly or deliberately (!) introducing magnetic metals into their fields. Illustrated by video clips. (Mental Floss)
Cause for alarm
…[T]he most ingenious alarm clocks on the market – from the pleasantly surprising to the downright sadistic: “Finally, perhaps the ultimate in snooze-punishments, the SnuzNLuz is a ridiculously monikered but utterly dastardly way of stopping anyone from getting ‘just ten minutes more’. Press snooze and the clock will connect to your bank account and start making donations to a pre-chosen charity or organisation. In order to spur you on all the more, it is suggested that you make the beneficiary of your generosity a cause – political, ethical, whatever – you do not support in the slightest. If you sleep in, they’ll receive donations of your hard-earned cash. You want to hit them where it hurts? Get out of bed.” (Guardian.UK)
Top 10 Evil Human Experiments
One person’s “list of the 10 most evil and unethical experiments carried out on humans.” (The List Universe via kottke)
The Federman Collection at Spineless Books
“Federman’s masterful and economical utilization of strange loops, mise-en-abime, and other metafictionalist maneuvers will be received by readers versed in writing of this type with a smile of familiarity and a nod of admiration. Like Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, Federman has internalized this type of writing to the point where the use of innovative and challenging narrative techniques such as metalepsis and hypodiegesis never seems contrived.” –Jeffrey R. di Leo
US Army toyed with telepathic ray gun
Recently declassified DoD document details developments in maturing nonlethal technologies for warfare: “Some of the technologies are conceptual, such as an electromagnetic pulse that causes a seizure like those experienced by people with epilepsy. Other ideas, like a microwave gun to ‘beam’ words directly into people’s ears, have been tested. It is claimed that the so-called ‘Frey Effect’ – using close-range microwaves to produce audible sounds in a person’s ears – has been used to project the spoken numbers 1 to 10 across a lab to volunteers’.” (New Scientist)
A number of the schizophrenic patients with whom I work, some of whom have similar explanations for the voices they hear in their heads, would be interested in the report, which is available here (pdf). ‘Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you’, the saying goes. Perhaps it should be ‘Just because you are paranoid means they are out to get you’?
The Strangest Secrets
‘Real Government Files on the Unknown’: Nick Redfern’s study of official documents on weird, X-Files-style phenomena, including Sea-Serpents, UFOs, ESP, Remote-Viewing, the Loch Ness Monster, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Crop Circles and much more.”
Robot aliens?
Does TV sci-fi get it right?: “Some aspects of the [Battlestar] Galactica universe may be as bogus as other science-fiction creations (such as spaceships with artificial gravity that instantly jump from one star system to another). But when it comes to the idea that the first intelligent aliens we meet may actually be machines, astronomers say the show is definitely on the right track.
‘There are two kinds of encounters with aliens you can have,’ said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the California-based SETI Institute. ‘Either you pick up a signal, or you pick them up on the corner. But I think it’s safe to say that in both instances they will be synthetic. They will be artificial constructions.'” (MSNBC)
Drug Makers Near Old Goal:
A Legal Shield: “The Bush administration has argued strongly in favor of the doctrine, which holds that the F.D.A. is the only agency with enough expertise to regulate drug makers and that its decisions should not be second-guessed by courts. The Supreme Court is to rule on a case next term that could make pre-emption a legal standard for drug cases. The court already ruled in February that many suits against the makers of medical devices like pacemakers are pre-empted.” (New York Times )
A very bad idea for anyone other than Big Pharma, in my opinion. The drug companies are sitting pretty if pro forma approval by an overwhelmed agency that has not effectively regulated in decades is the sole legal standard.
In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop
“They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.” (New York Times)
You know I am enslaved to you, serving up tidbits ’round the clock, day in and day out, dear readers…
Unrecognized Heroes
“Amid all the bad news surrounding Nouri al-Maliki’s failed offensive against the Sadr militia in Basra, no one has noticed that about thousand people did the right thing. Maliki asked the army and police force to break a cease fire and attack their countrymen and fellow Shi’ites. About a thousand of them, including 100 officers, refused.
