"You will learn who your daddy is, that's for sure, but mostly, Ann, you will just shut the fuck up."
-Henry Rollins
Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain - Los Angeles Times
Topic: Science
10:36 am EDT, Sep 10, 2007
Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.
In other words, liberals are not as big a bunch of fuck-ups as conservatives. Case closed.
[Meh. I don't see this experiment as compelling at all, and I'm sure it's not terribly helpful. Do I believe that conservatives are more rigid thinkers than liberals? Yes, of course, but I don't need an EEG for that... I just need to look at their actions.
Also, there's no mention of this in the article, but was "W" picked on purpose? It is just because M and W are nearly (and in many typefaces exactly) mirror images of each other? Because I think the external associations to the letter W might skew the results somewhat. As in, a lot. Without knowing if they considered this (I'm sure they must have, but how?), I call shenanigans. -k]
Whether long range weapon or suicide bomber Wicked mind is a weapon of mass destruction Whether you're Soaraway Sun or BBC 1 Misinformation is a weapon of mass destruct You coulda Caucasian or a poor Asian Racism is a weapon of mass destruction Whether inflation or globalization Fear is a weapon of mass destruction Whether Halliburton, Enron or anyone Greed is a weapon of mass destruction We need to find courage, overcome Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
This song rocks. I love the rhyming, especially in the second verse.
And you ain't going to nirvana or far-vana, you're coming right back here to live out your karma. With even more drama than previously, seriously. Just how many centuries have we been waiting for someone else to make us free? And we refuse to see that people overseas suffer just like we: Bad leadership and ego's unfettered and free Who feed on the people they're supposed to lead
The "talking to the wall" imagery is great.
[ Agreed, and one of the better videos too... very powerful. -k]
Another huge mixed-use project planned for DeKalb | ajc.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
1:09 pm EDT, Sep 6, 2007
"From the beginning of the Garvin study, there was a clear understanding that the entire area is ripe for development," said Angelo Fuster, a Sembler spokesman. "There's been no development here for many, many years. It's valuable property."
Not for long. Another generic, treeless, unpleasant strip mall and office park hell.
With no fucking trains.
It's disgusting. The only marginal ray of sunlight is that at least it's inside the perimeter. I do support people staying ITP. I just hate the way these developments are executed. They strip the land to it's foundation in order to ease the grading and then after building they plant a token number of small, scrub trees that can't and won't grow to replace what was there before (can't have the roots fucking up our roads!)
Taken together, the two projects would turn the once-sleepy, suburban neighborhood into one of the region's premier shopping and office hubs, with almost as much retail as Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza combined.
I love this "sleepy, suburban neighborhood" despite it's already substantial traffic problems because it's got lots of trees and not a lot of noise or sunlight. They could be redeveloping the ever more pointless Loehmans plaza, but instead they're gonna cut down all the trees behind it.
NBC shows leave iTunes but join Amazon's Unbox - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Topic: Miscellaneous
10:49 am EDT, Sep 5, 2007
That's right, NBC's upcoming season of shows may not be available via iTunes (pending contract negotiations), but they will be available at Amazon Unbox.
They neglect to mention that NBC's shows will also be widely available on BitTorrent and other file sharing networks, which I suspect a number of current payers will be exploring this season.
These assholes are really just making me want to give up on TV and movies wholesale. Even iTunes has this problem with being locked in, and I don't like it, but they remain the most convenient, largely because they support Macs, unlike everyone fucking else.
I've made arguments against subscription models and will continue to do so.
Sadly, however, DRM turns even "purchases" into subscriptions. You can only keep using the media while you continue to support the proper hardware/software configuration. And these keep changing as media producers jump back and forth between services.
Makes me want to give up paying anyone a dime for any of it, which is a damn shame.
The hacking saga began in the spring of 2005, when Rob Anderson -- a former ad-salesman for a BA Ventures , an ad selling company then run by TorrentSpy founder Justin Bunnell -- had a falling out with Bunnell. Anderson then used the IP address from a Bunnell email and hacked into the mail server by guessing the password.
He then set the system to automatically forward a copy of all incoming and outgoing messages to a Gmail account. Then in June 2005, Anderson wrote the MPAA, offering to sell emails and the MPAA bought 34 pages of e-mails for 34 dollars and signed a contract saying that he got the e-mails legally.
Apparently its perfectly legal in California to hack into someone's email system, steal their email, and resell it! It is hard for me to understand how our system can reach such obviously incorrect conclusions with a straight face... Did it not occur to this judge that a violation of law might have occurred when the defendant's consultant hacked into the mail server? Was she born yesterday, or was everyone hoping that no one other than the plaintiff would notice? Why does the MPAA expect to be taken seriously as a moral authority in regard to copyright law when they engage in this kind of crooked behavior?
[This really is an astonishing result. Doesn't even make sense on it's face. Assholes. -k]
Perhaps I’m not a soldier, but insofar as my experience playing Quake translates to the realities on the ground in Iraq, I should like to say that running over stim packs increases gibbing and is awesome.
Daring Fireball: It Is Estimated That NBC Could Not Have Screwed This iTunes Thing Up Any Worse
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:49 pm EDT, Sep 4, 2007
There’s a lot of jackassery to pick apart in this short statement from NBC Universal executive vice president Cory Shields, responding to Apple’s “don’t let the door hit you on the way out, idiots” statement yesterday, but I’ll focus on this curious tidbit for now:
In addition, we asked Apple to take concrete steps to protect content from piracy, since it is estimated that the typical iPod contains a significant amount of illegally downloaded material.
Illegally downloaded material THAT THEY DIDN'T GET FROM APPLE, you dipshit! And, incidentally, material that lot of them will go back to getting illegally if it's not conveniently available to them.
This head-in-the-sand mentality that DRM can solve this problem is perverse. The market will solve this problem. Embrace it, make it work. Perhaps that's what they're doing and this is just a negotiating tactic.
One hopes. This one, particularly. If NBC/Universal pulls out, I will likely lose my access to Battlestar Galactica. This is not an acceptable situation.
They [the source’s institution] have “instructions” (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this—they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.”
Echochrome is a videogame adaptation of the drawings of MC Escher. When it's released for the PlayStation Portable later this year, you'll be taking care of a tireless little marionette as he trudges through a series of paradoxical staircases and impossible corridors. At the end of the last level, the camera will no doubt zoom in on the marionette's hands and you'll realise that he is actually playing you.
Although Echochrome looks like it might be one of the most infuriating games ever devised, it does make you wonder why more video games don't plunder the world of visual arts.
That looks completely awesome. I'm not likely to get a PSP just for it, but still, rad. Kinda wish it was on DS. Doesn't the stylus interface seem like a more natural fit?