No one in the media will call these men heroes. For them, deserters on our side are always either traitors or cowards. Just as deserters on the other side are always loyal and brave. Fuck that. If you are given an inhumane, destructive order, and you decide to put down your gun and walk away, you are a hero.” (Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk)
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Eating Octopus
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An ethically dubious proposition? “It seems that you can’t go to a chic restaurant nowadays without encountering octopus on the menu. Like its cephalopod cousins, octotpus is best cooked according to the “two-minute or two-hour” rule. You can either grill the octopus quickly, imbuing it with a meaty smoke flavor, or you can braise it for hours until its tentacle chewiness gives way to a pleasing tenderness. Serve with some bold Mediterranean flavors, like tapenade, paprika or oily beans.
Now I happen to really enjoy eating octopus. But I can’t help but wonder if it’s an ethically dubious proposition. The problem is that octopi are really, really smart. Dr. Jennifer Mather and Roland Anderson have done some interesting research on the surprising cognitive talents of these short-lived, utterly unsocial, yet rather cunning invertebrates. They’ve demonstrated, in a series of experiments and field studies, that octopi play with toys, have short and long-term memory, exhibit rudimentary tool use and have distinct, individual personalities. See here for a nice summary of their work.
What do you think? Is it wrong to eat such an intelligent creature? I’m pretty certain that octopi are the smartest species I consume. While I like all farm animals, and I’m pretty disciplined about only eating humanely raised beef and poultry, I struggle to imagine a chicken or cow using tools. I thought David Foster Wallace, in his essay “Consider the Lobster,” made a pretty compelling case that the ability of a creature to experience pain should alter the moral calculus of eating that creature. (That said, I still eat lobster every chance I get.) But shouldn’t the intelligence of a creature be even more important? After all, intelligence correlates with so many other variables that are clearly relevant to the ethics of food.” (Frontal Cortex)
The Elusive Allure of Messiaen
![//graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/06/arts/06tomm600.1.jpg' cannot be displayed]](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/06/arts/06tomm600.1.jpg "Messiaen")
“Originality may be overrated in the arts. All creators emulate the masters and borrow from one another. Big deal! The composer and critic Virgil Thomson routinely debunked what he called the ‘game of influences,’ which he considered ‘about as profitable a study as who caught cold from whom when they were standing in the same draft.’
But the French modernist master Olivier Messiaen, who died in 1992 at 83, was truly an original. No other music sounds quite like his, with its mystical allure, ecstatic energy and elusive harmonic language, grounded yet ethereal. Rhythmically his pieces slip suddenly from timeless contemplation to riotous agitation then back again, sometimes by the measure. In the introduction to his 1985 book on Messiaen the critic Paul Griffiths calls him ‘the first great composer whose works exist entirely after, and to a large degree apart from, the great Western tradition.’ ” (New York Times)
Guitar Licks That Resonate and Lyrics That Linger
What Billy Bragg is listening to. “There are some albums that take you back to your early teens — before they invented Guitar Hero III — when you’d get by with your bedroom mirror and a tennis racket for a guitar. This would be my tennis racket album of the year.” I usually find these New York Times “listening with…” pieces interesting; I just wish they discussed more than 5-6 selections. (New York Times )
Right at the End
William F. Buckley’s last gift to conservatism may have been his opposition to the Iraq War. “Soon after Bill Buckley died, William Kristol published a column called “The Indispensable Man” in the New York Times. He celebrated Buckley as the founder of the conservative movement, and his tone was not only celebratory but affectionate. And surely Kristol was right: Buckley was indispensable. Without his leadership there would have been no conservative movement. Yet at the end of his life, Buckley believed the movement he made had destroyed itself by supporting the war in Iraq.” (The American Conservative via walker)
Man After My Own Heart
I just thought I would give a plug for the assembled writings, at Texts and Connections, of my incisive online acquaintance Steve Silberman. I have linked to a number of these articles when they have appeared in Wired online in the past. Silberman and I have corresponded online and share alot of interests and sensibilities, although he has rubbed shoulders with them (the members of the Grateful Dead; other psychedelic, counterculture and Beat luminaries; Oliver Sacks and other neuropioneers; among others) while I just worship them from afar.
If anyone notices the online appearance of any new Silberman materials before I do, please send me a link and I will probably be impelled to take note of it here.
‘Gelwan’ Discoveries
Those of you with more common family names, or with appreciable extended families, may have a hard time seeing the point of this post. But, as I’ve noted before, there are very very few Gelwans. I have always wondered, or you might even say obsessed around, how/if those I find are related to me. I have very little in the way of extended family; I guess this preoccupation of mine reflects an envy of those with large extended families and a thirst for deeper family connection, especially so that my children might come to feel embedded in a broader web.
I subscribe to a Google alert for new Gelwan references on the web, and just received a link to this page (gendrevo.ru). It appears to me to be from a Russian genealogy site in which survivors post remembrance pages for their relatives who died in the Holocaust. On my paternal side, the generation of immigrants were my grandparents, in the early 20th century; my father’s older siblings and he were born in the U.S. between 1910-1915. I have always assumed that Gelwan was an Ellis Island anglicization of something else and thus that researching my family’s roots would become squirrely because the family name of anyone related to me might not have precisely the same pronunciation or spelling. It was explained to me that, as the part of the world from which my ancestors emigrated shifted back and forth between Slavic and Germanic dominance, between Cyrillic and Roman alphabets, so too did the rendering of family names. I would have to pursue the Gelvans, the Gelmans, and even the Hellmans for relatives. [I may have made this up, but I think I learned somewhere along the way that we are actually distantly related to the Hellman’s mayonnaise family…]
The flip side of that coin is that literal Gelwans might not be related to me. For example, there is a Deborah Gelwan in the public relations industry in Sao Paulo, Brazil who is referred to on the web. When I was a child, a Brazilian tourist with the last name Gelwan, possibly from her family, arrived on our doorstep, having looked up Gelwan in the phonebooks on arriving in New York City. It appears that my parents and the visitor determined that it was unlikely we were related (although I cannot imagine how they did this, as my parents spoke no Portugese and rumor has it this visitor spoke no English). I’ve written to Deborah, without getting a response. I would at least love to figure out if these South American Gelwans descended from Eastern European immigrants. I am aware that eastern European Jews did go to South America in the diasporas, but I am not sure about Brazil per se.
I have even discovered two other Gelwans in the New York area where I grew up, interestingly enough both physicians as I am: Jeffrey, a gastroenterologist and Mark, an ophthalmologist. We’ve spoken by phone but cannot establish a common background. I assumed that it might merely be an accident that we share our name, that Gelwan might be a final common pathway of anglicization from diverse unrelated family names in eastern Europe.
I was told that my family originated in Riga, Latvia. Given that, I’ve written to Vladimir, or Wladimir, Gelwan, who I learned was the principal dancer in the Latvian National Ballet and who now runs a ballet school in Berlin, suggesting that we may be related, but have never gotten a reply back. (What is it with these nonresponses? Someone writing me from afar suggesting they might be my relative, with such a rare name, would immediately pique my interest and would surely get a response, although that might just be me. Do you think the recipients might have worried that my messages represented some kind of con?) I have seen a picture of Vladimir Gelwan on the web and can even imagine a certain family resemblance. I have determined that I will drop in on him if I am ever in Berlin. [Do I have any readers in or near Berlin?]
Given the waves of upheaval that repeatedly washed over eastern Europe in the 20th century, with ever-changing political hegemony over various regions, large scale displacement of populations, the Holocaust, the destruction of records, the changing of names, etc., conventional genealogical research is not possible. It is not as if there is an established family tree, with records waiting around for the taking, as is the case for at least some families with western European origins. My father’s older brother, now deceased, once returned to eastern Europe to try to find some of our roots. Despite a reputation for being extremely resourceful, he apparently had no success at all. Lamentably, I cannot find any notes from his research; otherwise I (acknowledged as someone with no lack of resourcefulness myself!) might pick up the trail where he left off, despite the passage of time having added fifty further years of obfuscation.
But now, here are remembrances literally of Gelwans! And they come from Poland and Riga. So it seems excitingly credible that these remembered Gelwans are somehow relatives of mine, but I am at a loss as to where to go from this point. The entries in this registry were made by a surviving sister, Miriam Bergman, in the mid-’50’s. Bergman is a common name, and I suspect it would be impossible to locate this woman or anyone connected to her. Do any readers have some suggestions as to how I could proceed in pursuing this?
[Perhaps one day someone googling their family name will be linked to this post and wonder how they might be related to Eliot Gelwan. Hurry up, Google, crawl this post and index it!]
Daily caffeine ‘protects brain’
“Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests.” (BBC) More from the FmH self-justification dept.
Iraq Veterans Testify at Their Own ‘Winter Soldier’
Organizers Modelled Event After Vietnam Investigation. “On three frigid days in early 1971, more than 100 Vietnam veterans gathered at a Detroit hotel to indict the most contentious American war of the 20th century. In measured tones, occasionally quivering with emotion, they described what the war had done to them as much as what the war had done to the country… Sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, they called their investigation the Winter Soldier project, after a line from Thomas Paine’s famous denunciation of “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot [who] will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country.”
…On March 13, Iraq Veterans Against the War, an organization inspired by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, [convened] at the National Labor College just outside of Washington to say, in so many words, that it’s all happening again…
The critique that the Winter Soldier investigation presents is both subtle and incendiary. Throughout the course of the war, the public has become agonizingly familiar with its excesses, most notably the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the deliberate killing of civilians at Haditha. Winter Soldier, according to the veterans’ group, won’t expose the next big Iraq scandal. What it will do instead is argue, through testimony from soldiers and Marines who fought the war, that standard military behavior in Iraq can look more like Abu Ghraib or Haditha than the public perceives…” (Washington Independent)
I’m sorry I am late in noticing this. As readers of FmH know, I think that the witness of conscience against American military adventurism is a high purpose and deserves to be propagated widely.
The good ad man
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A remembrance of Paul Arden, advertising guru who struggled with the moral culpability of advertising and advertisers, and wrote self-help books on how to deal with the impact of commercialism. “A good ad man might be something of a contradiction in terms, but today, in tribute to Arden, let’s think the opposite of what we think.”
I am reminded of one of my culture-jamming heroes, former ad executive Jerry Mander, author of the brilliant 1977 book I promote every chance I can, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. |
![//i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/imomus/more/paularden1.jpg' cannot be displayed]](http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/imomus/more/paularden1.jpg "Commercial Jiu Jitsu") |
Untying the ‘ribbon culture’
“A brilliant new book [Ribbon Culture: Charity, Compassion and Public Awareness, by Sarah E.H. Moore] explores what the relentless rise of awareness-raising ribbons – kitsch fashion items that express the wearer’s fear of disease or empathy with victims – reveals about our morbid, narcissistic society…
The more that awareness ribbons have become a must-have accessory, the more they have become All About Ourselves. ‘Awareness’ of a cause has become self-awareness of our own anxiety and mortality, and the search for meaning turns ever more intimately inwards.
The increasing orientation towards the self has been theorised by several influential thinkers, including Christopher Lasch in The Culture of Narcissism (1979), Anthony Giddens in Modernity and Self-Identity (1991), Ulrich Beck in Risk Society (1992) and Frank Furedi in Therapy Culture (2004). It is understood to be a product of the breakdown of traditional institutions and relations of solidarity, which lead to a more fragmented, risk-conscious society, in which the quest for meaning takes on a more individualised, uncertain form. Critics such as Lasch and Furedi view this process as a predominantly negative one, leading to a fearful, isolated outlook that rests on a diminished sense of the individual and society, while the Giddens school of thought presents it in a rather more positive, liberatory light.” — Jennie Bristow (sp!ked)
The Science of Fairy Tales
“Kids of any age love to read fairy tales because the storyline never limits the possibility that anything could happen. Curses, spells, and handsome princes reign in worlds beyond the reader’s imagination.
But are the most magical moments from some of our favorite stories actually possible? Basic physical principles and recent scientific research suggest that what readers might mistake for fantasies and exaggeration could be rooted in reality.” — Chris Gorski (LiveScience)
Man After My Own Heart
I just thought I would give a plug for the assembled writings, at Texts and Connections, of my incisive online acquaintance Steve Silberman. I have linked to a number of these articles when they have appeared in Wired online in the past. Silberman and I have corresponded online and share alot of interests and sensibilities, although he has rubbed shoulders with them (the members of the Grateful Dead; other psychedelic, counterculture and Beat luminaries; Oliver Sacks and other neuropioneers; among others) while I just worship them from afar.
If anyone notices the online appearance of any new Silberman materials before I do, please send me a link and I will probably be impelled to take note of it here.
The U.S.’s First Black President?
“Will Americans vote for a black president? If the notorious historian William Estabrook Chancellor was right, we already did. In the early 1920s, Chancellor helped assemble a controversial biographical portrait accusing President Warren Harding of covering up his family’s “colored” past. According to the family tree Chancellor created, Harding was actually the great-grandson of a black woman. Under the one-drop rule of American race relations, Chancellor claimed, the country had inadvertently elected its “first Negro president.”” (New York Times Magazine)
Design & Mystique of the Japanese School Uniform
“The U.K., Malaysia and Ireland have nice school uniforms, but how come Japanese school attire seemingly takes it to another level, leaving the students looking like little sailors and marching band leaders? Having worked as a public school English teacher in rural Fukushima and downtown Tokyo, I’ve been amazed by the variety of uniforms as well as the ways students customise them as far as they are allowed. PingMag shows you interesting details in fashion and the social performance that accompany this apparel to a point where the traditional Japanese school uniform has developed beyond the schoolyard and into pop culture.” (PingMag)
Do pencils point to the Holy Grail of physics?
![//www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/graphics/2008/04/03/scipencil103.jpg' cannot be displayed]](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/graphics/2008/04/03/scipencil103.jpg "...holding scaffold with graphene membrane")
Scientists create material one atom thick: “The foundations of the universe have been glimpsed in Manchester by scientists who have created the thinnest possible material.
Flat, parallel sheets of carbon atoms in the graphite of pencil lead have been peeled apart by the scientists to yield a sheet a single atom thick that has peculiar properties which made the fundamental feat possible.
…Today, in the journal Science, Prof Andre Geim of Manchester University and his colleagues at The University of Minho in Portugal, say they have used [the material] to measure an important and enigmatic fundamental constant of nature – the fine structure constant.
Working with Rahul Nair and Peter Blake he made large suspended membranes of graphene so that one can easily see light passing through this thinnest of all materials.
The 2.3 per cent of light that it absorbed could then be used to calculate the constant, which shows the interaction between very fast moving electrical charges in the material and light, and it is close to 1/137.” (Telegraph.UK)
"Now I am Become Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds…"
| 8 Amazing Technicolor Images of Nuclear Fireballs |
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Would Mugabe Relinquish in Return for Amnesty?
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The Guardian reports: “Following the party’s electoral reverses, senior aides to the Zimbabwean president approached the MDC.
They said Mugabe was prepared to step down in return for an amnesty from prosecution for crimes such as the Matebeleland massacres in the 1980s and other guarantees. However, it was unclear whether the approach was a delaying tactic while Mugabe weighed up his options under considerable pressure from different factions within Zanu-PF’s politburo.” |
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Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone
“These days, when a kid dies, the world — i.e., cable TV — blames the parents. It’s simple as that. And yet, Trevor Butterworth, a spokesman for the research center STATS.org, said, ‘The statistics show that this is an incredibly rare event, and you can’t protect people from very rare events. It would be like trying to create a shield against being struck by lightning.’ ” (NY Sun)
(Video) Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do
“Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talks about our new wave of overprotected kids — and spells out five (and really, he’s got six) dangerous things you should let your kids do. Allowing kids the freedom to explore, he says, will make them stronger and smarter and actually safer. This talk comes from TED University 2007, a pre-conference program where TEDsters share ideas.
To sum up, let children:
1. Play with fire
2. Own a pocket knife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the DMCA / Drive a car”
(DivineCaroline)
I’m not sure I would go fully 6 for 6 with my kids…
Unchaining U.S. Rivers
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Time to Stop Caricaturing Chimps
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“They have been used to sell everything from tea bags to bicycles and designer watches but the days of showing chimpanzees in TV commercials could be numbered, if a group of leading scientists gets its way.
The primatologists, who include the world-famous Jane Goodall, have attacked the advertising industry for exploiting chimps as ‘frivolous subhumans’ who can be viewed as objects of fun and ridicule for the sake of commercial gain. Dressing up chimps in human clothes or making them perform everyday activities gives people the impression that they are not a species in danger of extinction…” (Independent.UK) |
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The Next Slum?
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“The subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.” (The Atlantic)
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Philosophical Psychopathology
“This text is a benchmark volume for an emerging field where mental disorders serve as the springboard for philosophical insights. It brings together current research by Owen Flanagan, Robert Gordon, Robert Van Gulick and others on mental disorders of consciousness, self-consciousness, emotions, personality, and action and belief as well as general methodological questions about the study of mental disorder. Topics include the problem of despair, multiple personality disorder, autism and the theory of the mind debate, and the effectiveness of psychotherapy. An introduction shows how to interpret philosophical psychopathology as an interdisciplinary field and locates the contributions in the book conceptually and in terms of the surrounding literature. Psychopathology promises to clarify and illuminate a host of philosophical issues. The 12 chapters focus chiefly on issues in applied philosophy of mind (personal identity and self-consciousness, voluntary action and self-control, cognition and practical reasoning), in the science of mind (the medical model of mental disorders, philosophy of science and psychiatry, psychopathology and folk psychology), and in the ethical and experimential dimensions of psychopathology.” (Blackwell Press)
Marian Wright Edelman: Honoring King is Not Enough
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“Too many of us would rather celebrate than follow Dr. King. Some of us have enshrined Dr. King the dreamer, but have ignored Dr. King the disturber of all unjust peace. Many celebrate King the orator, but ignore his words and warnings about the need for reordering the misguided values and priorities he believed to be the seeds of America’s downfall. Many remember King the vocal opponent of violence, but not King who called for massive nonviolent civil disobedience to challenge the stockpiling of weapons of death and the wars they fuel.” (Huffington Post)
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Karl Rove Praises Hillary’s 3 A.M. Ad As "Gutsy"
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Josh Marshall: “As I’ve noted here before, should Obama be the nominee, we’re going to see a GOP assault very similar to what hit Gore and Kerry — Obama thinks he’s better than you ordinary Joes, and he thinks patriotism is for rubes. Get ready.” (Talking Points Memo)
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Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable
“…[W]hat if the very nature of civilisation means that ours, like all the others, is destined to collapse sooner or later? A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile.” (New Scientist)
Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More
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“None of … the grimness on the front page today will matter a bit… if two men pursuing a lawsuit in federal court in Hawaii turn out to be right. They think a giant particle accelerator that will begin smashing protons together outside Geneva this summer might produce a black hole or something else that will spell the end of the Earth — and maybe the universe. Scientists say that is very unlikely — though they have done some checking just to make sure.” (New York Times [thanks, Mark] )
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Deliberate Mispronunciation of Words
Lexicographer Grant Barrett reflects on this apparently widespread phenomenon and its rationales. (The Lexicographer’s Rules via kottke)
Obama would consider Gore for cabinet position
“A woman at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania asked whether Obama, if elected, would tap Gore for such a position to address global warming issues.
‘I would,’ Obama said. ‘Not only will I, but I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem.'” (The Raw Story)
Red-faced Clinton tirade stuns superdelegates behind closed doors
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“‘It was like someone pulled the pin from a grenade,’ according to San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross.” (The Raw Story)
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Male rock fans likely to vote Republican: survey
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“The Jacobs Media’s Media/Technology Web Poll IV of more than 27,000 respondents cited stronger than expected interest in the November 2008 election among fans of rock, classic rock, and alternative radio stations.
It also found that John McCain, the Republican candidate for U.S. president, was the top pick for the Oval Office for men and classic rock partisans — those people who tune in to stations playing music from the ‘original classic rock era’ of 1964 to 1975, comprised of bands like Led Zeppelin, The Who and Pink Floyd.” (Yahoo! News) |
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Time and Mind
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Vol. 1, no. 1 contents (free downloads) include:
- Archaeological Evidence for Conceptual Metaphors as Enduring Knowledge Structures
Author: Whitley, David S. - Tse’Biinaholts’a Yałti (Curved Rock That Speaks)
Author: Loose, Richard W. - Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis
Author: Shanon, Benny - The Devil on Dartmoor
Author: Harte, Jeremy - Ancient Architectural Acoustic Resonance Patterns and Regional Brain Activity
Authors: Cook, Ian A.; Pajot, Sarah K.; Leuchter, Andrew F.
(Time and Mind)
English Heretic
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“It is our task at English Heretic, ostensibly, to maintain, nurture and care for the psychohistorical environment of England. Availed of the services of some of the country’s very finest occult archaeologists, astral geographers and mystical toponymists, we aim to help people decode and realise the alchemical ciphers and conspiratorial interplay of the buildings and landscapes around them.
Whether it be via the transcript of an imaginal ordnance survey, documentary evidence of a psychogeographic derivé, or technical guide on passage through a liminal gateway, we aim to provide a comprehensive set of resources for both novice and experienced inner landscape investigators. With these tools at their disposal we hope to encourage more people to undertake voyages to exciting, uncanny and often terrifying interdimensional spaces.”
Sidewalk Psychiatry
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“While doing some habitual walking and thinking one morning, Candy thought it would be nice to have some help along the way. Pedestrians in the city often find themselves walking in deep thought. A routine trip can prompt reflections on everything from future goals to last night’s dinner conversation. As people sacrifice personal time for hectic schedules, these casual occasions for reflection become all the more important.
Sidewalk Psychiatry encourages self-evaluation in transit by posing critical questions on the pavements of New York City. Now your daily ponderings and emotional problems can be prodded and treated on the go – and, best of all, it’s free of charge!” (candychang.com via boing boing) |
Ex Post Facto Legal Mumbo Jumbo to Justify the Imperial Presidency
Memo: Laws Didn't Apply to Interrogators: “The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.” (Washington Post)
Rupert Sheldrake stabbed at conference while talking about thought transference
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Police arrest suspect after attack at lecture: “…Sheldrake had been talking about how thoughts can be transferred by staring into another’s eyes. During the lecture in the main ballroom on La Fonda’s second floor, an Asian man left the room and when he returned, he didn’t take a seat but stood near the podium with his eyes closed like he was meditating, Edwards said.
The attack came when Sheldrake called for a break about 3 p.m. Edwards said he started to leave the room when he heard a commotion. By the time he looked back, he said, an Asian man was being held on the floor by four people while a fifth held a knife in a napkin. Mecham said the knife was a folding type that hunters typically use.
Edwards said Sheldrake had a 2- or 3-inch cut on the front of his left thigh, just above his kneecap…” (Santa Fe New Mexican)
This was as much of the account as was included in Boing Boing, at which point in my reading I assumed that the assailant was probably suffering from schizophrenia. One of the cardinal, terrifying, symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia is thought control or, specifically, thought insertion, the experience that one’s thoughts have been inserted into one’s mind by another, that one is not in control of one’s own thoughts and does not have privacy in their mind. It is often accompanied by the symptoms of thought withdrawal or thought broadcasting. Although there is some dispute about what the cardinal features of schizophrenia are, these symptoms are core in the schema of illustrious German psychiatrist Kurt Schneider, and have come to be known as Schneiderian signs. When I went from the Boing Boing excerpt to the more complete account in the New Mexican, the following illuminated the man’s plight further:
“Hirano had been attending the 10th International Conference on Science and Consciousness. Other attendees said he had been acting oddly. They said he confronted Sheldrake earlier this week, telling him he heard voices and saw demons.”
These frightful schizophrenic symptoms are experiences in need of an explanation to the sufferer. Often, the explanations are delusional. Delusions are outlandish, irrational but comforting theories to explain the bewildering and horrifying experiences, since any explanation is better than having none at all. Once hit upon, delusions are rigidly adhered to. A delusion is, in this sense, not a core symptom of schizophrenic experience but a compensatory effort on the sufferer’s part, to my way of thinking.
Someone who claims familiarity with the techniques of thought insertion, claims of which by the psychotic sufferer have usually been scoffed at by listeners, is immediately suspect as responsible for the sufferer’s symptoms.
